Page 15 of All the Things We Buried

FOURTEEN

DORIAN

I searched for Lenore for hours, but she wasn’t there. She had disappeared, and no matter how hard I searched the crowd, I couldn’t find her. She was nowhere to be found.

Then Cameron came stumbling toward me. Sophie’s cousin. My friend. His hands were covered in blood, his eyes wide with panic. He grabbed a fistful of my shirt and shook me.

“She, she…”

“Who?” My heart slammed in my chest. My thoughts jumped straight to Lenore. She wasn’t here. Had something happened?

I grabbed his collar, yanked him closer. “Who?!”

“S-S-Sophie…” he stammered. Tears streaked down his face. “Sophie died.”

“What?” I stared at him, not understanding. “How?”

He didn’t answer. He just pointed to the woods.

I followed the sound of people screaming. My legs moved on their own, carrying me down the dirt path, through the trees, until I saw her.

Sophie.

She was sitting upright, like someone had posed her. Like a doll. Her hair had been shaved off. Her teeth were missing, all of them. But her lips were stretched in a smile. Her eyes stared at me with a hollow, glassy stare. Whoever did this had wanted her to suffer.

I felt bile rise in my throat. Her white dress was soaked in blood. That familiar metallic stench filled my nose. It pulled me straight back to the night I found Ian. I turned away before I could be sick, stumbling back toward Cameron.

But before I reached him, I saw Troy. He was the cousin who worked for The Mechanic. He had been the one meant to drive the van during the robbery. He was looking at me. I knew he recognized me.

I had to hide, and fast.

People were puking and screaming all around. I could already hear sirens in the distance. I couldn’t be there when they arrived.

I sprinted through the woods, dodging branches and roots, until I saw Gloomsbury Manor rising through the trees. The front door creaked open as I reached the porch, as if it had been waiting for me. I ran inside and slammed it shut behind me.

Vivian stood at the top of the stairs. She looked right through me, her expression empty. Hollow. She didn’t say anything. Just turned and kept walking.

She was sleepwalking again.

I ran upstairs. As I reached the attic door, I saw her again.

Vivian was looking at me.

The lights went out throughout the entire house, and I heard screams.

“Lenore,” I whispered, trying to back away, but she wasn’t there. I rushed to her room, but she was gone.

Screams came from downstairs.

I ran down and saw the maid standing at the front door of the master bathroom. It had a large bathtub inside, and as I pushed past her, the lights flicked on.

Lenore was floating in the tub.

Her body was covered in carved words. A razor was still in her hand. Her eyes were closed, and the water had already turned red.

I ran to her and jumped into the bath, grabbing her body and shaking her face to wake her.

“Trouble,” I whispered.

Her eyes opened barely.

That was when I saw the words she had carved into her skin: Fake. Faith. Dream. Not worth it. Weak.

We never really know. We never know what people carry inside.

And she carried so much. So much fucking pain.

She always thought of everyone else, never herself.

And now the words, the ones I had always struggled to say to her, were screaming inside me.

All at once. I didn’t want to lose her. I couldn’t.

I slapped her cheeks again, but she had lost so much blood. There was blood everywhere.

I wanted to hold her forever. Take all those words from her and wear them myself. Because I had them too. I knew what she was going through. I had been there.

Ezekiel came in, screaming, and tore her from my arms. He carried her away. His eyes were a bright light blue now. I could have sworn they were green the other day, but I couldn’t focus on anything except her.

I needed her back.

I needed her in my arms.

I heard the car door open outside. He was taking her to get help. But then I saw Troy, standing at the top of the hill.

I froze.

He knew.

They had found me. And now they knew about her too.

“Fuck,” I said, punching the doorframe.

They knew now.

They knew where I lived. And soon they would know about Lenore. They would want to take her. They would ruin the only real thing I had left in this fake world.

And I couldn’t let that happen.

I couldn’t let it happen to us.

I ran back up to the attic. Slammed the door shut behind me.

Vivian was gone.

I tried to grab what clothes I could, ready to run, but the attic lights flickered again. The air turned colder.

In the corner sat a blonde girl with bright blue eyes. She watched me. Then she whispered,

“You will hurt her if you leave.”

“I have to protect her,” I said.

I knew she was a ghost. One of the many that haunted me. But she was the only one who ever brought me any peace.

“You can protect her if you stay, too,” she said.

“They’ll find out about her,” I said. “I have to protect her before they do.”

“You’re a dummy,” she said as she stood. “You’re going to lose the only real thing in your life.”

“Maybe I deserve to,” I said, picking up the plastic tank with Nagi inside.

“Maybe you do,” she said, walking toward the mirror. “But she doesn’t.”

She touched the glass with her fingertips.

“Love never dies,” she said. “It haunts.”

And just as I blinked, she disappeared.

“Fuck” I punched the air before I sat down on the bed. “Fuck.”

The sky bled a soft gray through her window, and I slipped inside before everyone could see me. She was still asleep. I took the chair from beside her closet and sat down like I had done it a thousand times in my head, but never for real, never this close, not like this.

I just looked.

Even wounded, she looked like poetry. Broken in the way old songs make you feel something you can’t name. And fuck, I felt it all. Every beat of her heart was like notes I had no right to hear. Every breath like a confession I never deserved.

I told myself I wouldn’t come back here. That last time had to be the last.

But here I was, again. Always. Obsession is cruel like that. It doesn’t ask permission. It moves in and waits.

I didn’t touch her.

God, I wanted to. Just her hand. Just to remind myself that she was real and not some fever dream I kept replaying in the back of my skull.

But that’s the thing with forbidden love. It’s the pain you choose to carry. Pain, you welcome because it’s the only part of them you’re allowed to have.

She stirred a little. Her lashes fluttered, but she didn’t wake. I could’ve whispered her name. I could’ve crossed the space between us and broken everything.

Instead, I whispered it to myself like a prayer I had already been damned for.

Why is it that when you love someone you shouldn’t, it tastes sweeter? More dangerous? Why does it bury itself deeper in the bones, like something that won’t rot, no matter how much you starve it?

I don’t know what this is anymore. Love. Obsession. Madness. Maybe all three.

But I do know I can’t stay, and I can’t leave. So I just sit here, suspended in a moment I’m not allowed to have.

I promised myself I wouldn’t touch her. Wouldn’t speak. Wouldn’t dream.

I’m lying to myself.

I want her.

Not just the way a man wants a woman. Not just skin or mouth or the taste of her name when the lights are off and no one’s listening. I want all of it. Her thoughts. Her silences. The way she turns her head when she’s trying not to cry. The way she folds in on herself when the world’s too loud.

God, I want to pull her into me so tightly that the universe forgets where she ends and I begin.

But I can’t.For now. Even if I don’t know when “now” ends.

“You don’t need saving. You need someone to kiss you while the world burns inside your head. That’s me.” I whispered, “It will always be me.”