Page 9 of All the Things We Buried

EIGHT

LENORE

I woke up in a bed that wasn’t mine. White cotton sheets were wrapped around my skin, damp with sweat.

I wore the old white dress my mom had sewn for me.

The dress had hand-stitched lace at the collar, threadbare at the seams. The same dress she made for my sixteenth birthday, and last night, I turned sixteen.

But she wasn’t here, and this wasn’t the room I fell asleep in.

I looked around, my eyes searching for something familiar, but everything was off. I pinched the soft skin on my forearm, hard enough to leave a mark. The pain twisted in my gut. This wasn’t a dream.

On the wall, the clock ticked 3:18 a.m.

It was always 3:18 a.m.

I turned my head toward the corner, and the green wallpaper with faded white roses began to peel upward, curling like someone was stripping it back. But there were no hands. No one there.

And as I blinked, the wall started to bleed. A single line of blood ran down the wall like a tear, just before the hum began. Whispers floated toward me. And I stood frozen with my mouth open as I started to scream.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look away . My body felt pinned like someone was holding me, and in the corner, a mirror called out to me.

I blinked.

A woman sat on the bed behind me. She was upright, and her face was soaked in blood.

I blinked again.

She moved.

And it wasn’t my face staring back. It was hers now.

I blinked again.

The mirror no longer showed the room; now it showed the hallway on the second floor. The same green carpet, the same wooden floor. And there, stamped across the carpet, were wet footprints. Fresh. Leading toward me .

And near the window, staring at me, was a woman in a long white dress.

“Mom?”

She held the gold medallion she wanted to give me, but never got the chance.I got up fast, my heart beating so fast. I rushed to the mirror, hand outstretched. I needed to reach her. To touch her, even once.

I banged on it, over and over, my palms smearing sweat across the surface. “Mom!” I cried. But she only watched me with her empty eyes, with her lips moving without sound.

I heard it.

A bang at the door. Quiet at first. Then louder. Faster .

And I smelled it.

Damp earth. Like something had clawed its way out of a shallow grave and was standing just outside.

I could hear the footsteps creaking.

The doorknob twisted, and the door opened.

He stepped inside.

My stepbrother.

I screamed.

He slammed the door behind him, tossed a dirt-covered shovel onto the bed, and in two strides was at my side. His hand clamped over my mouth.

“Shhh,” he whispered, dragging us both behind the closet door. I could feel his warm breath against my cheek. “Quiet, Trouble. It’s not done hunting yet.”

I was trembling.

His chest pressed into mine. He was too close, too warm.

The rain trailed from his hair onto my dress in cold drops.

Every part of me screamed that it was wrong, but my heartbeat wouldn’t obey.

It thrashed against my ribs like it wanted out, like it wanted him . No one should feel this way. Not me.

But maybe it was the way he protected me when no one else did. Maybe it was the way he made me feel like I wasn’t broken, like I was worth protecting. Or maybe it was just that he stayed every time I needed him, every time the dark crept in.

Still, it was wrong. It was forbidden. And he didn’t want me. Who would want someone so broken inside?

“Shh,” he hissed, pinning me to the closet wall with one hand over my mouth. “Why do you breathe like you want to get caught, Trouble?”

I bit down hard. His hand snapped away.

“It’s called needing air , you idiot,“ I whispered back.

We could hear footsteps creaking across the hallway floor. I could still see my mom standing at the end of the corridor earlier, her silhouette like a shadow, and her mouth moving like it wanted to speak but couldn’t. She called me with a crooked finger.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Wrapped my arms around his neck.

He pulled me closer.

“No one will ever touch you,” he breathed into my hair. “Not while I’m alive.

A pause.

“Not even if I’m dead.”

It’s been a year since he came here. And in that year, my world changed. I changed. I wasn’t sick anymore, like he cured me. But something else came instead. Something colder. Something that hurt worse. My heart was in pain.

Loving someone you’re not allowed to love.

Even the slightest rejection feels like a knife slowly twisting.

Never mine to touch, but I broke myself trying to feel him anyway.

And when you already know there’s no future, when your soul still reaches for him anyway, every day begins to feel like a soft, private apocalypse.

You smile. You play the part. But beneath the smile, you are breaking apart.

And you carry that break like a secret only the bones understand.

And loving him is a wound I chose, because even pain with his name on it felt better than a life without it.

The lights flickered, then died. The footsteps stopped. And he let go.

Straightened.

And without a word, he walked toward the bed and picked up a shovel he had left there before.

And in just blink of an eye, we weren’t near the closet anymore.

“I have to go now,” he said, not looking at me.

“Dorian,” I called out before he could leave. My voice started to shake. “Why are you doing this?”

He turned halfway.

“Doing what?”

“Haunting my mind.”

I searched his face, every inch of it; the sharp jawline, the scar above his brow, full lips I shouldn’t notice, the black hair falling in wet strands across his forehead. Everything about him felt like a memory I wasn’t allowed to have.

“Why?” I whispered.

“Dead haunt. Living possess.” He stepped closer. Close enough that I could feel the chill roll off his skin. “And I can’t possess you.”

“They say you can’t possess a person,” I murmured, trembling again, backing away.

He smiled then, and it was cruel.

“I say they’ve never met someone worth owning.”

He shoved me gently.

Not hard.

Just enough.

Then opened the door.

“I don’t want to own you,” he said.

And slammed it shut behind him.

So I am not worth it? I am not worth owning in his eyes?

I stood there staring at the door as if I looked hard enough, he might come back. Like maybe he forgot something; his shovel, his guilt, me .

No footsteps came. No hesitation.

But his words stayed in my chest.

He cared . I know he did. I saw it.

He was my every reason, my every prayer, but I was never even a passing thought in his.

But caring isn’t the same as wanting , is it?

He never touched me. Never crossed the line, I beg without words. And still... I built a whole world out of nothing. I dreamed of us. I dreamed of one day I would be just his, and he would be just mine.

He was careful not to love me, and I was careless enough to hope that one day he would.

And now I’m choking on the ghost of something that never even lived.

God, I feel stupid.

I sat down on the bed and pressed my forehead to my knees, willing myself not to cry, not again, not over him. But the tears came anyway.

I made him a monster in my dreams.

A lover in my delusions.

A friend, to everyone else.

I turned him into everything I needed, even when he gave me nothing at all.

I remember once, he stood in the doorway to my room after a storm. I was curled up in bed, pretending to sleep. He didn’t say anything, just watched me. The way someone might look at something they weren’t allowed to touch.

And I thought… maybe.

But he never stepped inside.

Maybe I was always a line he wouldn’t cross. Mistake he didn’t want to make. Maybe I was just a wound he felt sorry for, not a heart he wanted to hold.

I told myself it was restraint. That he did feel it, he was just better at hiding it. Better at denying it. But maybe he never felt it at all. Maybe I was just convenient sadness to soothe. A girl he pitied.

How humiliating?!

How fucking pathetic to want someone who never chose you. To build an entire heart around a person who only ever held it out of obligation.

And I’m still here. Still holding onto a dream like it means something.

I wiped my face with shaking fingers and looked around my room. What was I supposed to do with all this love now?

Wish I could bury it, but all I can do is just pretend I have no feelings for him at all.