Page 43 of The Ghost of You

“Unlikely.”

She holds up her hands in front of her. “You don’t know the destructive powers these hands have.”

I laugh. “I highly doubt they are destructive, just clumsy. But I heard they are great at music.”

She shrugs. “I think I’ve lost my touch.”

“That’s not what Mase told me yesterday. He said you guys wrote new music the day before and it was amazing.”

Her cheeks blush. “I think he is a bit obsessed with me. But don’t tell him I told you. If I playedMary Had a Little Lambhe would try to get me a Grammy nod.”

I step up in front of the porch where she is kneeling. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Her blush deepens and she looks down at the wood by her hands changing the subject back to the porch. “I lined these all up with where you marked them. I’m not sure if that’s what you wanted to do.”

“That’ll work.”

We spend the next few hours building the porch railing in silence. We use it as our distraction from life as we planned to. We get to adding the top rail when she finally breaks the silence. “My landlord is trying to sell my building. I came home from work today and he was there with a realtor.”

I look up at her but she keeps her head down. “So he is going through with it?”

“I guess so.” She takes a deep breath as she screws a nail into the railing. She isn’t as dangerous with power tools as she thought. “I just finally feel like I found a home here. And now I need to move.”

“I mentioned before you can talk to my brother for advice.”

She nods. “Yeah, the realtor told me to talk to a lawyer regarding my lease. I think she noticed my landlord was being a dick.”

I nod as I go back to my part of the rail. “Is that why you needed a distraction?”

I hear the drill slip and quickly reach for it before Anna gets hurt.

“No.”

I set the drill down and see a tear trailing down Anna’s cheek. I move around to the steps and walk up them so I am standing next to Anna. I fight the urge to hold her face instead I settle on asking her a question. “What else did you need a distraction from?”

She looks up at me through her thick lashes. I see tears brimming her eyes and I know she is holding them back. “It’s always hard for me around the holidays. And with Thanksgiving next week, the pestering from my family back home starts. I was already having a shitty day and then I had to get that damn letter.”

“What letter?” I ask as I lean against the post connecting to the roof.

She grips her hair and takes a deep breath. “My parents send me a letter before every major holiday every year. Thanksgiving, Christmas, even Fourth of July.” She looks out toward the street as she talks. “They write begging me to come home even if it’s just for a day.”

“Why don’t you?”

She sighs. “It hurts too much to go home. I can barely even call them. The sound of their voices breaks my soul. I know I should be there. But I am too scared to go back.”

I can see a few more tears fall down her cheeks through the wisps of her hair and she keeps her face hidden from me. What happened to this woman that’s left her so broken? “Why can’t you call them more? Maybe then it won’t be so hard.”

“They don’t understand.”

“What don’t they understand?” I ask as I take a step closer to her.

She sniffles before she answers. “The pain. The regret. The feeling of utter loss. The way it closes in on you, sucking in everything around you like a black hole, and no matter how much you fight it, will it to end, the inevitable happens. That hole sucks you in until you can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t face anyone who hasn’t been through the same thing.”

I can see her shaking as she speaks words I have felt myself. I close the distance between us, taking her face in my hands. “What happened?”

She searches my eyes, looking for something I’m not quite sure of. “I thought this was supposed to be a distraction.”

I can’t keep letting her walk around the subject. I’ve seen the misery in her eyes one too many times. “Tell me.”

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