Page 113 of Ghosts Don't Cry

“No!” I yank my car door open. “I can’t do this again with you.”

“Lily, wait.”

“No.” I slide into the driver’s seat, my whole body shaking. My lip is throbbing. I’m sure I’ve split a stitch. But I don’t want to take the time to check in the mirror. “Stay away from me, Ronan. I mean it. Just … stay away.”

This time when I drive away, I don’t look in the rearview mirror. I can’t. Because if I do, it might destroy the pieces of my heart I have left.

Chapter Forty-Five

RONAN

I don’t remember gettinginto my car after she drives away. I don’t remember turning the key, or pulling out of the parking lot. My hands move through the motions—shift, brake, accelerate—while my mind replays her words.

I wanted you to let me in.

I wanted you to trust that I was strong enough.

I wanted you to believe that loving you wasn’t a mistake.

The taste of her lips is still on my tongue, mixing with the copper tang of blood from the cut. My mouth burns with it. The memory of her body against mine sears through my skin, a fever I can’t shake.

I drive without direction or purpose, until the old factory appears ahead of me. A monument to everything I was … everything I lost … everything I threw away. The hollow skeleton of brick and steel where I almost died stands exactly as I remember it, a gravestone marking the death of who I used to be.

I shouldn’t be here.

But I park the car and get out anyway, my feet carrying me forward, drawn by a pull I can’t deny. The door groans when Ipush it open, rusted hinges resisting the movement, louder than it was seven years ago when this place was my only shelter. My only home. A silent witness to what I was becoming.

Inside, shadows stretch across the crumbling concrete, every corner holds memories I’ve spent years trying to forget. The air hits me first, thick and stale, tasting of dust and decay. The temperature drops immediately, colder than it is outside.

My body knows this place. Remembers it in ways my mind has tried to erase. My shoulders hunch automatically against the cold. My breathing turns shallow. My fingers twitch, phantom pains ghosting through nerves that haven’t forgotten.

Broken glass crunches under my boots. Graffiti covers walls that used to be bare—tags and profanity that wasn’t here before. But the layout hasn’t changed, and the shadows still fall in the same patterns.

How many nights did I spend here, shivering under stolen blankets, and counting breaths until morning?

Up ahead, the old office awaits. My entire world for a while. Sunlight filters through the broken windows, painting patterns across the floor. The same patterns I used to trace with shaking fingers while pain and hunger clawed through my veins.

The memories come faster with each step, rushing over me in waves that knock me off-balance.

The first time Lily found me here, burning up with fever, my body betraying every secret I tried to keep. Her cool hands against my forehead. The worry in her eyes. The way she forced Tylenol between my lips, whispering words of comfort.

My hands shaking as I wrote poetry across her skin, trying to tell her everything I didn’t dare say out loud. All the things I felt, but was too scared to tell her.

Her body, warm and willing beneath mine that first time, when she gave me something I did not deserve. The taste of her skin. The sounds she made when I touched her. The way shelooked at me afterward, like I’d just given her the world when, in reality, it was the other way around.

I stop at the threshold of the office space. Cigarette butts and broken glass litter the floor now. Empty bottles. Fast food wrappers. Signs of others who have passed through, seeking shelter in this house of memories.

My fingers brush the wall where I used to lean, reading by moonlight until Lily brought me a solar-powered lantern. It’s just as cold as I remember, and rough against my palm. Each breath I release sends clouds of vapor into the air. Visible proof that I’m still breathing, still haunted by ghosts that won’t let me go.

The phantom taste of blood fills my mouth. The bitter burn of pills is a memory on my tongue. It all rushes back, so vivid I can almost feel it happening again.

My box should be here. Hidden in the gap behind the loose brick, wrapped in plastic to keep it safe. My journals. My books. Every word I wrote about her. Every piece of myself I couldn’t take with me.

I cross to the wall, fingers finding the familiar crack. My heart hammers as I work it out of place, but when I reach inside, my fingers find nothing but empty space.

No.

My stomach twists into a knot. That box was the only thing that proved I existed here. I tear at the bricks, scraping skin off my fingers, breaking nails.