Chapter 20
“JASON.”
He turned slowly and started to walk back the way he’d come.
“No—Jason, wait. Please!”
I tried to follow him, but my feet weren’t back yet, and they buckled, sending me sprawling down the steps and landing hard on the gravel.
That turned him back, and he jogged over to me. “Jesus, Dani, what the hell?”
My hands were scraped and had little pieces of rock stuck to them. My elbow was bleeding. It wasn’t a good time.
“Alex was here.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Well, that’s ‘what the hell.’”
Jason helped me up, and walked me back up the steps where I sat down. He stood. I dropped my face into my hands.
“Are you okay?”
I shook my head and let a bitter laugh out. “Not really.”
“Well, you were thirty minutes ago. Before—”
“Before Alex showed up?”
He didn’t fire back, and I looked up. He was pissed. But right then, I wasn’t feeling all that zippy, either.
“Yeah. Guess that tells me what I need to know.” He turned to leave.
“No, actually, that doesn’t tell you shit, Jason.”
He wheeled back around. “What?”
I held my head, which was pounding, and tried not to think about what I probably looked like. “You’d rather jump to whatever conclusion justifies walking away. How about asking.”
“What I saw doesn’t require asking. And look at you now.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What did you see?”
“Enough. And heard words you certainly couldn’t say to me,” he said, the last sentence full of acid and hurt.
I closed my eyes. “You saw him.”
“Yes.”
The logic started to click. “You saw him in the river because he was holding Riley. You saw him here because he was holding me.”
“Kissing you.”
My stomach clenched again at the memory. “Kissing me good-bye, Jason. He’s gone.” New tears came, and it wasn’t a good time for that. “Contact like that knocks the nervous system out. I’m sorry I’m not all up to par right now.”
“You’re in love with him.”
“Jason—”
“Dani, don’t. It’s all over your face. I know a broken heart when I see it.”
I tried to stand, but everything went woozy so I sat back down. “Damn it, he’s my best friend. He was the one constant and basically the ‘man in my life’ for lack of anyone else. And now he’s gone.” My voice rose as my head pounded harder with the adrenaline. “So yes, I’m a little upset.”
“Well, then I’ll leave you alone.”
“Jason!”
He turned again and jerked his hands in the air. “What?”
I pleaded with my eyes for him to understand. To go back to the loving guy he was before, instead of the brooding jerk standing before me. Which something back behind the pain was telling me that wasn’t fair, but I couldn’t focus on that.
“He’s gone. He left to get out of the way. But he’s a ghost, Jason. He was never competition.”
Jason walked back to stand right in front of me. I could smell the faint woodsy smell still on him, and I wanted to be wrapped up in that warm aroma again.
“I came over here to surprise you. To be romantic and spontaneous and—something, I don’t know. Because I suddenly couldn’t stand to be away from you.”
I reached for his hand. “I feel—”
He shook his head and pulled away from me. “Don’t. The fact that he knew he was in the way should tell you something, Dani. I’m grateful to him for everything he’s done for you, that’s the truth.” Jason scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, making it stand up. “But you’re lying to me and to yourself if you think he wasn’t competition.” He laid a finger over my heart. “In here.” He pointed up at the porch. “You don’t look at me like that. And I’m not settling for less.”
I watched him walk away. I didn’t have anything left to argue with. How could I? He was right, wasn’t he? I was in love with Alex, as warped as that was. I crawled to the swing and climbed on, picking up the rose where it had fallen. I lay down and let the movement lull me.
“MOM?”
Riley’s voice pulled me from the cobwebs. I opened my eyes but I felt like I’d pulled a massive tequila night. My head throbbed and my stomach threatened to rebel.
“Mom? You okay?”
“Mmm.” I sat up and clapped a hand over my mouth, then bolted to the railing and horked the previous night’s dinner. I just lay there, half flopped over afterward, too spent to move. The activity didn’t help my headache any.
“Wow, that must have been some night.”
“You have no idea,” I croaked.
“Probably don’t want to,” she said with a chuckle. “Need some coffee?”
“Please.”
I managed to get myself on the top step and leaned against the banister post, feeling the still-cool surface against my temple. It wasn’t dark anymore, but it didn’t feel late, either. Riley came back with a steaming mug of coffee and set it beside me as she sat on the other end of the step.
“You been crying?” she asked, leaning forward to look at me better.
“Am I all swollen?”
“Pretty much.” She turned my right hand over to view the mess that matched my elbow. “My God, what happened?”
“Great.” I picked up the mug carefully, since my dexterity wasn’t the best.
“Well?”
“Thought you didn’t want to know.”
“Well, you’ve got me all curious now. Crying and sleeping on the porch with a hangover and what looks like a brawl.” She pointed to the rose in my hand. “And a flower. There’s got to be a major story there.”
A bitter noise came from my throat. “Not what you’d think.” I took a swallow and relished the burn.
“So a bad date with Satan?”
I had to laugh at that, in spite of none of it being funny. “No, actually a great date. More than great. The best ever.”
