Page 53 of Ghost Note

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, Zee. Your voice is my weakness, remember?”

That day had been an oasis in the desert that had become our relationship at nineteen. As his love for music took over, the good and bad days flipped back and forth. Sometimes I felt like nothing had changed, and others, I already knew I was losing him.

For the first time in five years, I stood there in my kitchen, and I sang along with Karen Carpenter. When the song tailed off, I sent the track back to the beginning, and I sang it from the start again, and even though it hurt at first, it got easier and easier to let go with every passing minute.

The pain is always the sharpest when you first hit those old wounds, but over time, that pain becomes manageable, and the absence of its sting finally sets you free and makes you think you can take on new wounds, too.

That’s what a traitor the mind is, especially when alcohol controls it.

Eventually, the wine ran dry, but I was still antsy as the old memories flooded back, and I was unable to turn off the tap. Before I realised what I was doing, I’d pulled an old box full of memories out from the back of my wardrobe, and I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, flicking through polaroid pictures of Danny and I growing up together.

Six years.

Six years of memories.

Him and me on the beach together with our friends, the bonfire behind us burning bright as Danny’s lips crashed against my cheek, and I cheesy-grinned into the camera I was holding out at arm’s length.

Danny sprawled on the bonnet of his car, wearing nothing but shorts that hung off his waist, showing off his abs and that V I loved the most.

Me, caught spinning around in a dress he loved to see me wearing, and his arm stretched out to try and catch me as he took the picture.

Together in the pub drinking our first legal drink together with beer foam on our top lips.

The two of us holding hands and walking towards the park—a picture Gina had taken, perhaps? Or maybe Danny’s old best friend from school, Brodie.

I looked at each and every one, feeling that deep-rooted ache weigh down on my heart.

It’s okay to still hate me. Just hate me for the right reasons.

I ran a finger over a picture of him sleeping in my bed. Dark hair and tanned skin resting against white sheets. Long, perfect lashes any woman would kill for pressing against his skin in his slumber. Those muscles in his arms, even then, making me want to reach through into the memory and trail my palms over the softness of them. I’d turned him into a monster in my mind to survive but I’d always known I’d need these reminders and that, really, he’d always been a saint to me.

Pictures of him and I rolling around in bed together littered my floor, and my eyes raked over them all until I saw one sticking out from beneath another, and I reached over to pull it out.

Danny and I were sitting on the roof of an old B&B we used to go to, with the ocean in front of us, and the greenery of Hope Cove behind. The sun had been setting in the picture, acting like a halo above us as I leaned into him with my head on his shoulder and my hand pressed against his chest, while he reached out and took the picture.

Right there, I’d been the girl who had everything. The one who naively thought I’d spend the rest of my life with the boy beside her. I grieved for that girl. For her foolishness. For the things she didn’t know she was about to endure. For the loss of herself and her innocence.

Something about that picture held my attention.

We’d fooled around on that roof when the world had been falling asleep around us. We’d stayed there until midnight before Danny said he needed to walk me home and make sure he kept his promise to Mum and Dad to always keep me safe.

With a glance at my watch, I saw that it was midnight now… and I suddenly had somewhere I wanted to be.Somewhere I hadn’t let myself think of for five long and lonely years.

Eighteen

Tugging on the rusty metal handrails of the fire exit’s steps, I tested their strength with what little I had of my own.

“Okay, old friends. Don’t let me down.”

Rosemary Ford was almost as old as Hope Cove itself—or so it seemed to us youths at the time—and she’d run this out of date, quaint little bed and breakfast for as long as the rest of the village’s population had been alive. Although lovely, Rosemary was also almost deaf, and Danny and I had taken full advantage of it when growing up after Danny had dared me to climb up there one night. Twenty minutes had gone by before I’d agreed. That’s how things always worked with us. Danny would have these grand ideas on how to live life to the fullest, while I would always be the voice of reason in the background, begging him to stay safe and think things through. He’d always tried to push me forward, and I’d always tried to pull him back.

I’d never been here without him.

The metal groaned beneath the weight of me, and I had to steady myself as I ascended, taking each step as carefully as I could. It didn’t take me long to reach the top, and when I did, I let out a sigh of relief and glanced back down at the street below me.

“See.” I smiled to myself. “You can do anything you put your mind to.”

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