Page 85 of Ghosts Don't Cry

Now I just have to figure out what to do with a love that never died.

The front door opens. “Lily?”

Cassidy’s voice carries through the apartment. I close my eyes, and prepare to face my best friend. She’s the only one I can trust to listen while I try and explain something I barely understand myself. Taking a breath, I walk out to meet her.

She’s in the living room, coffee carrier in one hand, bag of bagels in the other. Her eyes sweep over me.

“Oh, honey.” She sets everything down, and pulls me into her arms.

Chapter Thirty-Three

RONAN - AGE 18

The warmthof the library wraps around me. Between these shelves, time moves differently. I’m not the outsider, or the homeless kid. I’m just another shadow among shadows, losing myself in words that make more sense than life.

Paradise Lost sits open on my lap, but I’m not seeing Milton’s words. I’m thinking about last night. It was cold,toocold. My muscles ache from sleeping on the ground, I have a constant headache. I can’t remember the last time I slept properly. But it didn’t matter last night. It was worth it. Becauseshewas with me.

Her scent hits me first, and my body responds before my mind catches up, heart stumbling over itself, skin warming because it knows she’s near. These days, she’s written into my skin, carved into places I didn’t know could feel anything.

She appears at the end of the row, moving with the confidence of someone who knows what she does to me. Last night, she traced constellations on my skin, connecting invisible stars with her fingertips, while we lay tangled in blankets she’d brought with her for warmth. The memory of her touch still burns.

“Found you.” Her whisper carries through the quiet.

The space between us crackles with energy. Ever since that night, her birthday when everything changed, touching her has become as necessary as breathing. As dangerous as dreaming.

She settles in the chair beside me, but that isn’t close enough. Not anymore.

“Paradise Lost?” Her fingers brush mine as she touches the page, and the contact sends heat straight through me. “A little heavy for lunch time reading.”

“I needed something to focus on.” Something other than the memories of how she feels when she’s in my arms.

“How’s that working out for you?” Her voice is teasing as she shifts closer, her thigh pressing against mine.

Instead of answering, I stretch out an arm and wrap it around her waist. She comes willingly when I pull her closer, lifting her onto my lap. The book falls forgotten as she threads her fingers through my hair.

“We’re hidden here.” Her breath fans across my lips. “No one comes to this section.”

When she kisses me, everything else fades away. The cold, the thoughts of what I need to do to survive. It all disappears beneath the touch of her mouth. She tastes sweet, and it makes me forget why I shouldn’t want this.

She twists, straddling my legs, and rocks her hips against me in a slow roll. Stars explode behind my eyes. My fingers slide under her sweater, finding warm skin, and she shivers, pressing closer, until I can feel her heart beating beneath my palm.

“Ronan.” She presses kisses along my jaw. “Can I come to the factory tonight?”

I should say no. But her skin is like silk beneath my fingers, and her eyes hold the promise of a future I’ve never allowed myself to imagine.

“Please?” She rocks against me again, and coherent thought scatters. “I need you.”

Those three words undo me every single time. She shouldn’t need me, or want me. She shouldn’t look at me as though I’m something worth having.

“Okay.” The word comes out rough. “Tonight.”

Her smile lights up the darkness inside me.

Later, after school, when the sun has set, she arrives carrying her backpack, and more blankets.

“It’s freezing in here.” Her voice carries worry, the way it always does with each temperature drop as winter takes hold.

She drops her things and moves into my arms, winding hers around me and pressing close. “How are you not frozen solid?”