Page 48 of Ghost Note

“You wore a blue dress!” he cried out, his head snapping up to mine abruptly.

I inhaled sharply, my eyes widening as I stepped back.

He turned to me fully, his hands back in his pockets again. “You wore a dark blue fucking dress, Daisy, and you had on these patent shoes with a high heel that made your calves pop like I’d never fucking seen them before. You wore a pin across your left breast. A gold one, and I recognised it as my Gran’s. The circle with the bird inside it. I smiled when I saw that, but then I saw that look on your face, too, and it damn near killed me. You’d lost weight, and the dress fabric hung a little loose around your stomach. You kept fidgeting with it the whole way through the service, as though the material itched your skin, or you were desperate to just shed the thing. I wanted to tell you to stop—just stop fussing and doubting yourself because even at a funeral, you looked sensational. I recognised that dress, too. It was the same one you wore to our leaver’s celebration when we were eighteen and fresh out of college. I said you looked pretty the first time you wore it, and you smiled like I’d just stolen your heart, and you were happy for me to take it. Your hair…” Danny raised a hand to his head, winding a finger around an invisible curl. “It was in my favourite style. When you kind of wear it half up and half down and let those loose waves fall across your face. Your lips were the colour of pink roses, and your tears broke my fucking heart when I saw you cry them. Gina stayed by your side the entire time, propping you up when you kept glancing around and not finding me walking up to you to say I was back or that I was sorry or that any part of this fucking funeral was a good way to ease the pain that was tearing me up inside.”

My hand rose to my chest, clutching at my frail heart.

“You spoke at the ceremony because my grandma asked you to and, as always, you couldn’t say no, even though speaking killed you. Your voice sounded different, and I had to stand there in the shadows and watch you fall apart, knowing that I couldn’t put you back together again because I was beyond fucking broken, too. My parts couldn’t even be sold for scrap.”

“You… you were there…”

“You’re damn right I was there,” Danny said sharply, pulling the sunglasses from his eyes and tucking them into his waistband. Those pools of green were covered in unshed emotion, and I walked backwards until I stumbled, my ankle giving way before I righted myself and felt my back come up against the rough bark of a tree. “I was there. I saw everything. I heard every word. I saw everything on your face. The disappointment. The pain. The longing. The need for me to make you better. But I couldn’t make you better, Zee. I couldn’t.”

I stared up into his misty eyes, unable to believe what I was hearing.

He rubbed his lips together, and his nostrils flared. “For this is a journey we all must take, and each must go alone. It’s all part of the master plan, a step on the road to home,” he whispered. “When you are lonely and sick at heart, go to the friends we know. Laugh at all the things we used to do. Miss me… but let me go.”

“The poem I read.”

“I heard every word.”

“But… it doesn’t make sense. Why? Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you—?”

“Because I needed you to let me go, too.”

I searched his eyes, unable to deny the tugging at my heart as it tried to beat closer to his. “I did,” I lied.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “You did. But you turned me into a monster along the way to make it happen. I was okay with that. At least, I thought I was. But seeing you these last few days and seeing that look of hate in your eyes whenever I’m close by… it’s killed me a little bit, Daisy, and I need you to let go of that monster in your mind, too. I’m not him. I’m not that guy.”

“Then who the hell are you?”

Blowing out a breath, Danny raised his hand to rest on the trunk above my head, and he leaned in closer. “I’m still trying to figure that out for myself.”

Sixteen

We’d driven back to Hope Cove in silence, neither one of us having the energy for small talk, argument, or debate.

After sliding out from under his arm, I’d walked over to the bench he’d been caressing to see the gold plaque behind it, engraved in Tim and Amie’s honour. Amie’s full name had been Amber Silver, but after marrying Tim, people had called her Amie so she didn’t have a moniker filled solely with colours.

I never understood that. I saw nothing wrong with making a rainbow of yourself when your heart was so obviously bright.

Danny had apparently stayed at Atley House during that week of his parents’ burial, as well as spending time with Grandma Florence, which she’d never told me about at Danny’s request. The owners treasured the Silver family, honouring them with any request they placed in front of them because of the nature of their entwined histories.

I couldn’t shake the feeling of misplaced guilt from my shoulders now, and the weight of it was heavy. All those times people had grumbled and gossiped to me about Danny not returning for their funeral, and what a horrid boy that made him, and I’d never once defended him properly. I should have defended him. I’d known him better than to think he could skip such a thing, hadn’t I? So why had I been so quick to believe he was rotten to the core when the reality was that not many men had ever been moulded to be as good as Daniel Silver had?

Heartbreak made me do it. That was my excuse, although it was feeble.

It was dark when we pulled up outside my house, and I held onto the door handle too tightly, not knowing how to say goodbye… or if I even wanted to. In the end, I said nothing, and I pushed my way into the cool summer’s evening air, shutting the car door behind me without saying a word. My key was in the front door of my home when I heard him call out my name.

“Daisy?”

I spun to take him in one last time. His arm was resting on the open window ledge, his head leaning out as far as he could go. He looked effortlessly handsome, and the layers of the villain I’d covered his face with were drifting away with every passing minute.

“No more tears for me or my family, okay?”

My scowl was small but intense, and Danny smiled softly at me, making that scowl slip away before it really had any life to it.

“It’s okay to still hate me. Just hate me for the right reasons, and I can live with that.”

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