Page 54 of Ghosts Don't Cry

“Lily.”

“What if he’s right? What if I did convince myself I loved him because it felt good to be needed? What if Ididjust like being the only one who could reach him?”

“That’s not?—”

But I’m not listening to her. “Every time I brought him food, every note I left, every time I showed up when he didn’t ask me to … what if I was just proving something to myself? What if I turned his suffering into my hero story?”

“You were just a kid,” Cassidy says firmly. “You saw someone hurting and you tried to help. That doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you human.”

“I’ve built a life.” The words come out desperate. Surely, if I say them enough they’ll be true. “I went to therapy. I dated other people. I moved on, Cass. I fucking moved on!”

“Did you?”

The question is like a slap.

“I tried.” My hand presses against my chest, trying to ease the ache that never really left. “God, I tried so hard. I went on dates with nice guys who had stable jobs and healthy families. I smiled and laughed and pretended I was normal. But I compared every single one of them to him.”

She sighs.

“They didn’t stand a chance. None of them ever measured up.” My laugh is broken. “How stupid is that? What was there to measure up to? I told myself it was okay, it was because I was young when I loved him, and first love always feels bigger than it is. But seeing him again …” My voice breaks again. “It’s still the same. The way my heart stops when he looks at me. Everything else disappears. Seven years, Cass.Seven yearsof therapy, andmoving on, and building a new life, and he shows up on Main street and destroyed it all in thirty seconds.” I wipe my eyes. “Why does it still hurt so much?”

“Because you never got closure. There was no break-up fight or even an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ conversation. One day he was there, the next he wasn’t. You didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye.”

“It still feels like everything happened last week. And it reminded me that I didn’t just lose him, I had to live through what happened after.”

“What do you mean?”

“The whispers. The pitying looks.‘Poor Lily, falling for the wrong boy.’I was treated like some foolish girl who didn’t know any better. I couldn’t possibly have seen anything in him worth loving, so he must have done something to trick me.”

Isn’t that what Ronan claimed?

Cassidy is quiet for a moment, holding my hand while I try to pull myself back together.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.” And that’s the painful truth. “I can’t pretend he isn’t here, or that seeing him doesn’t break open every wound I thought I’d healed. But I also can’t …” I swallow hard. “I can’t be that girl again. The one who thought love could fix everything.”

“You don’t have to be. You need to be who you are now.”

“I don’t know who that is anymore.”

“Yes, you do. You’re someone who understands that loving someone and saving them aren’t the same thing.”

“I see him in my classroom sometimes.” The confession comes out quietly. “Nothim, obviously, but transfer kids who come in mid-year with too-small clothes and empty lunch boxes. Kids who flinch at loud noises and sit at the back and try to disappear.”

Cassidy’s thumb traces circles on my hand.

“There’s this boy, Marcus. New this year. Same haunted look Ronan used to have. Every time I pack extra snacks, or make sure he eats lunch …” My throat closes. “I see Ronan. Seventeen years old and starving, and I’m trying to save him again through every kid who walks into my classroom.”

“That’s not a bad thing.”

“Isn’t it? Doesn’t that mean he’s right, and Iamsaving people to feel good about myself? Maybe my entire career is just one long attempt to fix what I couldn’t fix back then.”

“Or maybe,” Cassidy says softly, “he taught you to see the kids everyone else overlooks. That’s not about you having a hero complex, Lils, it’s you taking your experience and using it to stop anyone else from fading away.”

The doorbell rings then, the pizza arriving right on schedule. Cassidy gets up to answer it, and I blow my nose while she talks to the delivery person. When she returns with the box, I’ve mostly got myself under control. The room fills with the familiar smell of Antonio’s special sauce.

She doesn’t push me to eat right away,. Rain falls outside, the drops hitting her windows in a steady, almost soothing rhythm. I lean my head against her shoulder, letting the sound wash over me.