Page 36 of A Ballad of Phantoms and Hope

Drink on the beach at night/camp out

Ride a train somewhere new

Visit Ireland’s Trinity College Library

Save a stray plant

Seeing our agendas blended like this makes my heart still. It looks like lovers’ plans for their honeymoon or dreams scrawled over a napkin quickly in a diner. I think of how much this list must mean to him. To find his peace.

I smirk at the last one. Lanston shrugs as he says easily, “You’ve inspired me.”

My lips curl at the corners and I raise my pinky. “Promise you’ll save one?”

His smile is slow and thoughtful, then his pinky meets mine and warmth blooms between us. “Already planning on stealing a watering tin.”

Lanston’s eyes are etched with red, weariness pulling at him like an intruding storm. I smile through the anguish that drowns me.

I can’t tell him that I’m leaving.

His eyes flick down to my lips, remaining there, and finally, he whispers, “Will you stay with me?”

Will I stay?

He falls back against his pillows and then I understand. I grin and nod, pulling the sheets back, cozying in beside him and turning off the bedside lamp. We face each other, foreheads almost touching.

“I meant what I said, you know,” he says in a low, hushed tone.

“What?”

“That I like you.” His eyes are half-lidded and he has a drowsy grin that’s enough to stop my heart.

I shouldn’t have come here with him.

“You know I like you too, Lanston,” I say quietly, sounding guilty.

He just chuckles a few times and pulls me in closer, wrapping his arms around me and pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

“Promise?”

I swallow.

“Yeah.”

It’s quiet. His breaths have grown heavy.

I lean back slowly and look up, seeing his lashes flutter with dreams. I inch my way out from beneath his arms and shift until I’m sitting on the edge of the bed. I look back at him, keenly aware that I’m doing exactly what he did a few nights ago that I got mad at him over. His beauty demands attention. The sadness that etches his slumbering features calls to be observed and studied.

“I hope you find everything you deserve in this world,” I whisper, my lips so close to his that I fear he might wake. My hushed voice falls upon his dreaming mind, and I tell him, “I’m sorry.”

His face is unbothered; he heard nothing, but it still feels better that I said it. “You’re such a lovely creature, Lanston. Even though you see yourself as a wolf wearing tattered, thin skin; I see the warm, white coat beneath it. You’re only afraid for others to see your beauty. Hush that fear, darling. Let yourself be free.”

I press a kiss to his forehead and let my fingers glide through his soft, light brown hair.

“Ophelia,” Lanston murmurs softly, dreamily.

My smile fades and I brush his cheek one last time before standing and leaving his room. I walk out Harlow Sanctum’s doors and down the long stretch of driveway leading away from it. My feet carry me past towns and bridges until I’m standing inside my dark opera house once more.

I can never leave. I am a phantom made to remain, to haunt the abandoned, lonely places of the universe. There will be no dark corner where I am not. For here, I stay.