Page 77 of Ghosts Don't Cry

I drag my shirt over my head and toss it aside. The fabric is damp with sweat, saturated with her perfume. My hands move to my jeans, yanking at the buttons, but my fingers fumble and it takes three attempts to get them open. I’m still too aware of her, aching with the shape of her pressed against me.

She’s not just under my skin, she’s carved into my fucking bones.

I force the water on, cranking the handle as far as it will go. The pipes groan before the spray blasts down in an icy torrent. I step under it, letting it slam into me, punishing my overheated skin. The cold shocks my system, stealing my breath, but it doesn’t fucking help.

I’ve told myself for years that I didn’t remember her right. That her hair wasn’t that shade, her voice wasn’t that soft, and the way she looked at me was all in my imagination. I spentyearsconvincing myself I’d exaggerated the way she felt against me, and imagined the look she’d give me like she was convinced I could hang the moon for her if I fucking tried.

She wasn’t real.

That’s what I made myself believe. I had to, otherwise I wouldn’t have survived that first six months.

But my body remembers her too well. The way her breath hitched when I pressed against her, and she looked up at me, wide eyed, pupils blown, and lips parted. So fucking willing. As though she’d already decided she belonged to me again.

Like she’d never stopped belonging to me.

A groan rips from my chest, raw and broken. My head drops forward, forehead resting against the tiles. The water beats down on my shoulders and back, running in rivulets over the ink that covers almost every inch of my skin. I grab the soap, scrubbing at my hands and arms,anywhereshe touched. My skin turns red under the rough treatment, but her scent won’t disappear. It’s soaked too deep.

Dropping the soap, my fingers curl into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms. I need to stop thinking about her.

I need to stopwantingher.

She’s in my head, a fever under my skin that no drugs will ever be able to heal.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the memories push through anyway. Her scent. Her warmth. Her soft moans when I traced my fingers down her body. The way she shuddered when I pushed them inside her. The sounds she made when?—

“Fuck!”

The word bursts from my lips and I slam my fist into the wall. Pain flares through my knuckles and I welcome it. I hit it again, harder this time, relishing the crack of impact. It’s something to focus on. A target for rage that drowns her out.

Yet even with the pain spreading through my hand, my body betrays me. Even as I tell myself I hate myself for doing what I did to her, I’m still hard and aching.

The contradiction makes me sick.

Flattening my palm against the wet tiles, I reach down with my other hand, and my breath stutters as my fingers wrap around my dick. The strokes are fast, rough, and edged with disgust and need. A desperate attempt to exorcise her from my mind.

But I can hear her moans in my ears. All I can see behind my closed eyes is the way her body trembled against mine as she gave in to me. And all I can remember is the way she looked at me after, confused and hurt and still wanting.

I come with her name clenched between my teeth, spit out in equal parts curse and prayer, while the evidence of my weakness washes away, swirling down the drain and leaving me exhausted. But the shame stays. Because even this, even hating myself for touching her, doesn’t stop me from wanting her again.

I stumble out of the shower, taking hardly any time to dry off before walking into the bedroom and pulling clean clothes out of my duffel and dragging them on. The denim sticks to my damp skin.

I don’t care.

I need to get out of the house, out of my head, and away from the silence that lets her voice echo too loud.

My reflection mocks me as I drag a hand through wet hair. Tattoos cover every visible part of my body, marking every lesson I’ve learned the hard way. Scars tell stories I’ll never share. But all I can see are the ghostly imprints of her fingers where she touched me.

Fuck.

I spin away and almost run downstairs to the kitchen. There’s a bottle of whiskey on the counter, and I snatch it up, intending to pour a glass full to numb the edges and push her voice out of my mind.

You’re lying. To me. To yourself.

Her words cut deeper than any blade I’ve ever known. She saw right through me. Shealwaysfucking sees through me.

I have to get out of this house before I go insane.

Tom’s porch light glows in the darkness. I don’t do normal conversations and casual drinks. But the silence in my house is suffocating me, and the thought of spending another minute alone with my thoughts makes my skin crawl.