Page 110 of Ghosts Don't Cry

I snatch up the bottle and force myself out of the factory. Each step sends shockwaves through my body. I shuffle past the diner where she convinced me to sit with her, past the librarywhere we hid in the stacks, past the places I’m going to haunt forever.

The walk takes forever. My vision narrows to a tunnel, the edges spotty and dark. Streetlights bleed into each other, watercolors running together. I stumble, catching myself against a wall, then force myself to keep moving.

The entire time I keep one thing focused in my mind.

Feldman’s store. There are cameras, alarms, all the things I’ve spent months learning to avoid.

My feet know the way. Her memory keeps me company. What I have to do keeps me upright when my body wants to collapse.

I know what they’ll think when they find me. Just another junkie looking to steal so he can get his next fix. Another kid who chose wrong. Another story that ends the way everyone thought it would.

They won’t see the truth.

This isn’t about stealing, or drugs, or any of the things they’ll put into their report. This is about a boy who’s watched this story play out before. One who knows how it ends, and is willing to give one last desperate chance to choose a different ending.

The lock is easy. I make noise. I make mistakes. I fumble with the doorknob. I trip over the threshold and knock into a display rack. Cans scatter across the floor. I set off every alarm I know how to avoid in my sleep.

And somewhere in the distance, I hear sirens.

I sink to the floor, head falling back against the counter, and tip out pills, four of them, and swallow them dry. They stick in my throat, choking me, but I force them down.

The sirens get louder.Closer.

Closing my eyes, I think about Lily, and the note I left in her pocket. My truth hidden in a goodbye.

Red and blue lights flash through windows, visible behind my eyelids. Car doors slam. Footsteps approach. Voices shout commands I can barely hear over the ringing in my ears.

I stay where I am. I don’t fight, or run. I couldn’t run, even if I wanted to. I don’t bother speaking. My voice is gone anyway, destroyed by coughing up blood.

I just let them see what’s left of me, and I let them do what I can’t.

Hands grab me, rough but not cruel. Someone checks my pulse, and shouts for an ambulance. Someone else is reading me my rights, but the words are garbled and don’t make sense.

The last thing I see before they drag me out is her name, written in my blood on the white tile floor.

Lily.

Some stories don’t get happy endings. But maybe some endings help other stories find a better path.

Maybe she’ll forgive me someday.

Maybe she’ll understand.

Maybe she’ll forget about me.

The sirens wail as they load me into an ambulance, and everything goes dark.

Chapter Forty-Four

LILY

The grocery storedoors slide open with a quiet hiss, and I force myself to step inside. I probably should have waited until after the board meeting before coming out in public, but my kitchen is empty, and I can’t hide in my apartment forever. I grab a basket and keep my head down, moving through the aisles and trying to avoid other shoppers. If I stay quiet enough and don’t make eye contact with anyone, hopefully they’ll leave me alone.

It's a futile hope, because this is a small town, and everyone knows everything that happens here.

Conversations die when I pass, only to resume in whispers once I’m far enough away that I can’t hear the words, just the sound of their voices. Kate’s mother sees me in the fresh fruit aisle and actually turns her cart around, wheeling away as though my presence might contaminate her.

That thought makes me laugh quietly. The hypocrisy is strong, considering the things her own daughter gets up to.