Page 71 of A Heart So Haunted
I tucked myself back under the covers and set my laptop on my nightstand, next to my water bottle. I glanced at the closet door crack, but his figure wasn’t defined enough for me to see exactly where he stood—or crouched.
“You’re welcome,” I said softly.
Rain began to patter against the glass. A rumble of thunder rattled the walls before falling silent.
“You spend much of your time renovating this place,” he said.
I inhaled through my nose. “I do.”
“You do this for work.”
“Well, not this house, I suppose. It just kind of happened.”
“Because of the woman before who passed.”
A nod. My cheek rustled against my pillow. I tucked my hands under my chin for warmth. He was here, talking to me. At night. And that realization made my skin feel too tight, the air too sharp.
“Tell me about it.”
No one besides Sayer and Emma ever really asked me about my work. So why was Hadrian asking any different?
“My work or my aunt?”
His inhale caught. “Anything.”
I pulled the sheet farther over my nose. “Why?” The single word was supposed to come out a bit stronger, sturdier, than it did. Instead it sounded wilted and a little pitiful.
“Maybe—” He stopped. Cleared his throat. “I have a lot of free time to roam, Landry. Perhaps you intrigue me.”
I scoffed. “I don’t do much besides wait for an order to show up, strip wallpaper, and paint things.” But even I knew that was a lie.
What I really wanted to ask was if he knew where I’d gone today. If it was wrong that he kind of intrigued me, too.
I wanted to ask him about his life. What it had been like before cell phones and cars being the main mode of transportation. I wanted to know what it was like waiting for updates in the newspaper instead of social media. Or what had changed the most from his time to now—what he missed, what he didn’t miss. What he used to like to do, what he hated.
“You brought a trunk with you. I want to know where you come from. What you do.” Another pause, this one baited, heady. “Whatever you wish to tell me.”
“A trunk,” I echoed. I scooted closer to the edge of the bed. Still, I couldn’t see him. “You mean a suitcase?”
“Yes, a traveling case.”
“Well, my mom and I lived in Stetson, in an apartment, after my parents got a divorce. I went to school here, through high school,before I went to college for design and business. And now I’m back here.”
His laugh darkened, the clicks turned sharp. “So that is all? Your life in a few short sentences and nothing more?”
I curled further into myself. What more would anyone want to know?
“Why interior work?” He opened the closet a few more inches. Lightening flashed, briefly illuminating the jagged edges of his shoulders, the dips and valleys of his , his hand. “I know little about jobs nowadays. Enlighten me.”
“I don’t know. I was good at it. I liked creating mood boards. Organizing ideas and stuff, how textures would play off each other. Coming up with ways to make a house a home, I guess.” I didn’t know why it was so hard to look him in the eye when I spoke. I stared at an eye in the wood floors, instead.
“Mm. A house a home.”
When he repeated it like that, anger bubbled inside me out of nowhere. And Iknewwhy. All I’d ever wanted as a child was ahome. So I’d found myself in giving that to other people.
And here I was, with the very home I’d always wanted, and I didn’t even want it anymore because it was too painful. I’d diminished it to a set of zeros behind a dollar sign on paper. I’d told myself that it was a thing to fix, to remove, to give away to someone else who would love it and care for it.
Because what was a home worth, if it only held memories that hurt? What was a home if it just reminded me how much I hated how my life had turned out?
