Page 41 of Outside The Wire

“Jade—”

She collapsed on the ground, her hand falling to the ground just in front of her mother’s headstone. A few pills still remained in her hand, but she was now surrounded by daisies once more.

“Jade,” I whispered. I crawled forward and pressed my fingers to her neck, feeling for a pulse. There was nothing. No blood. No cuts and bruises. She was just gone.

I pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’m sorry I failed you,” I whispered.

“You’ll always fail her and everyone else around you,” a familiar, sweet voice called out.

I whipped my head around and my heart stopped. Because this time, Holly was standing among everyone who attended the funeral that day. Then she turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Wakingup wasn’t peaceful this time. I barely made it to the bathroom before I puked into the sink, not even able to make it to the toilet. My whole body shook as the worst of the dream replayed in my head.

I heaved over and over until there was nothing left to purge, then collapsed on the floor, leaning against the cabinet. I hadn’t had a dream that bad in years. Not one that was so vivid, that threw me into the past in such a way that I couldn’t escape.

Normally, I would wake up and shake off the remnants of the dream, but this time, everything was different. She was talking to me. She was fucking blaming me, telling me how I fucked up with Jason. She was tearing up everything in my past and throwing it in my face. And I knew exactly why.

Chase.

I never should have answered that call. I should have checked the caller ID first and made sure I never took hiscall ever again. But I hadn’t. Some part of me wanted that connection, just in case.

Just in case…what?

I still wasn’t sure, but now I knew I couldn’t handle it. Being thrown into my past like that fucked with my head too much. Seeing her, watching her choke down those pills while sitting on her mother’s grave had been fucking torture.

But this time Holly had been there. My past had collided with my present and that was something I couldn’t allow. Ever. What I had built here was too special. Everything about who I was now relied on the old me staying dead and buried.

I pushed off the floor and rinsed out the sink, then splashed water on my face. When I looked in the mirror, the face that stared back at me was a haunted one I hadn’t seen in years.

“You won’t come back,” I hissed. “I won’t fucking let you.”

I snatched a towel off the wall and stormed out of the bathroom, wiping the water from my face. I was too worked up to go back to sleep, but the way it was outside, I knew running wasn’t an option. I strode into the kitchen, searching for a glass of something hard to take off the edge, but all I found was beer.

That’s right, because the new Asher didn’t touch the hard stuff. He stayed away from anything that might allow him to get too intoxicated—anything that might let him drown in his sorrows and remember what it was like to fall into that black hole and think about never coming out.

I made a fist with both hands, then released them. Over and over, I paced the kitchen, doing my best to work past the need to drink the past away. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. I saw the pills. I saw the flowers.

I saw those haunted eyes.

I remembered her arms around me as we laid in bed together.

The horror of her telling me how she had been chained to a wall and nearly raped. It was like a bad movie playing on repeat in my head. Jade was a tragedy waiting to happen and I would have given my whole world to save her. But I wasn’t enough. I was never fucking enough.

So why was I pretending it would be any fucking different now? What made this life so different? Why did I think I would ever be good enough or strong enough for anyone now?

That was the question that tormented me the rest of the night and well into the morning.

10

HOLLY

I embracedmy Christmas self as I sang my favorite holiday songs and danced around my house as I got ready for work the next morning. My hair wasn’t styled the best and my makeup lacked a little something, but nothing bothered me today. I was in the best mood ever.

I slid down the hall in my favorite snowman socks, belting out song after song as I packed a lunch, knowing I most likely wouldn’t be able to drive anywhere for food today. Not that it mattered. I didn’t need to spend money anyway.

My phone rang and I turned down the music, grinning when I saw my mom’s name on the screen. “This is the Lane residence.”

If I didn’t answer that way for my mother, she always said I was using bad manners.

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