Page 20 of The Ghost of You

Once we walk back down, I smack both in the arm. “What the fuck was that?”

Liam smirks. “Just needed to get you to loosen up a bit.”

“I don’t need loosening up,” I huff as I make my way back for the bar knowing a lot of people are waiting for drinks after the ten-minute staff contest.

Seraphina strolls up to me drunk. Which means she is about to speak her mind. “You do need to loosen up.”

“No, I don’t. I am a perfectly content human being.”

She glances down at the two rings around my neck then back up to my face. “If that’s the case, why do you still wear those rings?”

“I am not talking about this right now.”

She steps in front of me before I can make it around the bar. “Fine. This really isn’t the time or place. But you need to think about what I asked you soon enough. It’s been almost seven years, Anna. I think it’s time you moved on. Time you started living your life again. Stop sheltering yourself from the world. Because the Anna I knew before everything happened would have embraced her wildness on stage. Let loose. Laughed. And if you keep wearing the mask you’ve had on for the last seven years, you are never going to be that woman again.”

I can’t even say a word back to her because she heads straight out the door. She has been pestering me the entire time I’ve been in Asheville about letting go and not letting the past rule my life. But she didn’t experience the loss I did. She didn’t lose everything she had. She didn’t let someone shred her heart apart so terribly there is no hope of stitching the pieces together.

My pleasant mood I was in before she confronted me completely disappears. I spend the rest of the night battling demons in my head and being short with customers. Liam, unsurprisingly, won the costume contest.

After we close and clean up, the majority of the staff stays behind and drinks. I never drink that much, mostly because I know how bad the calories in alcohol are, but after the words Seraphina said, I can’t help but drink.

So I do.

Gin and tonic after gin and tonic. Hoping it helps erase the memories that float to the surface of my brain. I grip the rings around my neck tightly, willing my mind to forget, to build the wall back up I keep around the past, but no matter how much I will it to happen, it doesn’t.

By the time everyone starts to leave, the sun is beginning to rise.

I step off my stool and nearly fall over but Liam catches me. “You okay, baby girl?”

I nod. I kept quiet most of the time we were all drinking. Adding to the conversation at times so I didn’t look as despondent as I was feeling.

“I’m going to drive you home.”

“I’ll get a cab.”

“You live a few blocks from me. It’s fine.”

I pull out my phone and try to open the taxi app but my vision is not working.

Liam grabs my phone from my hand and loops an arm around my shoulder. “I’m going to get you home so you can sleep this off. Hopefully sleep will help.”

“Help what?” I slur.

“The mood that Seraphina put you in. No one else noticed, but I did.”

I look up at him, trying to find words. When he directs me to the exit and opens his car door for me, I know there is nothing I can really say.

I fall asleep on the ride home, the alcohol hitting me hard. When we pull in front of my house, I can already feel a headache coming on.

Liam parks and gets out, walking over to my side of the car. He lifts me out of the seat even when I protest but I can tell from the spinning of my head that walking would prove to be difficult.

He opens the door and carries me into my room. I fall back on the bed, half my body hanging off. I think Liam has left but then he walks back in with water and Advil.

“Take these. It might help a bit.”

“Thank you.”

“You going to be okay?”

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