Page 14 of Ghost Note

Yet, I couldn’t deny that a sick and twisted part of me wanted to see him looking weak. I wanted to see how much he’d changed, how well he handled grief, or if he was the coward I’d always known him to be.

“I… hate him…” I whispered.

Still, I opened that door and stepped out into the cool night air, and I locked my house before I began to wander towards the beach. The sky was clear that night, and I looked up through hazy eyes to see a collection of stars watching over me. I could imagine what they were thinking…

What a foolish, silly girl.

But like all trainwrecks, they couldn’t look away, and I was already tired of being their entertainment. Dropping my focus to the street ahead, I trudged along on heavy feet until I could hear the sounds of the ocean waves. Danny was probably long gone, but there was a part of me I couldn’t explain or understand that needed to see where he’d been. To see if he’d left any wreckage there, too, like he had when he’d walked away from me.

The beach was, as I expected, empty when I got there.

No crowds had gathered around a rock star when news had spread of his arrival. They probably knew that he wouldn’t hang around for long, anyway. Danny’s name wasn’t popular around here with the more mature side of the residents. How could anyone find the man who hadn’t attended his own parents’ funeral charming? People hissed and spat when he was mentioned. They rolled their eyes and grumbled about how this place they loved hadn’t been good enough for him. They patted me on the arm and told me I’d had a lucky escape—that I could do better.

Every time I wanted to agree with them, and even when I did, there’d been an odd feeling in my stomach. One that hurt like some kind of betrayal.

I let all the air out of my lungs, wrapped my long cardigan around myself even tighter, and I made my way down the concrete walkway to the beach. The fresh air felt good in my wine-soaked veins, and nothing calmed my racing heart quite like the gentle sound of the waves crashing against the shore.

My skin prickled with a night chill when I sat down on the sand and stared out at nothing.

If he wasn’t here, I could find peace in my surroundings. That was one thing Hope Cove had always offered me in abundance.

“Sleep tight, Grandma Florence,” I whispered.

I imagined her response in my mind:You take care of that beautiful face and heart, Daisy Piper.It was what she’d always said whenever I’d left her house with Danny holding my hand. Like she’d somehow known what my future was to become.

The tiniest dot of orange light caught my eye, and I turned to the left, squinting down to see a figure emerging from the shadows by the rocky cove. The farther into the light they got, the more that chill rolled down my spine, until I recognised the subtle swagger of the walk.

I recognised the body.

And I recognised the face of the man who stepped closer and closer with a cigarette hanging between his fingertips.

I wasn’t sure if he was real at first, or if the wine had gotten a hold of me to the point of me imagining him there now. I froze, not moving or saying another thing as he drew closer, wearing smart black trousers that were covered in grains of sand, a white shirt opened at the collar, and no shoes. His bare feet padded towards me, his face unreadable and devoid of emotion.

The years had changed him, that much was clear.

His puppy fat had drifted away to reveal a chiselled jawline, hollow cheeks, pouty lips, and hair darker than it ever used to be.

Danny’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly when the few streetlamps behind us lit up his face even more, and he stopped only eight feet away.

The closest he’d been in five long years.

“Daisy?” he said roughly.

My name sounded wrong when he spoke. He voice was harsher around the edges, sounding more like a warning than an acknowledgement of my presence.

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

He was here. He was really here… and so different to how I remembered.

A million thoughts ran through my mind, and all the words I’d ever wanted to say to him tumbled over one another on my tongue, but when I opened my mouth to speak, nothing came out.

Not even the hate I held inside, and that hate, as I stared into his eyes, was dangerously alive.

Five

Go to Hell, the most dominant part of me wanted to scream in his face—to get right up there and stare into his cold eyes and confess every nasty thought I’d ever had in his absence.

Instead, I continued to look at him as though he wasn’t real. A stranger I’d never seen before on these shores, or someone I should have run from.

---