Haunted Heroine

by Sarah Kuhn

  My head snapped up to see Richard leaning in the doorframe, smug smile firmly in place. His blue eyes glittered with satisfaction.

  “You’re going to tell me everything,” I commanded. I stood and drew myself up tall, trying to give him my most intimidating superheroine look. Trying to find all that strength I’d felt earlier, when I’d hurled the plate while my friends cheered me on. “What’s going on? What did you do to Julie Vũ? And why do you have a freaking shrine to me on your bedroom wall?!”

  He chuckled and pushed off from the doorframe, sauntering across the room to meet me. He looked so unbothered. Which only served to stoke my rage even more.

  “Oh, Evelyn,” he said, reaching out to brush my hair off my face. I slapped his hand away. I felt my face getting hot again, that explosive anger beating against my chest. “You always had so much potential. And you were so feisty when I pushed you.”

  “Answer me,” I hissed. “Are you so desperate for attention that you lured me here under the pretense of a class reunion and then haunted the college so I’d chase after the mystery and hang out here longer and then, I don’t know, end up falling in love with you?”

  “I have missed you so,” he said, gazing at me fondly. “And yes, many of the ghostly encounters have been engineered to appeal to you specifically. I mean, a girl crying over taking care of her sister? A young woman of color who felt overwhelmed by all her responsibilities? Another who felt like she never quite fit in?” He laughed heartily, throwing his head back so all his snow-white teeth showed.

  “Engineered by who?” I pressed. “Just you or—”

  “Ah-ah,” he said, shaking a professorial finger at me. “That’s by whom.”

  “Fuck you very much.” I batted his finger out of my face. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I did want to get you back here,” he said, his gaze softening. “I thought if I could get you to return, maybe you could finally fulfill all that potential I saw in you so long ago. That you could finally become great.”

  “I am great,” I hissed at him. “I’m a fucking superhero. And even if I wasn’t, I certainly don’t need your validation. My life is perfect. It’s everything I want. It’s full of adventure and love and I’m going to have a baby, a family—”

  “Ah, yes.” He smirked at me. “Poor Evie. That’s what you always wanted, isn’t it? People to love you unconditionally—god knows your parents didn’t. Otherwise, why would they have left you alone to raise that out-of-control brat of a sister?”

  “My mom died of cancer, asshole,” I spat out. “And Bea has grown into an amazing person—”

  “But it’s no thanks to you, is it? She had to find her own way, after you ruined her beyond fixing.” His smug smile widened as he leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Have you ever told her about that night—when you made that decision? When her behavior forced you to make that decision, I should say.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice shook a little, my hands fisting at my sides. This conversation had very quickly gotten out of my control and I felt like I was scrambling around in the dark, trying to figure out how to get it back on track. This had always been one of the most infuriating things about Richard—no matter how obviously he was at fault, he had a knack for turning things around so you were on the defensive. And I hadn’t been able to see that so clearly until now.

  “Oh, you know,” he said, his smug smile never wavering. “You forget, Evelyn—before your hulking brute of a husband came into the picture, I knew you better than anyone. And frankly . . .” He cocked an eyebrow, his eyes scanning my face. “I think I still do.”

  “I can assure you that is most definitely not true,” I snarled.

  “Then why do I know what you refuse to admit—even to yourself?” he said.

  “What’s that?” I snapped. I was trying like mad to keep the shake out of my voice, the tremble out of my body. I tried to just feel that rage again . . .

  His smile widened again and he leaned in so close I could smell his flowery cologne. “You were always going to quit. You never had what it takes. You were weak, and at the first sign of any trouble, you crumbled. And you left.”

  “I left because . . .” I stopped abruptly.

  Because you made me so mad and then I caught you fucking someone else and accidentally burned down the library and I couldn’t deal with the idea that I was two seconds away from destroying everything else around me.

  But I couldn’t say that part out loud.

  “I decided this wasn’t what I wanted for myself,” I said.

