Page 62 of The Ghost of You

I getoff the couch to grab another beer for my dad when I see Anna sitting outside. I hand off the beer then grab both our coats from the hall closet.

I step outside and sit on the step next to her, wrapping her coat around her. “Thought you might be cold.”

She looks at me through her delicate red curls and I can make out the trace of tears on her cheeks. “What’s wrong?”

She turns her head away from me. “It’s nothing.”

I wrap my arm around her not caring if it seems like an intimate gesture, hell we have seen each other naked. “Something is. I can tell.”

She shakes my arm off her and pulls her jacket tighter around her. “Thank you for inviting me today. I didn’t know I needed it.”

“You’re welcome.”

She sniffles before turning toward me. “This is the first time in seven years that I’ve let myself have a Thanksgiving dinner and I never knew that I missed my family as much as I do right now.”

My arm immediately goes back around her.

“Am I an awful person? Should I have gone to Hartswell? Seen my family and friends back there?”

I kiss the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her coconut shampoo. “I don’t think you are. Maybe this just helped you realize you need to go back there.”

“I guess.” She sniffles again and I wish I brought tissue with me. “I don’t know how I am going to face them after all this time.”

I rest my cheek on her head as I stare off into the dark sky, watching a million stars glitter the night. “I know if Everett came home my mom would welcome him with open arms. The whole family would. It doesn’t matter if he ran four years ago and never looked back. We know he is hurting and trying to find anything to relieve that pain. But he is still family. No matter what. He will always be welcome here.”

I can feel the shake of Anna’s shoulders and I know what I said meant something to her. I pull her face to meet mine and use my thumbs to wipe her tears. “Your family will be happy to see you.”

She nods and turns back to the endless sky. “Tell me about Rosie and Everett.”

I smile at the thought of them. “Those two were inseparable as kids. From the time they were babies, they were always together. Through elementary school, middle school, and high school, they were thick as thieves. Rosie was beautiful and had all the boys asking her out in high school but Everett wouldn’t have it. No one was good enough for his best friend. By the time they were in high school, I was already working for the police force so I wasn’t home much. But one time I remember coming home for a weekend and Everett was giving this guy she was going on a date with an interrogation. I was standing with my dad out of sight as we saw it go down. He was cracking up saying Everett was going to be one hell of a dad one day and hopefully he never had little girls.

“The crazy part of it was the two of them were so different. Everett was book smart, studious, he had so much going for him. Rosie was smart too but she was a cheerleader, prom queen. I swore they could talk to each other telepathically. They would stare at each other from across a room and have a conversation. All my brothers tried to figure out how they did it, but to this day we don’t know.

“When Rosie died, a part of Everett died too. He dropped out of Yale, moved back home, became a shell. Then one day four years ago he just up and left. None of us know why and if one of us does, they’ve done a good job of keeping the reason under lock and key.

“Out of all of us, I think I am the one that talks to him the most but to this day he still won’t tell me why he left.”

“Does he seem happier now?”

I shrug. “More or less. Depends on the day.”

“Where is he now?”

“I think out in Montana. It’s been a few months since I talked to him but that’s where he was last.”

Anna snorts before turning to look at me. “He sounds like me in a way.”

Without thinking, I brush a strand of hair behind her ear. “In a way, yeah. But I know he moves around a lot depending on work. You, I have no idea why you move around.”

She looks down as if she is looking for an answer that will suffice. “Love.”

She looks up at me and I scrunch my brow in confusion.

“I ran away to begin with because of the pain of love and sometimes when I see others so deeply in love it hurts too much for me to stay.”

I understand what she means. I don’t like Tiffany all that much because she is so in love with my brother. And it reminds me of everything I had with Claire and how I destroyed our relationship.

“I lived in this small town in Tennessee called White Creek. It was charming. I honestly thought it could be a place I call home even if it reminded me of Hartswell so much. The people I got to know there were so nice. But there was a lovebug in the air. And it hurt to see these couples head over heels for each other. Then my landlord tried to shove is nasty tongue down my throat so I moved.”

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