Haunt Your Heart Out

Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Cornish hens were a hit, as always. Isaac and Levi loved having a whole bird each, and not a scrap was left on any plate. As much as I mocked my parents for their annual Christmas Eve dinner choices, it wouldn’t be the holidays without their perfectly portioned, neatly arranged dishes.

When I was a kid, they topped our plates with shiny metal covers that we got to pull away with a flourish. We were royalty, being presented with the finest meal. Lost in the magic of the moment, not worried about something as far away as the future. Adult Jordan spent dinner inching her chair away from her husband’s while putting on an excited show for the kids who hadn’t yet had the Christmas spirit sucked out of them by arguments and infidelity.

After dinner, James corralled the kids for a few rounds of hide and seek. Jordan and Lucas disappeared again. My father packaged up the leftovers and scraped plates clean while my mother and I scoured pans and cleaned up the post-Christmas-Eve-dinner mess.

“Has Jordan apologized to you?” my father asked.

I shook my head.

“I told her she should. She’s being ridiculous. It’s always something with that girl.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “She’s figuring it out the best she can, Dad.”

“I’m not sure what she and Lucas are arguing about this time, or how you got in the middle of it, but I’m willing to bet it’s his fault. She’s lucky I didn’t send him back out that door to spend the holiday alone.”

“The kids need him here. Honestly, Darren,” my mother scolded him.

I sniffed back my opinions to avoid ripping into them about when I was a kid, and I needed them. It was done. I’d survived. There was no sense in punishing them for it, but I could make the effort to grow our relationship now that I’d made it through.

“So, James is lovely.” My mother swished the sponge in the soapy dishwater, wrung it out, then set to work wiping the crumbs and stray seasonings away from the countertops.

I balled up the greasy tin foil that had topped the birds and tossed them into the trash. “He’s pretty great, Mom. I’m enjoying spending time with him.”

“He has some interesting things to say about you, you know,” my dad said. He snapped the top on the last of the leftovers and stacked the containers into a teetering tower, too tall to carry in one go.

“Darren, goodness.” My mom rushed to help him with the stack. It was nice to see them working together at something other than making me feel unaccomplished.

I took over wiping down the surfaces. “I’m sure he’s got lots to say about me. We’ve been spending a lot of time together. I don’t know how much longer it’ll last, though. He’s almost done with the show they’re filming, and … well, you know how it is around there. People come and people go.”

“He says that you’ve turned the store into something quite special.”

It was the first time my mother had mentioned the bookstore without a shudder. It could have been the wine, or the fact that I’d already had one shouting match that day, but I wanted nothing more in that moment than to brag about myself. Let them know that I could do something for myself, even if everyone else thought I was wasting my time.

“You know, I have. Charles is a pain in the ass, as always. I mean, you knew him back when you were in high school, right? That guy just sticks to his guns no matter what. I didn’t want to see the store fail so I took things into my own hands. He has ideas here and there, but I have turned them into things that work. He’s almost on board with the ‘If you liked, you’ll love’ blind-book-date table. I’ve worked with local crafters to sell little items, and I think it’s done well enough that I can move to bigger book and café adjacent things. Mugs, carved bookends, that kind of thing. I’ve been managing the social media for the store, too. Interacting with local artists and writers, getting some buzz for the little things I can pull off without Charles’s explicit approval.”

“I didn’t know the store was on the social medias,” my dad said. “Probably a good idea, given the popularity of those websites.”

“Exactly. And I’ve been looking into options for selling some of the more valuable books online. If we could tap into estate sales or even start an antique book consignment program, we could expand to online sales. Not that Charles would be interested, I guess. I can’t even convince him to swap to online bill pay, so I’m sending out checks to pay the bills. Such a waste of paper.”

“You’re managing his accounts?” my mother asked.

“Yeah.” I dried my hands and flipped the dish towel over my shoulder. “And payroll, and keeping track of sales numbers. I’m kind of his one-stop-shop for all things bookstore.”

The corners of my dad’s mouth turned downward, but it wasn’t a frown. The way his eyebrows arched, he looked almost … impressed? My mother tipped her head, her eyebrows likewise raised. She slid a piece of pie onto the last plate and submerged the empty pie dish in the bubbly sink.

I grabbed the tray, walked to the living room, and called the crew in for our annual showing of The Grinch , complete with dessert. Christmas Eve was the only time we were ever allowed to eat somewhere other than the table—even as an adult, it felt like a special treat.

We exchanged gifts the next morning, the tree lights glimmering across the surface of a sea of discarded wrapping paper and packaging. My father despised glitter, so I chose the sparkliest packaging available simply to irk him. The glitter shedding was minimal compared to the carnage that came with two kids tearing into their gifts. Not a corner of gift packaging was spared.

