Page 90 of I Promise You
Of course he can’t say it back to me.
What was I expecting?
“If we have a family again, what am I supposed to do? Have them go through the same thing I do? Lonely nights and mornings? Missed birthdays, missed holidays, missed milestones like their first word or first steps?”
He doesn’t respond. He stares at me, shutting me out like he always used to do when we first met. He’s unpredictable again, and I don’t like it.
I shake my head.
“No, Danny, I don’t think I will allow that to happen if I want to start a family.”
“That’s not fair, Ari.” He watches me, but he’s quiet, and he looks away from me again, running his hand through his wet hair.
“Tell me, Danny, what the fuck are you?”
I’ve encapsulated his attention again.
He looks at me, his jaw closing right before he laughs, grinning, stressed. His mouth gapes open, amused as if I said something funny. He rubs his hands through his beard, grinning devilishly.
“Fucking tell me! I saw the way your eyes turned black. I dream of your tattoo every night. That’s what I dream of. A freaking Grim Reaper haunts me every night since the day I almost died. So tell me, what the fuck are you?”
He shakes his head.
“What do you want me to tell you? You already know the answer to your own question.”
“Tell me, dammit.”
“You see him in your dreams, right? He talks to you, doesn’t he?”
My shoulders slump and my eyes bulge because it feels like he’s reading my thoughts.
“You know the answer. You know just how fucking real life can get, don’t you? That’s why you wake up screaming most nights?”
He’s right, but I don’t want to admit it. It sounds ridiculous.
When I fall asleep, he talks to me, only whispering the same words over again.
“Time waits for no one.”
“You want to know? It’s simple,” he says. “He haunts me, too, and it started when your brother died.” He looks away from me and looks up at the sky, letting out another sigh as white fog escapes from his body heat. The temperature drops even further.
“E-explain,” I demand, my teeth chattering.
“There isn’t much explanation, but just that. I only see him on missions or deployments. He’s always there, like a fucking shadow. Talking to me.”
Fuck, this all sounds so weird and crazy. It shouldn’t make sense…but it does.
“When you died, I dared to talk back to it, begging it not to take you. I don’t know how, but it let me save you. He gave me your soul back.” Danny is transfixed on me as if he’s staring into my soul, waiting for a reaction out of me, but all I can do is swallow as tears continuously fall, blending in with the freezing rain.
Then a massive gust of wind hits me, sending my hair flying, and another lightning strikes, but this time, it’s close by, and I shudder when the crack of thunder jolts through me as if it struck me.
It all makes sense. Death possessed his body. The dreams, the nightmares with the Grim Reaper. Death has been here all along, trying to give me clues. He’s a shadow stalking the living. Stalking Danny and me.
Stalking everyone, just waiting to grab us.
But this only makes me realize one thing. I should have died. I could’ve died, and all this suffering would have been avoided.
Danny robbed me of my chance to be with my baby and brother.
