Page 12 of Ghost Note

“Danny? Erm, he’s down on the beach. Just… sitting there looking out at the water. He’s got a big bottle of something hanging from his hand, and a fancy black car waiting for him at the top of the walkway, but that’s about it.”

After years of being a million miles away, Danny was beyond that door in front of me, and it would only take thirty seconds to reach him once I’d stepped out into the sweet ocean air.

But I couldn’t see him. I wouldn’t even allow myself to visualise what he was doing, so instead, I rested a hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “Leave him alone, okay? He’ll probably get back in that fancy car in half an hour and go back to his dream life, away from us. I know you’re starstruck, and I know you want to run to him and talk about music and all the things you love, but this isn’t the right time. Today isn’t the day to talk to him…”

“Daisy, what are you doing?” Gina whispered.

My eyes shot to hers. “We don’t get to exile him from this, G.”

“He’s not welcome around here.”

“Today, he is.” I let go of Jackson and took a step back. My chest was so tight, and my voice didn’t sound like my own. The memories of my romantic youth were pressing against my adult willpower, trying to seep through the weak cracks to remind me of what had once been.

I had to force them down because I wasn’t that girl anymore, and Danny wasn’t that guy.

“Today, Hope Cove is his home again. It’s what Florence would have wanted.”

“What about what you want?”

“Since when has that ever mattered to him?”

Without waiting for her answer, I turned and walked away, listening to the sounds of Ben, Gina, and Jackson muttering things as I went. I got the gist. Jackson was pissed. Gina was pissed. Ben was pissed.

Me? I was scared, and nothing made me run quite like fear did.

Once I made it to the back door of the pub that led out into an open beer garden, I pushed through and stepped out into the bright, dazzling sunlight. My dress suddenly felt too tight, and I couldn’t catch a damn breath. Inhaling didn’t do anything for me, not even when I closed my eyes and tried to take in as much oxygen as possible. It only made me feel more claustrophobic than before… like I’d forgotten how to breathe.

Like the night when Danny ended things.

Come on, Daisy. He’s nothing to you now. This isn’t real. He’s not real. Your love wasn’t real.

I slipped off my shoes, curled my toes into the grass beneath my feet, and I looked at the back gate.

Then, I ran, and I didn’t stop running until I got home, where I locked all the doors and headed straight for my fridge to grab that chilled bottle of rosé wine that was waiting for me to destroy it.

Within an hour, I’d drunk the lot.

* * *

My phone rang and rang and rang until I had no choice but to text Ben and Gina to tell them to back off. With alcohol came courage, and I was feeling ballsy now the fear had been drowned by Echo Falls, 11.5%.

Me: Ben, there’s nothing wrong. I left before I did something stupid… like throw a bottle at Danny’s head. I’ll call you in the morning.

Me: G, thanks for letting me know you didn’t cause a scene, and yes, I’m glad Jackson didn’t run over to get his autograph, either. I’ll call you tomorrow. Tonight, I have a full series of Grey’s Anatomy to catch up on and three bottles of wine to drown in. Fun times. ;)

I hoped that sated them because I had more alcohol to sink, and I wanted to do it in the comfort of my grey jogging bottoms and my whiteI Love DevonT-shirt. I could lie and say it had been the first thing at hand, but it hadn’t. I’d scrambled through a drawer I barely opened these days, looking for this thing as an act of defiance to the superstar who’d once thought this great county wasn’t good enough for him.

It was more than good enough.

It was everything—everything he’d walked away from.

The TV wasn’t holding my attention when I sat on the cream, soft sofa with my next bottle of wine. My blood was warm, my cheeks flushed, but other people’s voices were grating on my last nerve, so I switched the thing off and let the screen turn black. I didn’t listen to music usually—at least not music with lyrics—but I was partial to the odd score soundtrack, or an orchestra album every now and again. Scrolling through my phone, I found my free version of Spotify I hardly ever used, hunted down the Twilight score, and I hit play, listening to the hypnotic melodies of Edward and Bella’s love.

It was the only kind of romance I could allow myself to drown in, because the man wasn’t mortal and wouldn’t fuck up, and if he did, he’d somehow fix it so that life was perfect again—often better than before. He was a vampire—fictional—and I could allow myself to get lost in fiction more than reality now. Just like Florence did after her heart broke when she lost her husband.

The wine flowed, and I dropped my head onto the back of the sofa, closing my eyes.

But that’s the problem with your own mind. You can try and train it to be defiant like your heart, but when your thoughts unconsciously drift, they often end up wandering into the very thing you were trying to avoid.

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