“This is ‘best ever’ results?”
“No, this is ‘Alex is gone forever and Jason witnessed my meltdown and left me, too’ results.”
Riley just stared at me. “Drink some more coffee.”
“I’m not drunk, boog,” I said with a wink. Oh God, I winked. I was losing it.
“Yeah, okay.”
I shook my head and patted her arm. “I’m coming down off contact with Alex.”
“What?”
I rubbed my eyes and grimaced at the black on my fingers. I probably looked like a deranged raccoon. “He was here when I got home. To tell me good-bye.”
“But he’s like your best friend.”
New tears. Was that possible? I was going to dehydrate. “I know.”
“And you love him.”
“Seriously?” I took another swallow of the hot coffee. It was black and I didn’t care. It could have been purple.
“What?”
I flailed a hand. “Jason walked up in time to witness the big exit and me losing my sanity. Wasn’t one of my finer moments.”
“And he said—” she prompted.
I wanted to squeeze my skull. “Basically that he won’t settle for less than undying love. I guess.”
“You guess? Well—I mean, what can he say about anything? He hasn’t professed any undying love, has he?” I looked at her, and her eyes shot open wide. “Holy crap, he has?”
“Told me he loved me last night.”
“Oh my God! What did you say?”
I winced and shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
She jumped up and stood in front of me. “Mom. Snap out of it. You’ve got a hot guy who loves you, who—okay, may or may not be the devil—but he seems to treat you good. And I’ve seen you around him, you light up.” She leaned over to make me be eye to eye. “He’s a real live flesh-and-blood person, Mom. I know you have a thing for Alex, but that’s not reality. He can’t show flaws, he can’t burp and fart and leave the toilet seat up and steal the remote and do all the real-life things to piss you off. This guy is real.”
I watched her rant in awe. “That was supposed to be a selling point?”
“Seriously, Mom.”
I sighed and scooped my matted-up hair out of my face. “Where’d you get all this wisdom about men?”
She shrugged. “TV.”
I smirked. “Well, as long as it’s reliable.”
“Okay then, think of this.” She put a hand on her hip. “If Alex were alive and breathing, standing next to Satan—and you didn’t have five hundred years of back history—” she added quickly. “If you’d just met both of them when we moved here, who would it be?”
She left me with that. Well, hell.
I went to Miss Olivia’s, nodded at Grady as he stumbled over himself to be nice to me, and dumped the whole story on her. All of it, including Sarah and little baby me. She was the one person who wouldn’t be damaged by knowing.
“I’ll say this, Dani girl. Nothing about you is boring.”
“I’d love boring.”
She handed me a potato and motioned for me to peel it. I looked around for a peeler or a knife, and she pointed to a contraption on the counter to my left.
“What the heck is that?”
“You stick the potato in there, and push down the lever, and it skins the thing clean. Turn it sideways and it slices it.”
“Really?”
“I’m telling you I do everything easy now. Got that off TV.”
“Huh.” I did what she said and tentatively pushed the big black lever down. It cut into the skin but just started mangling it and stuck. Miss Olivia came over and nudged me aside, whacking the lever down like a ninja.
“You gotta put some oomph into it, girl.”
I eyed the machine and its naked potato guts. “Got it.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“That I’d rather have a potato peeler and a paper plate.”
She waved a hand at me. “About Jason.”
“I hurt him. Not meaning to, but I did.” I sunk into a chair. “I don’t know if there is a Jason to consider anymore. He seemed pretty done with me.”
“Seems pretty smitten to me. Sounds like he just wants you to love him back.”
“I do.” I did? I just said that? Miss Olivia stopped sorting tomatoes and looked at me and I blinked. “Um—I think.”
She laughed and pointed a tomato at me. “I think you know.”
“How would I know? What do I have to compare to? Riley’s father? Hell no. All I’ve ever known about love is from Alex. And since Riley pointed out that’s all based on a non-farting environment, what kind of expert am I?”
She chuckled. “That Riley. She’s got some thoughts beyond her years, that’s for sure.” She pulled up a chair across from me and settled into it. “You want some serious advice about love?”
I nodded.
“That ‘love is perfect’ drivel from the Bible is only for God. Not people. Love is messy, complicated, irritating, gut-wrenching, and all about giving up something for someone else. There are no rainbows and roses. There’s piss on the toilet and razor stubble in the sink.”
I laughed as I recalled having stubble and piss once. I was left with nothing but the damn sink and toilet. “You and Riley sell from the same book.”
She pointed at me again, then tapped her fingernail on the counter. “And when it’s the real deal, honey, it’s like nothing else. You grab on and ride that ride.”
My smile faded. “Alex said we had that once.”
“No, he said he had that with Sarah.” I stared at her. She was blunt as always, but she was right. I hated that. “What you’ve had is the shadow of that, like light from space.”
I frowned. “Come again?”
“You know—light from the stars. What we see, by the time we see it, doesn’t exist anymore.” She smiled, her old eyes crinkling at the corners. “That Jason is the real deal I’m talkin’ about.”
