Page 36 of Ghosts Don't Cry

Maybe not everything needs to stay buried.

Did he know that coming back here would mean I’d have to face Lily again?

My reflection catches in the darkened window, and I turn to look. My shoulders are broader than they were at eighteen, tattoos cover my arms, my torso hidden by the T-shirt, my back and my neck. Muscles flex where bones used to show through. But seven years has changed more than my body.

The boy who slept in a factory and stole food is gone. The prisoner who learned to rewire panels and read blueprints has served his time. But the man standing here … I’m not sure who that is yet.

I know how to survive. I know how to work. I know how to fix broken things, at least when they’re made of wood and wire and concrete.

But people? Those are problems I don’t have blueprints for.

Tomorrow, I’ll go to the hardware store for wire, circuit breakers, and everything else I need to make this place safe. I’ll start the work.

Everything else—judgmental neighbors and the memories that plague me—they can wait.

Chapter Thirteen

LILY

Mom’s kitchensmells like home—garlic and herbs, tomato sauce simmering on the stove, fresh bread warming in the oven. The familiar scents usually wrap around me like a blanket, but today they feel suffocating.

She doesn’t look up when I walk in, just waves to the cutting board on the counter where vegetables are already waiting. We fall into our usual rhythm of me chopping everything for the salad, while she does everything else, both of us moving around each other in a dance perfected over the years.

The radio is on low in the background. Some easy listening station that she’s tuned into for as long as I can remember.

“How’s your class doing with the ocean unit?”

“Good. Marcus tried to convince everyone that sharks are just big swimming dogs.”

She smiles. “That sounds like Marcus.”

“Rose called this morning. She wants to know about Thanksgiving.”

“It’sOctober.”

“You know your sister. She likes to plan ahead.”

“I might stay home this year. It’s Cassidy’s first Thanksgiving without her mom.”

Mom nods, but she’s barely listening, her attention somewhere else.

I move on to the tomatoes. “Do you want these diced or wedged?”

“Wedged is fine.”

The oven timer dings. She pulls out the bread, and the scent of rosemary and garlic fills the kitchen. For a moment, it almost feels normal. Like any other Sunday. But then I catch her glancing at me when she thinks I’m not looking.

“Set the table?”

I dry my hands and gather plates from the cupboard. The good ones, because it’s Sunday, along with the cloth napkins she embroidered years ago. I lay out two place settings, leaving the third spot empty.

It’s been four years since Dad died, and I can still picture him at the table. The way he’d sit back and listen when Mom and I would circle around difficult topics. He never inserted himself unless asked, he never took sides.

I could use that now. That steady, quiet, certainty that everything would work itself out.

“Wine?” Mom holds up a bottle of red.

“Please.”