Page 116 of Ghosts Don't Cry

I force myself to take a breath. Then another. My hands are still trembling when I put the car back into gear and start driving again, easing back into the afternoon traffic. Instead of driving through Main Street, I take the back roads. That way I won’t have to pass the school where my career might be ending, and I won’t have to deal with seeing faces of people who are probably already spreading rumors through town about my suspension.

And then I realize where I am. The old factory appears ahead, its windows dark against the afternoon sky. And there, parked in the shadows where I used to leave my car … is Ronan’s Honda.

My heart skips a beat, then races to catch up.

Why is he here?In the place where everything between us began. Where it ended. Where …

I told him less than twenty minutes ago to stay away from me. I walked away from him. I need to rebuild the walls around my heart so I can continue with my life.

But in that moment, none of it matters, and it doesn’t stop me from pulling my car in beside his and cutting the engine. If I drive away now, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering, tryingto understand what really happened that week. I’ll never get answers to the questions I’ve never had the opportunity to ask.

My fingers curl tighter around the steering wheel, and I take a deep breath, then force myself to open the door and step out into the cold air.

Going in there means risking hearing things that will hurt me more, but not going in there means living without closure forever.

As I make my way toward the entrance, it dawns on me that for the past seven years, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid driving past it. Now I understand why. Some part of me knew I couldn’t face this place without it opening old wounds I’d patched over and told myself were healed.

Weeds push through the cracks in the ground, and I step carefully, making my way to the room he claimed as his own. I try not to think. I don’t want to let anything take over except the need to understand.

When I reach the doorway to his room, I stop.

Ronan is on the floor near the wall where he used to sit. His hands are pressed to the ground, fingers splayed wide. His shoulders are hunched so far forward his spine curves. His head is bowed, face hidden.

But it’s his hands that make my breath catch. They’re bleeding. Raw and scraped, fingertips dark with blood and dirt.

For a moment, time jumps and the man he is now is overlapped with the boy he used to be.

Eighteen and desperate. Twenty-five and still running.

My heart pounds against my ribs. Every beat hurts. There’s a lump in my throat that I can’t swallow past.

He looks … broken. The way he’s folded in on himself, the tremors I can see in his shoulders.

This is what coming back here has done to him. Whatever he came looking for, whatever he hoped to find, it's clear he didn'tfind it. And now I'm here, about to demand answers he doesn't want to give me.

But Ineedthem. After seven years of not understanding, of building my life on assumptions that might have been completely wrong, I need to know the truth.

“What do you mean you were dying?”

The question bounces off the walls. He doesn’t move, but I see the tension ripple through him. His shoulders lock. His fingers press harder against the ground, and fresh blood wells up around his torn nails.

I take another step forward.

The room seems smaller than I remember, or maybe I’m just more aware of everything now. The broken windows. The cold. The space between us.

“In the parking lot.” My voice comes out steady, surprising me with its firmness. “You said you were dying. Tell me what you meant.”

His head swings toward me. For half a minute, he just stares at me, and I can see him deciding whether to answer. His eyes are dark. There’s a wildness in them that I recognize from that last night. It’s the look of an animal that’s been cornered with nowhere left to run.

His tongue wets his lips. When he finally speaks, his voice is rough. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Of course it matters!Why would he even say that?

“Seven years, Ronan.” My voice rises, despite my efforts to control it. “Seven years of not understanding why you turned so cruel. And now you’re telling me you weredying?”

All the signs I must have missed. If I’d looked harder, I would have seen it … wouldn’t I? Maybe I wasn’tsupposedto see it. Maybe that was the point.

“You don’t want to know this, Lily.” His voice drops even lower, becomes almost a plea. “Some stories are better leftburied and forgotten. Turn around. Walk away. Pretend you never met me.”