I step into the room and trail my fingers over the dresser, stopping on a box of unopened cigarettes. “That boy and his bad habits.” Reece’s father chortles, but there are still tears in his eyes. His voice trembles as he adds, “Feel free to take anything you’d like. I don’t know how else to thank you for giving me a last goodbye. A proper goodbye. God, that was the worst night of my life.” His voice breaks with the onslaught of more tears. “‘Scuse me.” Mister Winters leaves to collect himself while I scour Reece’s room.
“So, this was you?” The walls are a storm blue, the bedding matched to the exact shade. There is a small nightstand that I open. Instantly, I want to slam it shut, but I lift the box out and hold it up to Reece with questions in my eyes.
“Uh,” he stammers as his eyes grow even wider. “Yeah, but it’s unopened.”
True. I toss the box of condoms back in the drawer, not saying a word, and not wanting to imagine him with someone else. What the hell is wrong with me? He’s dead after all, but for some reason, there is a spark of jealousy in my chest.
Moving to the closet, I snag a large black hoodie that says Ride or Die on the back. I tug it on over my head and lift my hair out. The hoodie hangs mid thigh and hides my shorts. When I look up, Reece’s eyes darken from his usual chocolate to nearly black.
“That looks damn good on you.” Reece’s voice sounds like gravel in his throat, and it only causes my face to heat and my legs to freeze. I turn away from him, ready to leave, but before exiting I snag the pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his dresser.
Mister Winters waits in the living room. “Thank you,” I say and gesture to the hoodie.
“Of course.” He walks me out of the house, thanking me again. I make it halfway down the driveway when he calls. He holds up a finger as he runs back inside, and a moment later the garage door opens.
Mister Winters walks out with a black motorbike. “Would you want this?”
“What?” The breath is knocked out of my lungs. Is he seriously giving me a motorbike?
“It was Reece’s and you look like the type that might,” he stops and shrugs before continuing. “He would have wanted you to have it.”
Beside me Reece says, “I want you to have it.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I nod and step up to the bike, gripping the handlebars. “Thank you.”
“No, Jadyn. Thank you.” He folds the keys into my hand, holding tightly and offering a gentle shake to my hand in gratitude, then releases his hold. Reece’s father walks back up to the house and the garage door closes a minute later.
I jump on and start it up, the engine sputtering to life. Tugging the helmet off the handlebar and pulling it on, I ask Reece, “You coming?”
He grins as he saunters over, climbing on behind me. His hands grip my hips as he edges as close to me as possible making my body hum with the contact. “I’ll go anywhere with you.” He wraps his arms around my waist as we take off down the road.
* * *
We make it to the cemetery as the sun begins to set. I park the bike on the gravel drive just inside the gate. We walk past George, Beverly, Ryan, and Emma, over the hill, and down to the other side, to the lone gravestone of Reece no-middle-name Winters. The evening summer air is still too warm for a hoodie, so I reach for the hem at my thighs and tug it over my head.
A weight in the middle pocket reminds me of the pack of cigarettes and the lighter. The idea of seeing Reece the way he was when he was living stirs something hungry inside of me. A beast all too willing to give him what he may crave. I pull the cigarettes and lighter out ready to have my first smoke.
In a quick movement, Reece snatches the pack from my hand and unwraps it. When his eyes meet mine, his lips lift and my heart lifts. We both feel high together. He has peace with his family, and I have peace with him.
We lay in the grass facing opposite directions, our heads next to each other. He hands me a cig from the pack. I lite it and take my very first drag, blowing the smoke out steadily. His eyebrows jump as he watches me.
“What?”
“Most people usually cough their first time.”
Reece snatches the cig from my fingers and inhales, blowing the smoke skywards in a smooth exhale of smoke. He passes it back to me, his face suddenly filled with loss.
It’s my turn to ask. “What?”
“I can’t taste it.”
“Maybe it’s too old.” I toss it down and stomp on it, grinding it into the dirt with the ball of my foot, but Reece remains quiet.
“I couldn’t feel it,” he whispers, his voice hollow.
He doesn’t turn to me, too lost in another life. One that I was never a part of. “Reece,” I call, trying to bring him back. I reach up and run my fingers through his hair. He can feel this, can’t he? He did before. The other night. This morning. Why can’t he feel now?
Come back to me.
“I just want to be able to do those things again.” This time when he looks at me, his dark eyes are hard and determined. “I want to feel your hands in my hair. I know it’s there,” he says as he reaches up to hold my hand, “but the sensation is gone. I want to be able to taste things.” His gaze drops to my lips, and my body heats.
Our faces are upside down, but I tilt my chin up ever so slightly putting my lips in line with his.
Reece notices the movement. He doesn’t look at my eyes though. He remains focused on my mouth, and when my tongue darts out, his chocolate eyes darken. “You shouldn’t kiss me.”
“Why not?” This time I’m embolden to ask. This time, I want to know why he’s scared because for once I’m not.
