Page 60 of Chasing Your Ghost

“I’m doing the best I can,” she reminded him, and the words brought him to a stop.

His shoulders caved in, and his head drooped forward, but he still didn’t turn around to look at her. “I know.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve only made it harder for you to move on. That was never my intention. I just wanted us to understand why you were being pulled into that horrible place.”

“That’s just it, though,” Asher said with a shake of his head as he finally turned to face her. “This has made it harder, and I just don’t care anymore,” he told her, his voice becoming so loud that Hugh would have definitely heard him if he weren’t a ghost. “I don’t care about where it is that I go or why I’m the only ghost you’ve met who seems to have this problem. I don’t care because instead of spending my time here with you, I should be trying to make peace with the fact that I’m dead.”

Riley flinched, his words hitting her with effective force. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking as her throat became painfully tight.

“Being around you has made it easy for me to pretend differently, but I’m dead,” he told her as though she didn’t realize or understand that rather important fact. And maybe she didn’t. “My parents are never going to stop looking for me, and Ella, Noah, and Chris are always going to hope that I’m out there somewhere. Knowing where I’m being pulled away to isn’t going to change that or make anything better.”

“I know that,” she replied, her voice so quiet she wondered if he could hear her. “I just didn’t think it was a good idea for you to pass over when I didn’t fully understand why it was happening. I’ve never heard of anything like it, and it didn’t sit right with me.”

“Well, it’s looking like we’ll never know,” he said. “I think the best thing to do is just forget all about it, and once I’ve said goodbye to my parents and friends, I’ll move on like I should have in the first place.”

Riley knew it shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did to think of him leaving, but she couldn’t help the ache she felt at his words. Still, she couldn’t let her feelings get in the way of what needed to happen eventually. “Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you want to do.”

Asher’s eyes moved down to the floor. “It is.”

“Alright, then.”

Riley bit her bottom lip hard enough that it hurt, and only when Asher had vanished to say his goodbyes to people who wouldn’t be able to see or hear him did she let out the sob that had been building in her throat. She wondered if he’d even bother to come back and say goodbye to her before he left for good, or if those words had been the last things they’d ever say to each other.

She crawled onto the bed that wasn’t even hers and hugged a pillow to her chest as she cried for her dad, for Asher, and for herself. She regretted coming to Virginia now more than ever.

Edith still wanted nothing to do with Riley’s abilities, Olivia probably still resented her even if she didn’t act like it anymore, and she’d only made things worse for Asher.

The only two people who actually seemed to like her and want her there were Noah and Hugh, and she’d probably pushed them away with how she’d been acting lately.

Riley looked at her suitcases through her blurry vision. She knew she should have unpacked days ago, but her reluctance to call this place home and her focus on Asher had kept her from doing so. She guessed she’d finally have the time to do it now that Asher no longer needed her help. But even thinking of unpacking felt wrong, as if by unpacking, she would be saying this was her new home, as though she wanted to be here instead of back in New York, where she’d lived her entire life with her dad.

Unpacking would mean she was clutching to some naïve dream of fitting into a family that didn’t have room for a medium. She refused to believe in that childish fantasy.

Even if Hugh and Noah were kind to her and treated her as part of the family, they wouldn’t miss her when it was time for her to go. They would move on with their lives without her. As would Olivia. And Edith…well, Edith would probably plead for Riley to come back, all the while hating what made Riley the person she was.

They weren’t her family. They never had been, and they never would be.

17

Riley was lying on her bed staring up at the ceiling what could have been minutes or hours later when someone knocked on the pool house door.

“Riley?” Hugh’s voice called through the wood.

“Yeah?” she replied, not moving an inch from the position she’d been locked in since Asher had left.

She’d briefly considered trying to read one of her fantasy books, but she had no desire to read about a kickass heroine falling in love with some handsome and brooding prince. So, she’d been lying on her bed doing nothing instead.

“Can I come in?”

“Just give me a minute,” she shouted before reluctantly sitting up.

She rubbed at her damp cheeks, knowing it was useless—even if her face weren’t covered in tears, her red and puffy eyes would surely give her away. She wished her stepfather didn’t want to talk face-to-face. It would have been so much easier if he’d simply told her what he needed from outside.

“What’s up?” she asked after opening the door, hoping he wouldn’t ask questions if she jumped right into it.

His eyes flared as he took in her appearance, and Riley’s hopes were dashed when he spoke. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” she replied in a terse tone that said she didn’t want to talk about it.

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