Page 70 of Chasing Your Ghost

“You think you know me because of what my dad told you over the years when really you know absolutely nothing about me. But here’s the real problem, Edith: it’s not that you don’t know me. It’s that you don’t want to know me because, let’s face it, you don’t even like me.”

“That’s not true,” Edith replied, frantically jerking her head from side to side.

“Oh, but it is. You want me to fit into a mold that you made for me. You want me to be someone I’m not. You want me to pretend that I can’t see—” Riley caught herself just in time, stopping herself from revealing her abilities to Hugh, Noah, and Olivia, who’d just returned to the room with a sandwich. “You want me to pretend to be this person you’ve created with your delusions and hopes.”

Her stepfather, stepbrother, and half-sister were staring at her, their eyes wide as they listened to her vent and rage, and Edith had become a statue—unmoving and utterly silent as Riley pelted her with the truth.

“A mother is meant to love her children unconditionally, but that’s not how you love me. How could it be when you hate parts of me?”

Riley didn’t realize she was crying until she was struggling to breathe, her inhales becoming stuttered as her body fought for oxygen. She swiped at her wet cheeks and drew in as steady a breath as she could manage, needing to gain control over herself before she could humiliate herself further.

“I’m going to bed,” she choked out, rising on unsteady legs. “Thanks for the sandwich, Olivia,” she added after taking the plate from the gaping teenager.

She felt weak and wrung out, but Riley made it to the pool house without needing to lean against any walls for support, all the while wishing that Asher had stayed and helped her to her bedroom. Because somehow, defying everything that Riley knew about spirits, Asher had caught her when she’d fallen.

Riley tiredly crawled onto her bed, her muscles aching and exhausted as though she’d completed an intensely grueling ballet lesson. Still shaky and hungry, she bit into the sandwich Olivia had made for her and stared at her closed door while she chewed, her thoughts stuck on a certain green-eyed boy who’d become more and more of a puzzle the longer she knew him.

She remembered his arms catching her. His fingers gently running over her cheek. It seemed even less possible now that she was lucid and not seconds away from fainting. It seemed the figment of her half-delirious imagination, a cruel trick of her mind. Yet, she knew it had been real. Somehow, Asher had been able to touch her.

She needed to speak with him, to tell him about the crazy theory she’d figured out after he’d caught her. The theory she was even more sure of now. She needed to tell him that she might have been wrong about everything.

Only Riley remained alone as the night wore on.

For hours, she waited for Asher to walk through the door. For hours, she sat on her bed and waited for him to come and check on her. For hours, she waited for him to walk into the room and touch her cheek again, to prove to her that she hadn’t imagined it all. But he never did. Asher never came back.

19

Riley had never been one to bite her fingernails, but it couldn’t be helped. It was four o’clock, and Asher still hadn’t made an appearance. She’d had to force her lunch down her throat, and the leftover pasta had sat heavily in her unsettled stomach for hours. Riley felt sick, and it had everything to do with the fact that Asher hadn’t checked in since he’d vanished after her fainting spell.

She’d fallen asleep waiting for him to come back the previous night, and when she’d woken up to find herself still alone, she couldn’t help but think that something was wrong. He should have visited her by now. He should be there.

A horrible thought had entered Riley’s mind when he still hadn’t shown up after she’d showered and made her bed. That thought had only grown and continued to eat away at her as the day progressed without any sign of him. She hated even considering the possibility, but it would be naïve to deny that there was a chance that Asher had left as he’d planned to.

There were other possible explanations, of course. He might have simply been keeping his distance from her because he felt guilty. He might be caught up with visiting his parents and Ella again. He might be with Noah or Chris.

He could have been busy doing any number of things. But the thought wouldn’t leave Riley alone. It hounded her, snapping at her heels and stabbing at her aching chest.

What if he tried to move on while I was waiting for him? Worse, what if he succeeded?

She had a terrible feeling that she might never see him again, and she wanted to scream and rage at the world for letting something like this happen to him. It wasn’t fair that he’d been taken from his family and friends. It wasn’t fair that he’d kept suffering afterward.

And it wasn’t fair that all he’d been given to help him figure out what made him different was her—a useless and inexperienced medium who might have been too late in finding the truth.

There was another possibility to consider, but Riley couldn’t bring herself to go there either. Because if Asher had been unwillingly dragged back to that place of torment again, and she was there pacing in her bedroom, useless and completely incapable of helping him…No, she couldn’t bear the thought of it.

Riley needed to do something, anything, to feel like she wasn’t entirely helpless.

Her eyes landed on the three books on her bed. Edith had left them on the breakfast table for her with a note that said, “You were right. I’m sorry”. The woman had taken the books out of the trash, and that alone was startling, but combined with the admission and apology, Riley hadn’t known what to think of the gesture.

She lifted the book that had a pentagram on the cover, intending to see if there was anything useful in it after all, but she was interrupted from doing that when Noah opened the door of the pool house without knocking first, storming in uninvited.

Riley jumped. The book she’d been holding fell to the ground. “Noah,” she wheezed out, clutching her hand to her chest. “You scared the hell out of me. Aren’t you meant to be at your mom’s?”

“We need to talk,” he said in a no-nonsense voice that sounded angry for reasons that Riley couldn’t fathom.

“Okay,” Riley replied, drawing out the word as she bent to pick up the book that had fallen face down and now had several bent pages.

She waited for Noah to explain why he’d left his mom’s house to barge into her room, but her stepbrother seemed at a loss for words as he stared at the book, his gaze following it as Riley threw it onto the bed. His eyes narrowed on the cover, and Riley’s stomach dropped. He probably thought she was practicing Satanism. He’d probably come there to call her a freak.

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