“I’m not real.” His voice is filled with aggravation as he pushes up, leaving me to lay on the ground. His words are so heavy with honesty that I can’t move for a moment after the weight of them. I can’t breathe. He thinks that he isn’t real, and maybe to most he’s not.
But if he isn’t real, would I be able to see him?
If he isn’t real, would I be able to talk to him?
If he isn’t real, would I be able to touch him? Even if he can’t feel it anymore?
Maybe he can’t feel me, but I can feel him. I sit up, determined to ask him those questions when I spot Reece puttering on my iPhone. “What are you—” I don’t get to finish my question. He cuts me off by hitting a button and slow music begins to play. I know this song. It’s old.
“What a Wonderful World?” I ask.
He stands and holds his hand out to me, his voice low as he asks, “May I have this dance?”
Placing my hand in his, he pulls me up against his body. I wrap my arms over his shoulders and run my fingers over the short hair at the nape of his neck. His hands rest on my waist as we slow dance to the gentle music.
“Jazz?” My grin stretches over my face as he shakes his head, looking to the sky as if it holds all the answers.
“My ma used to listen to it all the time when I was little.” Reece shrugs, but continues, “I never grew out of it. If anything, the older I got, the more I enjoyed it.” I rest my head in the crook of his neck as we slow dance over his grave.
“I’m the monster of my story, Jadyn. I not only ended my life, but I ruined my families lives, too. I get that now. No one else was to blame. It’s all on me. But I’m here now. You can see me and feel me and hear me, and like hell am I going to let that chance pass me up. So don’t give up on yourself.”
He stops our swaying as the song changes. With a finger gently guiding my face upwards, our eyes meet. “I know why you visit the graveyard at night. Promise me you won’t give up.”
“But what if it gets too hard? What if she hates me too much?”
Reece smirks and says, “Still don’t give up.”
“But we could be together.” It’s a terrible thing to think, to say, and I know that, but I’ve never felt better than I do when I’m with him. For once I have someone in my life who cares about me, who doesn’t think I’m a witch. It’s selfish, but I never said I
wasn’t.
“I don’t want that for you. Not this. I want you to live. Live for me.”
“Are you saying goodbye?”
He nods for a moment before adding, “I think there’s a reason I can’t feel anymore. You gave me what I’ve been needing this whole time.”
“What?”
“Peace. You gave me a final goodbye to my dad. He heard me one last time. And this time I wasn’t drunk or high. Dead, sure, but,” he shrugs and adds, “He heard me.”
This is it. I don’t want this to be the end. I don’t want this to be goodbye, but I don’t know how to stop it. What did I think would happen? That I’d get to keep him like some ghost pet? That I could date him? Love him? Be with him? There’s no happily-ever-after for a ghost and a girl.
“I have to let you go, Jadyn. I have to let you live.”
“I don’t want to lose you, Reece.” My voice rattles with fear as the idea of losing him slowly settles in my bones.
“Tell you what. You can come back every year on this day, but that’s it. You need to forget me. You need to live a life without me. If you remember me, if you still want to see me, that’s the day you can come back.”
“One day?”
“You’re alive, Jadyn. You have the whole world ahead of you. You can go anywhere, do anything, be whoever you want to be. Of all the things out there, you shouldn’t be trapped with the ghost of a dead boy in a cemetery.”
I want to protest, but he doesn’t let me. “I’m dead, Jadyn. In another life, we could have been so much more than this, but I can’t hold you back here. You helped me. You helped my dad. So now it’s my turn to help you. Don’t stay in this shitty town. Don’t stay for me or your ma. Go wherever it is you need to go. Help others the way you helped me. You have a gift. Don’t waste it.”
Tears trek over my cheeks. A part of me deep down that I don’t want to let out just yet, knows that he’s right. Wrapping my arms tightly around him, I cling to his steady frame. A whole year without him, but I know I’ll manage. As much as he may want me to move on, I know I’ll never forget him.
He’s taught me that not all the dead are strangers in the night looking for someone else to live through their deaths. Without him, I wouldn’t have learned that the dead might understand me more than the living. “I love you, Reece.” Because I do. Not in any romantic way. If he were alive, that might be a different story, but this is the hand we were dealt. This boy is worth so much love, and he deserves to know that as he goes back to rest.
“Till death do you part?” He smirks, playing it off like he’s kidding, but I see the wish in his eyes. The longing for life, for normalcy, for relationships. I’ll live for him, but I’ll also keep our relationship as alive as he’ll let me. Once a year.
My lips tilt upwards at his words, as if we could be married in another life. As if we were meant to be before life got in the way.
“Even then,” I whisper, knowing that if there’s anyone I want to love even in my grave, it’d be him.
His tongue darts out and licks his lips.
My gaze lowers.
“You shouldn’t kiss me,” he whispers.
“I don’t care.”
Digging my fingers into his hair, our lips meet. It’s the softest touch, but it’s there. It’s cold, like kissing an ice cube. Then the cold is gone, the chill melted away leaving nothing but the warm evening summer air and a tingle on my lips.
