Page 10 of In All My Dreams

“Mama, can I have some money so I can play one of the games?” Auden asks, her eyes lit up with hope as she points to the arcade games that are still nestled in the corner.

“Here, take this and go get some quarters,” Ian places a five-dollar bill on the table and starts to slide it our way, stopping halfway when he sees the expression on my face. “If that’s okay with your mom?”

I take a deep breath and force a smile onto my face. “Of course that’s okay. It’s perfectly okay after the crazy day we’ve had. You were so, so brave at the hospital today, and I’m so proud of you.” I place a kiss on her forehead and reach out to grab the bill from Ian. Our fingers brush, electricity pulsing up my arm and straight into my soul. I wonder if he feels it, too, as I pull away quickly. “Go win Horton something fluffy,” I tell her, earning a megawatt smile in return as she walks carefully toward the games.

“She’s a tough kid,” Ian says fondly. “Just like her mom, or maybe like her dad?”

I take another deep breath before turning back toward him. His eyes are on Auden as she plays the claw machine behind me. He’s changed over the last six years. His eyes still hold my galaxy in them, but they seem sad, distant in a way they weren’t before. His dark hair is longer than it was, curling slightly at the nape of his neck, grazing the top of his ears. He’s grown up.

This isn’t the same boy who stole my heart all those years ago.

This version of him is foreign to me, even if my heart still beats like it knows exactly who he is.

There’s a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips when he looks back at me, like he’s waiting for me to say something.

“What?” I ask nervously, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear and glancing back at Auden. She’s still at the claw machine with a look of fierce determination on her face.

“Is her dad the brave one, or did she get everything from you?” he asks again.

“He’s not in the picture,” I answered quickly. He flashes me a look of confusion, so I continue with the lie. Or at least the closest truth I can come up with. “It was a one-night stand. He never wanted anything to do with me, or her.”

“He’s a fucking idiot, Georgia.”

This time I laugh loudly. I can’t help myself as the stress of the day and turn of events that led me here hits. Sitting in this sticky booth with the man I’m in love with, listening to him call himself an idiot, without knowing he’s talking about himself.

Because I’m too selfish of a person to forgive him and give Auden the father she deserves.

All because he left me to go live with our ghosts instead of staying with me and healing together. Leaving this town was the best decision I ever made, and I’ll be damned if I let Ian’s charm and gorgeous smile make me think twice.

“Look, Ian. I appreciate everything you’ve done for us today. I honestly don’t know what I would have done if you didn’t come running out of the manor when you did.” I brush my hand over my face, breathing deeply as my heart shatters again with the next lie I must tell him. “But I have no interest in being here longer than I have to. I’m here to check on my father and to leave as quickly as I came. I’m not here to rekindle anything. You left me. You made that choice for us both. It’s been six years, and I still haven’t forgiven you for ripping my heart out and buryingit with our dead. I just want to do what I came here for so I can leave and never look back. Okay?”

He leans back and brushes his hand through his hair, making it even more unruly and himself more attractive. “Yeah, okay. I get it. But can I just say one thing?” I nod at him, secretly hoping he never stops talking because the sound of his voice feels like home. “I’ll never forgive myself for leaving you the way I did. There’s no excuse, and any type of excuse I give will just sound like bullshit. But I never stopped loving you, Georgia. There hasn’t been a single day that’s gone by that I didn’t want to pick up the phone and call you. Hear your voice, your laugh. Hell, I even fantasized about showing up at your doorstep, wishing you could scream and yell at me for being a piece of shit person. Anything to hear your voice again.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I loved you too much to drag you back into this,” he says with a strained smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Drag me back into what? You didn’t make my father ill, did you?” He shakes his head. “I didn’t think so. This trip back has nothing to do with you, so it’s not like you ‘dragged’ me back into anything.”

He sighs loudly, drumming his fingers against the table. “Do you still have nightmares? Remember the ones you used to get, after your mother died?”

The switch in conversation gives me whiplash.

I look back at Auden, a cold brush of dread seeping into my spine. My hands twist in knots on the table in front of me. “Yes,” I whisper. “I remember them. Why?”

How could I forget? The image of my mother standing at the end of my bed in her white nightgown. Blood dripping out of her nose and foam oozing from her mouth— identical to the last time I saw her. Even if I had managed to forget about them, seeingher in the window earlier today would have brought back every forgotten, sleepless, horrifying night.

Ian reaches across the table, places his hand on mine, and squeezes gently, dragging my attention from my daughter to him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up. I just wondered if leaving Crane made them stop. If you had finally escaped her.”

My hands clutch Ian’s harder, like a lifeline only he can provide as I drown in the memories of my childhood nightmares.

“They stopped the day I walked out of those gates years ago.”

Deep breath in, Georgie girl.

Nobody else has ever seen her.

Nobody ever truly believed me when I told them my mother was still walking the halls of Crane Manor, haunting me night after night until I finally left. I thought I was done seeing her, until she showed herself to me the moment I stepped out of the car today. Back on Crane soil.

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