Facade

My words seem to be the wrong thing to say because they upset her more. Finally the tears are slowing and she’s trying to sit up.

“Do you want to go look for them? Need me to help?”

Another shake of her head. “Mom’s at home, last we knew. Maddox told me later. Plus, I need to be here with you. I need to fix things with you. They… I’m where I need to be right now.”

Her words don’t make any sense, but I know it’s big. Know it’s part of whatever brings those ghosts to her eyes. But I can’t figure out what I have to do with any of it. What she thinks she needs to fix with me… Ice crystalizes my spine, giving me this weird feeling where I don’t know if I want to let her speak or kiss her until there’s no room for words between us.

“Adrian.” She reaches forward and puts a hand on my cheek. That ice is spreading. “I wish there was a way for you to see how wonderful you are. You’re smart and you have a poet’s heart and soul and I never expected to fall…” Her voice breaks off, but she pushes through. “To fall in love with you. No matter what, you need to know I truly did. That I do love you.”

My muscles start to spasm. Tighten, cement encasing them. I pull back, letting her hand fall. Wanting to grab it again but unwilling to let myself. I have no clue what the hell’s going on here, but it’s wrong. I feel it. I need her to talk and hold the words back at the same time.

“What are you talking about, Delaney?”

She tries to grab for my hand, but I shake her off.

“No games. What’s going on?”

Delaney takes a deep breath. Her hands shake, but nothing like the earthquake that goes off inside me at the sound of her next whispered words. “I know… I know about Ashton.”

I push off the bed. My heart thunders. My hands fist.

“Find! me! Find me! I hiding!”

Ashton, Ashton, Ashton.

How does she know about him? What does she know?

“You really need to start talking fast.” I’m pacing the room. Suffocating. The walls are getting closer and closer to me. Delaney. My ghost. She knows about Ash.

“I went to see your sister… to see Angel. Maddox told me not to, but I just… It was close to the a

Her words start fading out, but I man the fuck up and find a way to keep listening to her. She knows my sister.

“It was something I wanted to do for a long time. I just didn’t know how to do it. Just to say I’m sorry. Just to try and, shit, I don’t know what I wanted to do.”

She’s talking fast. Questions are rapid firing in my brain. Why would she need to apologize?

“I couldn’t believe it when she forgave me. That we were okay and I thought… after that I thought things would somehow be better. And then Mom tried to kill herself again and it suddenly didn’t feel like enough anymore.” Fear darkens her voice. “I had to do something to help make it right. I don’t know. I guess if I thought I earned your forgiveness, everything would start to be better.”

Forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness.

“Forgiveness for what?” The words struggle to squeeze past my lips through my tensed jaw.

“Play! Play with me!”

“Just a minute, Ash. I’m making a phone call. We have to celebrate.”

“Cel-bate!”

“When we first came here, I thought… I thought I could try to find you and we could talk and I would tell you everything that happened and how much I hate that my—”

My insides shatter at that. No, not even shatter, they turn to dust, blow away, lonely and lost. “When you first came here you thought you would talk to me? You fucking came here looking for me! Looking for me and you didn’t say anything? Was this all some kind of fucking game to you?”

“What? No.” She pushes off the bed and tries to step toward me. She’s shaking all over, but I’m still so confused. How the hell does she know about Ash, and why is she acting like it has anything to do with her?

“Don’t. Finish talking.”

“I’m going to tell you everything now, Adrian. I promise. But I need to explain something first. I thought maybe we could help each other. Maybe… it would bring us some kind of closure to talk to each other, but then I wasn’t sure if I should tell you and the longer I waited the harder it was because you turned into more than just the guy whose life was tied to mine in tragedy. You became… everything.”

I stop. My feet won’t move. I can’t walk as I turn my head to look at her. I feel nothing right now. Empty. Hollow. “How are we tied together? What the fuck ties us together that has to do with Ashton?”

Her eyes are soft and pleading, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t trust them.

“Don’t fucking play games with me. Tell me.”

Her eyes water again and there’s a part of me that wants to go to her. That wants to try and fix it, but I can’t. Not after this. Not when I know it’s somehow about to get a whole lot worse.

“My dad was supposed to be working out of town… but he wasn’t working. He was with his girlfriend.”

Two occupants in the car. Caucasian male driver and a woman.

“Where were they? Tell me where they were.” I feel like I’m cracking apart. One minute I can’t move and the next I can’t stay still. She hasn’t said anything, but I don’t need her to. I know. I fucking know, but I need to hear it, too, even though I don’t want to hear it.

She nods. Tears stream down her reddened cheeks. Her ghosts have multiplied, reflecting in each and every one of those tears. “I’m sorry, Adrian. I’m so very sorry.”

I fall back against the wall. It holds me up. The room blurs. “Say it. I need you to say it.” I don’t know where the words came from. How I got them the hell out.

“Adrian.”

“Say it!” I yell.

“My dad… it was him. He was going too fast. He’d been drinking. His girlfriend distracted him.”

I’m shaking. Rocking back and forth. “And?” “What are we going to do tonight? I need out of the house.” I lean against the door while I stand on the porch. I look over at Ash as he walks around the front yard.

“They were messing around. They weren’t paying attention around the curve. They drove into the yard. And…” A cry breaks free. I can hardly understand her as she speaks. “And he hit him. He hit Ashton.”

A scream jerks out of me. I yell until my throat burns. My legs collapse from under me. My head drops back against the wall as I sit there, legs out in front of me. There’s nothing left. I’m gone…

All this time, Delaney knew.

“Chase! Let’s play chase!”

I look over at Ashton and he smiles. It hits me in the chest, the way he looks at me. It always does. Like I’m the king of the fucking world or something. “I gotta go,” I say into the phone.

“Yay! Let’s play, Daddy!”

Tires wail. A car flies toward the yard. Ash’s smile. His big fucking smile and his big brown eyes that I see every time I look in the mirror, looking at me like I can do anything. So fucking happy just because I’m going to play with him. His whole future ahead of him. Happy. He’s so fucking happy as I see the car come at him.

Happy because he thinks we’re about to play. Happy because he loves me even though I don’t deserve it. Happy because he’s perfect, and I didn’t protect that perfect. Because he doesn’t know what’s coming.

“Noooo!” I don’t even make it to the porch stairs by the time the car hits him. His tiny body flies through the air, lands in front of me. Blood… so much blood.

“Nooo!” I fall. Pick his little body up. Broken… he’s so broken. He’s not smiling. He’s gone. That quickly, he’s gone.

I push to my feet as the driver stumbles around my yard. My fist co