  “Ah, you don’t remember, then,” he said, gloating. “You confided in me one night after a particularly passionate lovemaking session. You told me you were so tired, you just couldn’t do it anymore. That you had to take care of that brat sister of yours, because your love for her was more important than fulfilling your potential, than being truly great. Of course I tried to convince you otherwise, but you would not be swayed. You told me some garbled story about peanut butter, of all things. How that’s what decided it for you.”

  I shook my head, frantically digging back through my memory. What was he talking about? I remembered that night with Bea and the peanut butter . . . I remembered how I’d barely turned in my paper on time the next morning, and how I’d gone to Richard’s place after and passed out in his bed. How we’d had sex later, and then . . .

  I frowned. What had happened after that?

  We’d talked for a while, but I barely remembered it. I’d been so sleep-deprived and full-body exhausted after staying up with Bea all night, and I’d been rambling . . .

  “And then you left without so much as a good-bye,” Richard said, putting on a faux-mournful face. “That’s when I knew you’d actually followed through with it—you’d chosen the brat.”

  “Whatever I chose,” I said, trying to draw myself up tall again, “I’m happy with it. I’m happy with my life.”

  “You can’t lie to me,” Richard said. “Maybe you can lie to your himbo husband, but I know you better than that. If you were truly happy with your life, you wouldn’t be here, would you? Chasing ghosts and spending so much time with your ex.”

  “I’m doing my job—” I sputtered.

  “Are you?” he retorted. “Because you seem to be failing on that front as well. Honestly, Evelyn, if you were going to choose the brat over your future . . . well, you should have at least made it worth it. But from what I can see, she’s an out-of-control freakshow—”

  “Do not talk about Bea,” I growled.

  “—and you can’t even perform your superheroine duties in an adequate manner,” he continued, ignoring me. “What have you done since you’ve been here? Gotten drunk off of dorm party punch, run around campus trying to chase down ghosts with your friend, and utterly failed at protecting the young Morgan students you’re supposed to be saving from harm.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Not what?” he said, his eyes glinting with triumph. “Shelby’s still withdrawn and sad, Pippa’s been through a horrible kidnapping ordeal, Tess has been kicked out of the ghost-hunting society, and Julie Vũ’s in the hospital.” He leaned in, relishing the way tears were starting to prick my eyeballs, the way my face was flushing with frustration. “How do you expect to save these children when you can’t even save yourself? And how do you expect to bring a child into this world . . .” He smirked at my abdomen. “. . . when you’ve done such a piss-poor job at accomplishing anything in your sad little life?”

  “Stop,” I hissed, my tears spilling over. “Just . . . stop.”

  “I still love you, Evelyn,” he said, reaching over again to brush my hair off my face. Now I was trembling too badly to stop him—I couldn’t tell if it was from rage, from frustration, from sadness . . . maybe from all of the above. “Come to me when you want to be great. When you’re ready to
be great.”

  “Richard . . .”

  Tears were streaming freely down my cheeks now and my throat was so tight, I could barely gasp the words out.

  I reached up to push his hand away.

  And my hand passed right through him.

  “What . . .” I looked at my hand, then back at him.

  His smile was so smug now, it looked like his face was about to break in half.

  “Farewell, Evelyn,” he said.

  Then he vanished into thin air.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I BACKED AWAY from Richard’s office, my face wet with tears. My breath was coming and going in short little gasps and I couldn’t catch it, just as I couldn’t stop my heart from beating faster and faster and faster. I tried to tell myself to inhale, hold, exhale—but my brain wouldn’t calm down long enough to process that. It only wanted to run.

  I stumbled a little further down the hall, then broke into a sprint, catapulting myself down the massive staircase and nearly crashing into one of the plastic skeletons. I tripped over my high heels on a particularly treacherous stair and almost fell flat on my face, my hand shooting out and latching on to the harsh metal of the banister just in time. I righted myself and ran down one of the narrow hallways on the second floor, shoving aside ghost and bat decorations littering my path, flinging myself into one of the corner offices. I collapsed onto the floor and sobbed. Big, wracking, heaving sobs that felt like they’d been bottled up for years.

