Page 75 of Ghosted
The song transitions to another on the album that I’m less familiar with, and Dean pulls back a little. Just enough so wecan look each other in the eye. “Listen, I know I thought my unfinished business was solving my murder, but now I’m not so sure.”
My brow furrows, and I ask, “What do you mean?”
He cups my jaw, tracing his thumb down the slope of my cheek tenderly. “You’re my unfinished business, Rae. I can’t leave this place knowing I’m leaving you behind.”
The air whooshes out of me, and I close my eyes against the urge to tell him about the tether. “Dean, you can’t stay here for me,” I argue. “You deserve to go find peace. You deserve to find whatever’s on the other side.”
He shakes his head sadly. “I wouldn’t know peace if I didn’t have you. There would be no peace for me knowing I couldn’t see you, be with you. Knowing that Ichoseto leave you.”
“You don’t know that,” I say. “Rebecca just passed on, and right before she left, I could feel the other side for a moment. It was warm, Dean. And happy. If you went, you’d be okay. More than okay.” My chin trembles with the strain of holding back a flood of tears.
“Do you not want me to stay?” he asks, his face suddenly guarded. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking over my shoulder and clenching his jaw, “I should have asked before I assumed.”
We stop swaying, and I say, “I want nothing more than to spend forever with you. I never want you to leave me.”
“Then… What?” he asks, confused.
I swallow as something breaks in my chest. “Dean. I can’t ask you to postpone eternity in paradise for me. I can’t ask you to stay here in this fucked up world living a half-life when you can be somewhere better. You deserve that. You had your life ripped from you by a selfish asshole. I can’t ask that you give me youreternity.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Dean asks, pressing a hard kiss to my cheek, taking my tears between his lips. “Youare my peace. I don’t want any future that doesn’t have you in it. I’m in love with you, Rae Alderwood. I’ll gladly give up the cherubs and white fluffy clouds or whatever if it means I get to spend it with you.”
My breath hitches, and I pull him in for a kiss, tasting the salt of my own tears. When we part, I say, “I love you, too.”
He must see the hesitation on my face because he says, “Then what’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me? I can tell you’ve been holding something back for a while now, so what is it?” He raises one eyebrow. “You’re not secretly married or something, are you?”
His expression lightens at my laugh. “No, definitely not,” I say, thinking of Aunt C saying that he deserves to know his options and feel my resolve crumble. “When I was looking through that old grimoire, there was a journal entry,” I say. And then I launch into the whole story, hardly pausing to catch my breath because I know if I do, I might chicken out.
“So, this tether. Does it hurt you in any way?” he asks afterwards.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. It almost seems more like an energy exchange than anything. I think it’s more a way to keep you here with me until I pass on, and then you go where I go.”
“So, what’s the downside? What’s the big secret?”
“Um… That you would be stuck here until I died? And then even after that, I think you’d be stuck with me.”
“Rae,” he chastises with a scowl.
“What?” I ask, annoyed.
“That’s not a downside. That’s literally just a list of things I want to happen.”
I search his face for any hesitation. Finding none, I venture, “Yeah?”
“Yes, Alderwood. Bind us together. I always knew I’d marry you,” he says slyly, calling back to the conversation we had on our first date.
I hold my hands up, feeling my palms sweat. “Woah, woah. Who said anything about marriage?”
He snorts a laugh. “Uh, I’m pretty sure binding our souls together is much more serious than a piece of paper issued by the state of Massachusetts.”
I tilt my head in consideration. “Okay, well I didn’t see it that way until now. Listen, I want you to really think about this before we do it. Once it happens, I don’t see how it can be undone. So let’s wait until we fully solve your murder first, okay? I just want you to be sure.”
Dean sighs and gathers me in close for a hug. “Okay, Alderwood. Whatever you need so you know I’m in this forever. No takesies backsies.”
I laugh against his chest. “No takesies backsies?”
I feel him shake his head against my crown. “None.”
FORTY-ONE
