Page 23

“It’s been a year now, one year without you.”

I look down at the grave of my girlfriend. She didn’t deserve to die like that, and I’m still not over it. I don’t think I’ll ever really be.

I’ve been dating other men and women, but it never really feels the same, even though I know it’s what she would’ve wanted.

I feel all alone in all of this too. After the death of Taylor and Ryan, there’s been no one I can talk to about her either anymore.

I knew she had difficulties, but then she killed Ryan and herself. Ryan's friend Felix found them after he had a bad feeling and went to check up on them. They were both dead on the bed, their throats slit. I was supposed to help her talk about it as a former psychiatrist and then she became sick and now I just don’t know. Maybe I should’ve gone inside that day. Ryan was acting all weird with his friend, and I saw someone else walking through the door opening. Maybe he was cheating and that’s why Taylor killed him.

I’m sobbing until I hear a branch crack. I look around but don’t see anyone.

Oh, come on now, Addie, you are being paranoid again. Ever since that haunted city incident I had as a teen, I’ve been looking around for shadows, for him. The man with no face.

I can’t explain it because I don’t remember anything from back then. All I know is that I went as a dare with my friend to a ‘ghost town’ and then when I woke up, they were all dead and I was covered in blood. They brought me to a mental institution, thinking I killed them. I know I didn’t, but no one believed me, not even my parents.

But still I get these dreams of a masked man and I feel like he had more to the story, that I didn’t just make him up in my head.

After a couple of years, they released me for not having enough proof I actually did it, but no matter, the damage was done, and now it’s just me again. Well me and my shadows.

Something moves from afar to the left and I squint my eyes trying to look at it.

I think there’s someone standing at the tree further, but I’m too far to fully see it. It’s odd because from here it kind of looks like Mara. But that can’t be. I saw her corpse before we buried her, and I was the one who identified her when the cops found her.

“I wouldn’t stay too long here. Cemeteries are made for the dead, not the living.”

I almost jump out of my own skin and look behind me, seeing Felix, Ryan’s best friend, standing there.

“Ah, yeah, what if I prefer their company over the living?”

I ask him. He snorts and looks behind me, going completely still.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he seems scared, which is something I would’ve never guessed seeing on him before.

“What’s wrong?”

I ask him. He shudders and looks at me and then back behind me, releasing the breath he was holding in.

“Nothing, Addie. Let’s get out of here.”

He places his hand on my back and walks me out.

I guess he’s just as paranoid as I am.