My mother had wrapped a gift for James, a hunter green Henley. I hated the fact that it would probably become my favorite article of clothing he owned based on the way his eyes popped against the deep hue. Though she had her flaws, gift-buying was her best skill. Whether she made the purchases herself or tasked a professional to do it, I’d never know—but there was magic in opening a package with her handwriting on the tag.

Jordan and Lucas pretended—admirably well—to like the knife set I’d found during my last-minute shopping trip with James. The stomp rockets I got the kids were appreciated. By Levi and Isaac, at least. Plus, Jordan’s glare was worth it.

My parents were impossible to buy for. My father had everything he could ever want. A membership at the country club meant he was well stocked on golf gear, he wasn’t interested in hobbies otherwise, and he already owned every book written about modern aviation, so while it was a solid subject with plenty of giftable options, I wasn’t confident enough to make that purchase.

My mother appreciated the finer things in life: subtle jewelry that only those with the highest taste could pick out as over-the-top expensive, and gin coveted enough to suit Jay Gatsby’s soirées.

Because I’d never please them, I settled for slipping a Bouquet of the Month gift certificate into a cheesy reindeer card.

“Sorry, I don’t have anything for you yet,” I told James. Nothing was significant enough to offer, anyway.

“Swap when we get back?” he asked. “Yours isn’t quite ready yet anyway.”

The scene turned to chaos as gift wrap and tissue paper became projectiles, and we tossed them around the room while sipping coffee and picking at Jordan’s homemade cinnamon rolls, our Christmas morning favorite since forever.

It felt like home, for the briefest moment. Like we didn’t have thousands of miles and armloads of baggage between us. Uncomplicated, like the holidays are rumored to feel. The same warming in my chest that Christmas movies promised, the cheer and the merrymaking.

James caught my eye and hurled a chunk of wrapping paper at me, and I batted it away at the last moment.

My phone buzzed and I caught a glimpse of Natalie’s face on the screen. I grabbed the phone and ducked into the kitchen to take the call.

“Merry Christmas, Nat!”

“Hey, how’s the family? Any drama yet?”

“You mean before or after my sister abandoned me at the mall, and I had to walk home?”

“So, just a normal visit, then?”

“Basically, yeah. How’s home? Did Derick yell at the carolers again?”

“Yup. He threw snowballs when one group insisted they finish the song before they moved to the next house,” Natalie said.

“Oh, Derick. Someday he’s going to figure out that you pay them to show up. I can’t decide if I want to witness the day it happens, or if I’m better off hidden away.”

We chatted about what I’d missed while on my trip, which was nothing because Stowe was a snow globe frozen in time; it was basically Groundhog Day , except more skiers and less Sonny that the uneven floorboards in the living room mapped my childhood with scuffs and scrapes from dancing to the record player; how the creak of the screen door echoed in my mind, calling back to the way my grandfather always said “I love you, be safe” instead of “goodbye.”

They didn’t know that I’d hunkered down in the bedroom, brainstorming ideas for ghost stories, creating entire worlds and lives in my head and on film to fill the emptiness I felt. The now-empty house that used to burst at the seams with parents and grandparents and siblings and friends was inspiration while creating ghost stories featuring strong women who would never leave me. Inheriting my grandfather’s house provided a connection to him and a place for the future, then was a safety net when I left college and needed a place to regroup when “the future” began to look scary and different.

I counted the corners and creaks and wobbly bits when I needed to come back to myself. They were my focus when I had none, when the grief of abandoning the future I thought I’d have came to shake me from my sleep. When the loneliness was deepest in my bones.

Besides, I knew what being left behind was like—and, while I knew it was just a house and it wouldn’t know any better—I couldn’t abandon it just because it wasn’t perfect. It was safety, and it was steadiness. I wasn’t giving up on it because it didn’t live up to my too-lofty goals for it.

“I love that house,” I said. “I was thinking I’d try to finish the basement so I can add a guest space for when you visit. You could spend less time at hotels, and maybe we could do Christmas in Vermont.”

“It’s a nice thought, but will it turn into another forgotten project? You’re so smart, and you’ve got so much potential, but biding your time there means you’re missing out on opportunities. You could have been this dedicated to school and a career, but instead, you fixate on these untenable ideas. Are an old house and a job at someone else’s musty bookstore really worth the stress you’re putting on yourself?”

I looked at James. His eyebrows pulled together in concern, but he didn’t cut in. He knew I had to fight this battle myself. And, to do that, I had to give away a secret.

A big, terrifyingly damning, secret.