  I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around what I’d just seen, what it all meant. I couldn’t get past Richard’s—or Ghost Richard’s?—words to me, each one like a dagger in my heart.

  He was right. I had failed Bea. I had failed the Morgan students I was trying so hard to help. I couldn’t even help myself. And I was about to be the worst mother ever.

  And as for the rest of it . . .

  I hugged my knees to my chest, trying to catch my breath.

  You were always going to quit.

  You were weak.

  You left.

  I flashed back to the day after the Bea Tanaka Peanut Butter Incident: me running up those creaky Morgan Hall stairs to turn my paper in, tossing it in the big plastic blue bin Professor Connolly always left out for us, then sleepwalking my way over to Richard’s.

  I’d been so exhausted, practically delirious. I remembered luxuriating in the softness of his freshly laundered sheets against my skin, feeling cradled by his cloud-like mattress and the fluffiness of the velvet duvet. And as I’d drifted off for a few hours of much-needed shut-eye, a single thought floated through my head . . .

  I have to quit.

  Now, sitting on the floor of Morgan Hall, I hugged my knees more tightly to my chest, those words echoing through my brain on an endless loop.

  The more I paused on that thought I’d had a decade ago, the faster the memories flooded back. I remembered waking up later, still exhausted. My eyes were so tired, they felt like they were being stabbed by a thousand tiny knives. I remembered telling Richard I’d decided to drop out.

  I just couldn’t do it, couldn’t try to balance all the chaotic, conflicting pieces of my life anymore. I couldn’t cling to a future that was never going to happen, a dream that probably should have died as soon as my father left—as soon as I was given the task of raising Bea.

  I’d always told myself I decided to leave because of the library disaster. Because I was upset and confused and betrayed and I couldn’t stand the idea that I might hurt someone with my power. I’d told myself that story so often, it had just become the truth. I’d made it the truth.

  But the real truth was, I’d decided long before that.

  And the reasons behind my decision had been smaller and sadder and more pathetic—I couldn’t handle it. I’d been failing hard at every single part of my life. I had to choose one that maybe I could fail at just a little less. I was weak, just like Richard had said.

  I buried my face against my knees and sobbed again. For the girl I’d been, for the girl I’d tried to raise. For both of those girls, who’d never had a chance to simply follow their dreams and flourish.

  A hand fell on my shoulder and I nearly jumped out of my skin, my heart rate spiking. My head snapped up and I saw a dark, hulking figure looming over me, blurry around the edges thanks to my tears. Too big to be Richard—real or ghost version.

  I blinked a few times and the figure came into a hazy sort of focus, his dark eyes gazing down at me with concern.

  “Nate?” I whispered, barely able to believe it. Was he another ghost, a mirage? A product of my delusional, grief-stricken brain?

  He didn’t say anything, just sat down on the floor next to me and gathered me in his arms. He was so warm, so solid, and his fresh, comforting scent was all around me.

  “You’re real,” I whispered, turning my face up to him.

  “Of course I am,” he said, pulling me closer. One of his hands cupped my face and his thumb stroked down my cheek, brushing my tears away. His eyes were lit with so much tenderness, and I wanted nothing more than to collapse against him and sob and let him hold me. But his presence, his solidness, brought me back to reality, made me remember that beyond the Richard Ghost forcing me to admit the truth of my past and have a full-on meltdown . . . well, there was a Richard Ghost. And both human Richard and Ghost Richard were definitely engaged in something shady.

  “Sorry,” I said to Nate, hastily scraping a hand over my eyes and disentangling myself from him. “I’m fine. I need to talk to Aveda—”

  “Evie.” He grabbed my hand, his brows drawing together. “You’re clearly not fine—just as you haven’t been fine for the past two months. I . . . I know we’re not in the best place right now, I know I said we needed time apart, but . . . Bea and Aveda both told me you have been very . . . distressed. And I needed to see you.”

