Page 45 of The Spider & the Storm

I'd be lost without her.

“I can help clean when I get home,” I offered. “And I can make dinner.”

Dinner was something I’d gotten decent at since the days of Amanda with a star. A gourmet chef I was not, but my meals were edible, and it left Melanie with one less thing to do some nights.

I couldn’t imagine another twenty-three-year-old working as hard as she did, and I’d kick my brother’s ass into next Wednesday for not appreciating her more if I realistically believed I could take him.

“That’d be nice,” she said, finally smiling for the first time since she’d come downstairs. “I think we have the stuff to make pasta.”

“I can grab Italian bread on the way home.”

“Oh, that sounds good. Yeah, do that.”

Her face was lit up now. A little less tired, a little more relieved, and that made me feel better. She was more likely to stay another day if she had something happy to look forward to.

“Anything else you need me to grab?” I asked, heading for the door.

She thought about it for a second with her hands planted on her hips. Melanie used to put so much effort into her appearance. She’d work out, do her makeup and hair, and wear nice clothes. These days, I couldn’t remember the last time she’d dressed in something other than sweatpants and Luke's baggy T-shirts or one of her work uniforms—the one she wore at thedrugstore or the one she wore as the receptionist at her dad’s shop. And it wasn’t that she was no longer pretty. Melanie was one of the most naturally beautiful women I’d ever known. But it was her lack of desire to make an effort that left me bothered, and I wasn’t sure if it was that she didn’t have the time or that she'd just forgotten how to care about herself while caring about us.

I hated the idea that Luke could make her feel that way. I hated it even more if the reason had anything to do with me.

“I don’t think so,” Melanie finally replied. “Just the Italian bread will be fine.”

“Okay,” I said on my way out the door, already knowing I was going to also grab a pint of her favorite ice cream.

***

The interview didn’t take long, and I was given the job on the spot.

The old guy who conducted the interview—a bald man by the name of Marty—said most young guys weren’t into the idea of spending time with a bunch of ghosts, and I laughed, thinking he was making a joke, until I realized he wasn’t laughing with me.

“You don't believe in ghosts?” he asked, lifting one brow to eye me studiously.

“I didn't say that. But are there really ghostshere?” I asked, not at all startled by the talk of an afterlife.

He looked me dead in the eye and replied, “Son, it’s a graveyard. What do you think?”

I shrugged and looked around the hallowed ground, then said, “I don’t know. I think, when I’m dead, I wouldn’t want to haunt the place where I was buried. I’d probably prefer to go wherever the people I cared about were.”

He nodded slowly with what seemed like consideration, looking off into the distance, before saying, “Maybe they just don’t have anywhere else to go.”

That comment rolled around my brain on the ride to the grocery store and all the time it took to grab Italian bread, ice cream, and a case of Dr. Pepper. Just lingering and nagging me to mull it over, to obsess about what it might be like to die and not have anyone to care about you in your afterlife, let alone haunt.

Do the dead even give a crap about things like that?

As I’d already mentioned, I hadn’t visited my parents’ graves since they’d died. I hadn’t been able to face their names, carved eternally into the stones Nana had paid for. But now that I had a job at the same cemetery and I’d have to care for the land their bodies lay beneath, a simultaneous battle between comfort and sadness crushed against my chest as I drove Melanie’s car back home.

And whyhadn’tmy parents haunted me? Why hadn’t they sent me any of those signs people talked about all the damn time? I figured, of all people, I’d be the most susceptible to receiving messages from the beyond, so why the hell not? Did they think I didn’t care? Or was it that they didn’t care about me or the trauma they’d caused when they died?

Suddenly, I didn’t want to cook dinner. I didn’t care about eating or celebrating the job I’d gotten. All I wanted was to goinside, crawl into bed, and miss my mom and dad while their room stood dormant down the hall, still untouched after all this time.

But when I got inside, there was Melanie, vacuuming the carpet, keeping the house clean when I knew damn well, if she wasn’t here, it’d all go to hell. I knew I’d try, but Luke wouldn’t. The house was too big, my time would be spread too thin with the new job, and sooner or later, it would become too much for me alone to handle.

What am I going to do without her?

The thought nearly left me breathless. There was a calm, knowing certainty laced between the words. Like I already knew my time with her here was limited, the way I'd known things in the past. I couldn't be sure of when or how, but I knew in that moment, one day, she would be gone.

I just hoped I'd be ready when it inevitably happened.

---