Page 114 of The Dead Romantics

“My dad died,” I replied, and his eyebrows jerked up.

“Oh. Florence, I’m s—”

“Is that his room?” I interrupted, looking straight ahead. Toward the end of the hall, to room 538. I could see the number on the plaque. And through the frosted glass, there was a shadow—a shape—sitting up in bed.

I knew that shape. I knewhim.

“Oh, what a surprise. Laura’s still here,” Lee observed. I didn’t notice the woman sitting in the chair beside Ben’s bedside until he said something. Soft red hair and a heart-shaped face, snuggled in a blanket. The same red hair from the social media photo. The same soft face.

“Laura?” I echoed.

“She hasn’t left his side since the accident,” he went on, and I didn’t think he told me that in malice because—he couldn’t know why I was here. Or what I felt. “I keep telling her to go home but you know how it is.”

I came to a stop.

Fifteen feet away, in room 538, Ben laughed at something she said. It was loud and bright and—andhappy. He was happy. I didn’t need to see him to know that.

“I think she still misses him,” he said. “Maybe he’ll give her a second chance now.”

A second chance. What Laura had begged of Ben, after she cheated, and Ben had wanted that. A second chance—but he didn’tthink he deserved it, because what guy drove his girlfriend to cheat? But it was her fault. She made the choice.

And he made his.

But... she had been at his bedside this whole time. Waiting for him to wake up. She loved him.Reallyloved him—and they had the kind of shared history that Ben and I couldn’t have in the seven days we knew each other.

I... knew very little about Ben. What was his favorite food? His favorite music? What was he afraid of—what did he do on the weekends? Did he own one of those squatty potties? Questions I hadn’t thought to ask in the last week.

Then again, I’d been grieving. I wasstillgrieving. It was hard to make space with a sorrow that full.

“Why didn’t you come after me?” I asked Lee abruptly. “When I left?”

He gave me a strange look, and oh, I wished he could’ve said that he missed me. And I wished he could’ve apologized. And I could’ve told him that my stories were real, and that they were precious, and that I wanted to tell them someday. Because ghost stories were just love stories about here and then and now and when, about pockets of happiness and moments that resonated in places long after their era. They were stories that taught you that love was never a matter of time, but a matter of timing.

And this was not mine.

Lee Marlow said, of all the things he could’ve, “I don’t think we would’ve worked out, bunny. I don’t like dating rivals, though you got a while to go. I didn’t want to see you jealous—”

My hand was already in a tight fist.

It would’ve been a shame to waste it.

So I turned and I slammed it straight into his motherfucking nose.

He gave a howl of pain, backpedaling in surprise. His nose wasn’t broken. I didn’t know how to throw a punch that hard. But itdidhurt my knuckles. He whirled back to me with wild, angry eyes. “Thehell,Florence?!”

“I’m not your rival, Lee Marlow,” I told him, shaking my hand because it hurt. “You’re not even in my league. But you better watch me,” I added, and grabbed my suitcase handle again, “because I’ll be the writer you will never be.”

Then I left down the hallway, back toward the elevators.

And I didn’t look back.

Even as he shouted at me to stop, told me he’d call the cops, file a report—I didn’t care.

It felt good, and he deserved it.

And I was never going to think about Lee Marlow again.

Rose was still waiting for me outside, and the look on my face must’ve said it all. Her eyebrows knit together and she shook her head. “Oh, honey,” she whispered, and pulled me into a tight hug.

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