Page 64 of The Sharpest Edges

“Was worth it,” he says into the darkness of the room, hisvoice cracked and raw. “The prison, the broken ribs, all of it. Would do it all again just to meet you.”

“Dean.” She props her chin up on his collarbone, the slight movement shifting him where he still rests within her, softening. “I’m sorry that’s what it took to get us here, but I’m so happy we are.”

They don’t speak more after that, choosing to fall asleep wrapped up together, boneless and relaxed.

When morning sunlight streams through the room and he wakes to the sight of her face close enough to kiss, the first thing out of his mouth is an offer to live here with him. It escapes before he can rein it back in, unpracticed and hurried, terror coursing through him at what her response might be.

“Not now, I mean, whenever you’re ready. If you’re ready. Need ya to know that I want this for us. If you do,” he stumbles in a rush, seeing the flicker of emotions play across her face.

“I want to live here with you.” She bestows him with the most tender look, full of sweetness and acceptance.

His relief is overwhelming. “Okay.”

25

Chapter 25

Ava never realized she had so much stuff.

Trinkets and knick-knacks, pots and pans. Drawers full of clothes she’s collected over the years but never wears anymore. A linen closet overflowing with untouched bedding and a DVD collection that’s grown dust after the invention of Netflix.

She never noticed before because it’s all become background noise, much like the memories that have seeped into these walls, coating them like paint but going deep enough to leave residual ghosts in their wake. For every good memory she has of Charlotte playing and smiling and alive…there are five more bad ones of John to overshadow them.

The fight they had in the kitchen that ended with a black eye and a limp. She couldn’t walk right for a week afterward.

The foyer where he raged at her for not having dinner ready because she’d been busy with a fussy baby, dragging her by her hair toward the kitchen while she still had Charlotte clutched in both arms.

The stairs she took a tumble down more than once.

The carpet that holds more blood stains in its padding thanshe could ever hope to get out. No matter how clean the surface may look, it still rests there underneath, proof of a past she’s trying hard to forget despite how often she still gets caught in its grip.

There’s a memory for every room in this house and she remembers them all as she sits in the living room packing boxes for the moving truck, wrapping the last vase in paper and tucking it away with the others. She’s been hesitant to leave at first. Not because she’ll miss it here, she wouldn’t. Not really. But because a future with Dean is still the unknown no matter how sure she might be of them.

It’s familiar here, in this sad house with its walls stocked full of terrors and there’s a weird sort of safety in that. Something she knows makes no sense to anyone but herself.

That’s all it’ll ever be, though. A place to stew in leftover grief and nightmares, not somewhere she can begin again. Every room of this house holds her down by the ankle each time she tries to take a step forward. So, one week after Dean suggested they live together, she ordered moving boxes and bubble wrap and never looked back.

She put her house on the market and vacated the premises every weekend for showings until the right buyer came along, which didn’t take as long as she thought it would. Its flaws are only visible to her and it’s still a nice home in a nice neighborhood. She can only hope that whoever moves in next makes better memories here than she did.

Ava joked with Lori about burning sage in all the corners to cleanse it of negative energy and give the next folks a head start, but in the end, she knew the only thing prompting those negative moments now, long after the monster was slain….was her.

“Do you want this thing? What’s it do?”

She looks up from her work to find Dean holding up a food processor. His nose wrinkles in confusion and she smirks at him. “Yes, it chops food. We could use it.”

He nods thoughtfully, placing it into an oversized box marked kitchen, one of the last few they have left to cart back to her new home.

He suggested they hire movers and let someone else do all the work but there’s something cathartic about going through her belongings like this and deciding what’s worthy of coming along and what gets left behind, then going through the motions of making that transfer herself.

She can’t let just anyone do that. It has to be her. Them.

“Guess we should pack this too, huh? Seems ready to go.”

When she follows his gaze she spots Panda sitting in a packed box, squeezing himself into the only open space like he belongs there.

She snorts, watching Dean lift the cat out and cradle him like a baby. “Definitely, can’t leave that behind. He wants to make sure we don’t forget to pack him.”

The cat’s purring is loud from clear across the room, little paws making air biscuits and her heart swells at the sight of them, her two favorite things in the world.

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