I felt the burn in my stomach as I thought of my history with Alex. He was forever inside me. Flashes of a life that wasn’t even mine to remember, intertwined with a friendship that defied death.
“And Alex?”
“Did what you couldn’t do, baby girl. He cut the ties.”
I gave the little bell on the string a look, then walked past it, taking a deep breath and knocking on the wooden door. The last time I’d crossed this space I was being carried in with Jason’s tongue in my mouth.
Now I stood in ratty sweatpants and a Hello Kitty faded tank top at one in the morning with no makeup and my hair yanked up in a crooked ponytail. Who on earth wouldn’t want that?
I’d flopped in bed long enough, thinking of Miss Olivia’s words, of Riley’s words. Staring at my phone, willing Jason to call me. Refusing to call him. Wishing Alex was there to talk me down, and then pushing that thought away. It was time for action, and while that thought pumped me up on the way there, the simple act of knocking deflated all my bravado.
I held my breath when I heard movement and tried to remember to let it out when he opened the door. His eyes were barely open and his hair was spiky and he wore sweatpants and a T-shirt with holes and I went weak at the knees.
“Dani—what—what are you doing here?”
“I love you.”
He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, then focused on me, not saying anything for what felt like eternity. “What are you doing?”
“Telling you that when I wake up every day, I think of seeing you at work. When I come home, I think about seeing you the next day and stress out over it.”
“Um—”
I had to keep going. “My relationship with Alex was easy. He’d always been there, always been my best friend. He was all I had. But it could never be more than it was.”
“But you wanted it to be.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I did. Even though I knew better, I’m human. He was the only man I ever gave my heart to. It was perfect and easy and no mess.” I inhaled and let out a shaky breath. “And then came you.”
He blinked at me. “And now you want mess?”
“Yes!”
He scrubbed at his hair. “Dani, it’s the middle of the night—are you still dazed from—”
“No. I’m telling you that yes, I did love him, Jason, but not like this. My feelings for him were about a long—loooong—friendship, that probably crossed some boundaries, but not like this.” I pointed down at the ground. “Here, right now, this.”
Jason inhaled slowly and let it out, looking at me seriously finally. “And if he comes back?”
“He won’t. But if he did,” I paused as I felt my voice catch. “He’d be happy for me.” I inched closer. “He told me that I was falling in love with you. And he was right.”
Something in his face flickered. “You’re—in love with me.”
“I believe I said that when you opened the door.”
“I still thought you were insane then.”
I chuckled. “Not the first time today.”
He reached out as if to touch me, then pulled back. “How often is this going to happen?”
“What?”
“Are there any other invisible boyfriends out there?”
“None.”
“But lots of other just random people.”
“Everywhere.”
He nodded. “Will you tell me when they’re there so I don’t look like an idiot or think you’re talking to me or something.”
I smiled. “I promise.”
“There’s no more secrets?”
I only blinked once, as I folded that one up and put it away. Deep inside a chamber of my heart that could never be touched. “None.” I’m sorry.
“I love you, Dani.”
My insides quivered, and I suddenly couldn’t feel my feet. “I love you, too.”
I walked into his chest and let him wrap me up in his arms, in his old ratty clothes. Nothing ever felt so good.
“Can we go to bed or do you have to report back home again?”
“I’ll text Riley to cover for me.”
“That’s twisted, you know that.”
We walked inside, hand in hand. “Twisted doesn’t even come close to our lives. Do you have razor stubble in your sink?”
He stared at me. “I—don’t—is that important?”
“Not really.”
He frowned at me. “You’re a little weird, you know that?”
I reached up and kissed him softly. “But you love the weird lady.”
He sighed, which made a low rumble in his chest. “Yeah, I do.” He kissed me back and shut the door.
MY dad once asked me if seeing ghosts like I did messed me up when I was young, or changed my life. Since I’ve only had one life to compare, I don’t know if it was messed up or not, but I know I can’t imagine what it would have been otherwise. Without Alex. Without knowing him. Loving him. As warped and twisted and bizarre as that may sound, my first love was a ghost. The first, most intense feelings of my life were for a man I could never touch, never kiss—except once. And in that instant, I knew more about him than if I’d spent ninety years with him. I know he loved me. I know he will always love me. I know that at the end of my life, he will be there to smile at me as I cross over. I’ll get to see Alyssa and tell her all about her dad.
And I know that on the day I married Jason, somewhere in the back of the crowd that I never thought I’d have, he was there. I didn’t see him, he made sure to blend, but I felt him when the back of my neck tingled. I knew it was him. And when we got to the cake fiasco, there it was. One single perfect white rose, lying in front of the cake. Jason is the second and greatest love of my life, my future, my best friend. He’s my everything now. Alex gave me that gift.
Jason didn’t notice the rose; there were so many flowers around. But I knew. I didn’t even bother to look around, I knew I wouldn’t see him. I picked it up with my hands shaking a little. Just held it to my lips and closed my eyes, saying good-bye. Again.