Page 85 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
But it wasn’t like that.
The real shift came when we walked into the Seabreak Café two weeks ago. Sienna tugged me by the hand—confident on the outside, but her fingers were tight with nerves—and slid into a booth like she had something to prove.
When the waitress came over, it wasn’t the usual stiff smile or sideways glance. Just a plate of biscuits, two mugs of coffee, and a soft, “Good to see you back, hon.”
That was the beginning.
Since then, it’s been… slow. Uneven. But different. Real.
The grocery clerk doesn’t fumble the scanner when I show up. The mechanic down the road offered to patch the bumper on Sienna’s car—again—without charging. Even old Marla from the bookshop stopped glaring long enough to ask Sienna if she’d start restocking her dad’s mystery section.
Hell, last week some teenager asked me if I wasthe ghost guy.I said no.
I told him ghosts don’t get to feel this kind of wind on their face.
And then there’s Mira.
She’s been showing up like clockwork every other morning, arms full of fresh bread or old grimoires, depending on her mood. Sometimes both.
She never apologizes. Not directly. Not for trying to banish me. Not for the screaming match that happened under the sycamore tree when Sienna nearly died.
But she brings Sienna lemon tarts. She asks me if I’m sleeping okay. She shows up, sits on our unfinished porch with her boots up on the railing, and talks about ley lines like they’re sports stats.
And I guess that’s how she says it. Her version ofI’m sorry.
I let her. Because I get it.
Because if someone had asked me, before all this, if I’d die to protect Sienna, I’d have said yes in a heartbeat. What Mira did? That was her own twisted version of trying to do the same.
One afternoon, I catch her watching me while I hammer up siding. She’s quiet, which is rare. Then she says, “You’re not fading anymore.”
I look down at my hands. Solid. Calloused. Bruised from dropping a damn toolbox on them last week.
“No,” I say. “Not anymore.”
Mira nods. Like that’s good enough.
And for once, it is.
Evenings are the best.
We sit on the bluff, just above the edge where the sea gets loud. Sienna leans against me, her head on my shoulder, and we don’t talk much. We don’t need to. She curls into me like she’s anchoring herself, and maybe I do the same.
She still has nightmares. Not every night, but often enough. Wakes up gasping, sweating, whispering things likethe wreck, the blood, the flame—and I just hold her. Tell her she’s here, she’s whole, she’s safe.
And when I wake up from my own, she does the same.
I’m learning what it means to heal.
Not just to survive. But to stay.
Tonight, we finish painting the last room in the house. It’s a disaster of bad tape lines and splattered jeans, but Sienna looks around like it’s a goddamn cathedral.
“This room’s gonna be your office,” she says, standing back with her hands on her hips. “For writing… or brooding. Whichever you feel like.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What about for kissing you against that wall?”
She pretends to consider. “Acceptable use of space.”