  “How did you find me?” I said, my voice small.

  “Your phone,” he said, his worried look melting into slight amusement. “I have everyone in the household on Find My Phone—Bea too, even though she’s moved away. No locator spell required.”

  “I . . . I just need to get myself together,” I insisted, trying to quell the tremble in my voice. “I need to . . . to . . .”

  I trailed off, my voice wobbling dangerously. I felt so completely lost.

  “Evie.” Nate ran his hands over my shoulders, and I found myself leaning into their warmth. “Please let me worry about you. Just for a moment.”

  I met his eyes, searched his face. All of that tenderness I’d been missing for so long radiated back at me. No matter what, he always made me feel safe.

  Something unfurled in my chest, a long-held tension releasing. Every worry I’d held so tightly, every bit of sadness and grief and frustration at myself for not being able to protect the people I wanted to came tumbling out.

  I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t even try.

  I collapsed against him fully.

  I sagged into his chest like a deflated balloon, buried my face against all his comforting solidness, and cried. I felt like I might never stop. His arms went around me, pulling me close.

  My tears soaked the front of his black t-shirt, my sobs heaving through my entire body. Eventually, I’d cried so much, I didn’t have any tears left. My sobs devolved into sad little gasps, pathetic hiccups.

  Throughout it all, Nate never let me go.

  “Talk to me,” he finally whispered against my hair. “If you can.”

  “I . . .” Another sob rose in my throat, and I tried to shove it down.

  “When we spoke before, you said you were scared—that you didn’t know what would happen when the baby got here, and if you could handle everything.” Nate’s voice was so gentle, so coaxing, my eyes filled with tears again. “Is that’s what’s going on?”

  “I am scared,” I said,
my voice thin and wavery. “But I . . . I don’t think I realized why. Or how deep that reason was buried. It . . .” I swallowed hard, determined to soldier on. His hand smoothed my back, urging me to continue. I kept my cheek pressed against his chest, drawing comfort from his warmth. “It has to do with . . . before. When I was trying to go to school here and raise Bea and work . . .” I raised a hand to wipe tears from my eyes. “I failed. I failed so hard. And I didn’t leave this place because I burned down the library—I decided before that. I dropped out because I couldn’t take how overwhelmed I was, and I was doing so badly at everything. My solution was to run away. And even running away didn’t mean things magically got better. I sucked at raising Bea. It’s a miracle she finally found her way—but maybe she would have found it faster if I hadn’t totally fucked everything up. And I just . . . I know I’m going to fuck everything up now, too. I’m already doing it. I . . . I . . .” My tears spilled over, the sobs rising in my throat yet again.

  “Evie.” Nate put his hands on my shoulders and gently pulled back from me, forcing me to meet his gaze. “How is it that this is how you see yourself?”

  “What do you mean?” I whispered.

  “How can you think you’ve failed—at anything?” His gaze bore into me, so direct and intense, consternation overtaking his harsh features. “You did what was right for you and for Bea at the time. You made that choice because deep in your heart, you knew it was right. You love her more than anything. How can that be wrong? And how can you look at her now and think . . .” He shook his head. “She’s thriving, can’t you see that? She had to find her way there on her own, but she wouldn’t have been able to do that if you hadn’t taken such good care of her. She knows that, too.”

  “But what if . . .” I trailed off, shaking my head. I didn’t even know where I was going with that. That fear, that idea that I was about to mess everything up, was still wrapping its ice-cold fingers around my heart.

  “Life is rarely perfect,” Nate said, leaning in to touch his forehead against mine. “But from the moment we met, from the very first time I kissed you, from all the other firsts we’ve had together . . .” A slight smile tugged at his lips. “You’ve taught me that sometimes the best things in life are unexpected.”