I pull back and open my eyes. Reece is gone.
He’s at peace.
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More Books by Madalyn Beck
Poetic Embers
Dragon Hearts & Dandelion Fuzz
The Last I Love You
A TALE OF a heartbreaker prince and the young sorceress who puts a tragic spell on him—it’s no surprise he wants revenge—but first, he must understand what it truly means to be called a monster.
Unlovable
Jessica Bucher
Copyright 2017 Jessica Bucher
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The Curse
I COULD STILL hear the howling as I sped through the trees, running as fast as my legs could take me. Anger still coursed through my hands, and that biting hatred buzzed under my skin. How could he? Never mind the betrayal or the heartbreak, I was too full of rage to acknowledge them. I trusted him, and he turned on me.
His face flashed through my memory as I ran. The moment that I discovered it was him hiding under that helmet kept replaying in my mind. The moment I cursed him too.
I had no idea what my magic did to him. All I remember was pulling that magic from a place of pulsing rage and sending it straight into his heart. For all I know, it could kill him.
I gasped for air and my legs begged me to stop but I had to keep running. I ran for my safety, but also because it kept my mind from settling too long on the reality at hand. Theo betrayed me. Just last night we were careening the dancefloor together at the masquerade ball. I had never felt closer to anyone in my life. Just last night, we spent the evening in an embrace under the moonlight. He kissed me. He told me he loved me.
I had never been happier.
Then, this morning, I expected to see his smiling face, as I had every day this week. I expected to hear the love in his voice again, see his smile, feel his touch. Instead, there was a dagger at my neck and a rope around my wrists.
That coward couldn’t even face me. He hid behind his helmet and ambushed me without saying a word. But when I freed myself from his ties and pulled the helmet from his head—
I faltered. My knees gave out beneath me, and I tumbled to the unforgiving forest floor. A sob escaped as I brushed the broken leaves from my robe and started to trot again. But there wasn’t an ounce of energy left to flee. My knees gave out again and I dropped to kneel before a fallen tree. I gasped for breath, and as my heart started to slow, the sob I was holding became a silent cry.
I hated myself for crying over him. But the two images of him, in the moonlight and in the light of day, would not reconcile. My mind would not accept that those two were the same. And although I hurt him, and I ran from him, it also felt as if I were leaving him behind.
The sound of footsteps jolted me from my tears. They were faint, stomping footsteps—a group of people trampling through the forest. I pulled my cloak over my head and bent down against the fallen tree to hide. Using my magic, I urged the forest to hide me and make me appear like a boulder. It would not let me down, but it also would not work for long. I prayed the group would pass without stopping.
The footsteps grew closer, as did the voices. They were men, and from the sound of it, about half-a-dozen of them. I did not recognize their voices at first until, that is, they got a bit closer. Then, there was one voice that stood out from the rest—the bounty hunter.
He had been hunting me down since winter, and every day he drew a bit closer. I felt his presence in the village all week, but as long as I stayed near Prince Theo, I was safe from his grasp. I had dragged him across the country for months. His following had decreased over the weeks, but their stupidity never wavered. They followed his lead, convinced that finding me was a worthy cause, or that the gold would be worth it.
As for him, his bloodthirst was something else altogether. He hunted me in a way that was terrifying. He didn’t care about the reward, I could tell. He hunted me because he loathed me, or rather loathed everything I repr
esented to him.
“Did you hear that howling?” one of the huntsmen said.
“A bear, sir?” another replied, the lisp in his words giving away the fact that he had less than a handful of teeth.
“That was no bear. It was a man.”
“The witch’s work, for sure,” the toothless goon countered.
Then, the bounty hunter bellowed, as if he heard nothing that the other men said. “She is headed for the pass through the mountains. I heard talk from the castle this morning that she was spotted nearby. She could not have gone far.”
“Why would she run now? She’s been in the village all week.”
“With the Prince, no less. Are you sure we can trust their word?”
“I suspect we are no longer the only ones hunting her,” the hunter seethed. “If she was getting close to the Prince, it was only because of her evil gift. And only a matter of time before they figured it out. And I’ll be damned if they catch that bitch before us.” At this, the men jeered.
“That howling could have been a diversion,” an old voice whispered.
“She ain’t that clever,” another huffed, sounding almost angry.
“Women rarely are,” a smaller voice mumbled. I rolled my eyes as the old men laughed. They passed so near to me that I feared they would see me or hear me breathe.
They all paused and looked up the wooded hill to where the sound of the howling call seemed to originate. I did not breathe or move, and it felt like a lifetime before they spoke again.
“Sir, we are losing our lead on her. She has surely reached the lake by now.” Again, with the lisp.
The men mumbled their agreements. Finally, the bounty hunter turned to face the mountain range to the east.
“Let’s get a move on,” said the hunter. “We will reach the lake by nightfall. And tomorrow, we will find that witch and take her head back to the village to retrieve our bounty.”
Beast: An Anthology Page 8
