Page 127 of The Silent Note

“Who is it, Grey?” His gaze meets Sloane’s head-on. “It better not be a guy. Don’t think I’m above being jealous of a ghost.”

I swallow hard, all the light amusement seeping out of me when Zane spins around and stares at me with those prying blue eyes.

“Why won’t you tell him about me?”

I get up.

Zane’s eyes follow me as I pace back and forth. The gravity in his expression tells me he’s not going to let this pass.

“You’re being ridiculous.” I try to keep my tone light. “I’m just talking to myself. Everyone does that.”

“I know you’re seeing something. And I know it’s been with you for a while,” Zane says before folding his arms over his chest.

I startle. “When did you start noticing?”

“Since the night at the nursing home.”

That was a while ago.

“And you didn’t bring it up until now?”

“I wasn’t sure until now, babe.”

I give a terse shake of my head. “So you think I’m crazy?”

“I think you’re seeing someone in the room right now and you still haven’t told me who.”

“Well?”my best friend urges.

Zane walks right up to me and looks down from his unfairly imposing height. “There is nothing you could tell me, nothing you couldeverdo that would make me love you less.”

A jagged inhale saws through my lips and cuts down my throat. He’s saying all the right things but I know he won’t look at me the same. Not after this.

I’m Grace Jamieson. Born of a single mother, born of struggle. I lived in a terrible neighborhood all my life. Wore hand-me-downs and thrift store clothes by necessity rather than by choice.

I came from nothing, and yet I’m a woman who overcame the odds to get a scholarship to Redwood Prep. Ultimately, I became a teacher at the elite academy where I use to mop the floors and take out the trash.

Accomplished.

Driven.

Strong.

Grace Jamieson is not the woman who sees visions of her dead best friend. She’s not the one who has, what most in the medical community would call, a mental breakdown.

This entire time I’ve been seeing Sloane, I’ve accepted it with a dry indifference. Mostly because, if I pried too deeply into it, I’d unearth something like trauma.

And women who look like me…

If we fall down the rabbit hole of trauma, there’s no climbing out. So it’s better to just bury it. To carry on. To be strong.

Strong.

I’ve always been strong.

Zane cups my jaw, letting his thumb drag across my cheek. “Look at me.”

I jerk my head back.