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“My advice,” Ashen continues when I don’t answer. He’s still watching me carefully, like I might combust if he says the wrong thing. Honestly, I’m waiting for it myself. “Nothing is destroyed so bad it can’t be fixed. If it hurts, that’s because it’s real, and I don’t think you should give up on that.”
His words strike something in me, a dim speck of hope. Maybe he’s right. If I just quit, I’ll be one more person who didn’t fight for her. One more person who shows her she wasn’t enough.
Doubt, however, is a particularly cruel thing. It crawls in the crevices of my mind, whispering promises of rejection and heartache. It reminds me that Sumner doesn’t want me, and that I, in no way, deserve her. We aren’t fated. We’re catastrophic. And Ashen’s plan worked. The potion got her home. Not the home in the guest house or even with the lousy dogs. Home a world away. Home where she’s actually happy and where she should have always been. The fuck did I think bringing her here would do?
I want to go back in time, before the constant headaches and fighting. Before knowing her multicolored eyes and living with this all-consuming battle inside myself. But then I wouldn’t have experienced her, and I don’t know what’s worse.
Sumner. My perfect storm.
Our souls were cracked to form together; we just figured it out too late.
“I’m going to bed,” I mutter, standing and making my way to my room.
“It’s nine in the morning,” Ashen calls after me.
Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
SUMNER
Iexpect to step out of the salon feeling like a new woman, a girl who’s on the mend. Nothing changes though. I’m still the same person I was when I went in. The only difference is the icy breeze over my back where my hair used to cover.
I wait at the edge of the sidewalk for Luca, staring at my reflection through the window of a car. It was my idea to chop my hair off, but he insisted on paying. All these years later, he’s still taking care of me.
The door swings open and there’s a whistle from behind me. “Lookin’ fresh.” Luca gives me a grin. “What do ya think?”
“I’m just glad I can still put it in a ponytail.” I laugh. Shoulder length didn’t seem so short until I saw the inches falling to the floor. It is a nice change though. Part of the restart.
We start down the street, talking about nothing and everything. I’ve been so eager to hear all the things that have gone on in his life while I was away—four months almost exactly. I guess time moves the same everywhere.
Since we had found each other again in our early teens, we’ve never spent this much time apart. Being close again feels good, like finally coming home.
That’s what I’ve done. I’ve come home.
We round the corner, finding ourselves on the very block that started everything. I stop when I see it, the house that brought me so much pain.
It looks exactly as I remember. Shitty. Decrepit. Forsaken.
Dried weeds stretch across the yard, overtaking all hope for any real vegetation. Chipped paint climbs like vines over the once yellow walls, lost and forgotten, just like all who have the displeasure of crossing over into the musty chamber of hell. The tire swing still creaks in the wind, hanging too low from the withered branch.
Sleepless nights. Silent cries. Shattered dreams.
This place should be burned to the ground.
“Crazy what happened to him,” Luca says, also staring into the past beside me. His gaze is hollow. There’s nothing but fragmented remnants of the child he was. The child I was. “Can’t say the fucker didn’t deserve it.”
“What happened?”
“You didn’t hear?” Luca asks, turning to face me. “He had a heart attack.”
I pause, feeling my pulse quicken at that. “What?”
“Yeah. Pretty recently, actually.”
My focus falls over the neglected home once more. The monster at my bed, the tormenter of innocents, gone. I still don’t feel free. He took too much of me with him. Stole it away.