“Charles offered to let me buy the store. I had to choose between the house and the business loan, and I chose the house because it couldn’t wait. But I haven’t turned Charles down yet because I’m still hoping I can figure out how to fund the store. It’s … a really good price.” Leaving it there would have been easy enough. Even so, I looked James in the eye as I admitted the next part. “Charles is selling the store for next to nothing. Because it’s haunted.”

“Alex, for the love of … please tell me you didn’t haunt his store,” Jordan piped in, exasperated.

James’s eyebrows arched, and he abandoned his quietly steadfast support to instead cock his head in Jordan’s direction.

I kept my eyes fixed on James. “They were researching a ghost who was already documented.”

“That’s not an answer.” Jordan crossed her arms. “Did you haunt the store? Like when Mom and Dad used to get calls about you running wild in the streets with your camcorder for that video diary? All of those fake ghosts and macabre stories painting the town like some sort of oddity.” She turned to James. “You wouldn’t believe how grim she was, all dressed up in her Hot Topic outfits, making up stories just to scare people on the internet. And they were pretty convincing, too. She should write books, not just sell them.”

Nothing to do but to come clean. My kingdom for a sinkhole. “I may have …” I dragged my hands down my face, stalling. “Encouraged a few strategic, unexplained occurrences to fit the narrative. Just little things. Untraceable things, I hoped.” Finally, I met James’s eye. “Because I didn’t want to risk your documentary. But yeah. We had people under Emily’s Bridge for the scraping and rattling and a couple of hidden speakers for ambient sounds to amp up the spooky vibes. Umm, and Mary. I messed with the vents in the store to trip the temperature sensors.” I swallowed. “And used a remote to trigger your equipment. The tech really hasn’t changed, and it’s easy to influence …” I took a shaky breath.

James’s jaw clenched and he swallowed, his eyes seeming to focus beyond me for a split second before coming back.

“But I didn’t make up everything ,” I insisted. “Some of the stories existed long before Haunted Happenings . Like Boots. And Emily. They’re local legends, and I just built off their stories for the vlog. Then Haunted Happenings views picked up and people were messaging me asking for more investigations, and I got the hang of the storytelling aspect.”

Jordan shook her head. “Honestly, Alex, what were you thinking ? It’s one thing documenting your little stories—one might call it entertainment—but faking ghosts because you benefit, personally and financially, is another thing altogether. Isn’t that fraud ? What if Charles found out?”

Exasperated, my parents both swilled their drinks, giving me a moment of quiet to regroup.

“Okay, to be fair,” I reached for the bottle of wine on the table in front of us and refilled my glass, “he offered to sell to me before I’d staged anything. I didn’t tell him it was haunted—the film crew did that, actually. He was going to end up selling to some chain company or shared office space manager anyway. Once he heard the word ‘ghost,’ it was all over for him in that location. And if it helps the documentary, I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

James hadn’t released his casual grasp of my knee the entire evening—like an anchor in a storm—but his fingers began to loosen gradually the more I opened up about the added fiction I’d fed his fables. Regardless of not meaning harm, I could have ruined everything for him. For Julian. For the crew. Even after finding out that his mom’s debt situation was his driving force, a situation I’d come to know well, I’d kept up the ruse—for my own gain. But we couldn’t broach my misdeeds. Not yet. Not with my parents in attendance. Not that it mattered.

“I think I need a few minutes to sit with this information.” He excused himself, squeezing my shoulder though his eyes were downcast.

To their credit, my parents waited until he’d left the room to continue the argument. “If you want that little store so badly, surely you could have made an offer.”

“Sure, I’ll just dig down into my deep pockets. I’ve been pouring everything I have into the roof over my head, but maybe if I reach a little farther.” My father raised a finger as if he was about to cut in. I wasn’t in the mood to be told how I could straighten up and do better. “You know what? No. I’m not having this conversation. It always ends with me feeling like I’ve done something wrong, and like you’ll never appreciate the person I am. And I can’t do it again. I’ll fix the house and forget the store. Maybe whoever buys it will keep me on staff so I don’t add ‘unemployed’ to the myriad of ways I’ve failed you both.”

“Oh, Alex. You haven’t failed us,” my mother said, tutting.

“Are you sure? Because sometimes it’s hard to tell. You assumed I left school because I was lazy or unambitious, or some combination, but I was struggling , Mom. I was barely making it, and you didn’t ever ask.”

“We talked to you on the phone constantly, Alex.”

“You asked about classes. Grades. My major and my advisor meetings. Never once about how the isolation was tearing through my ribcage, or how I couldn’t go to class because I felt entirely alone even with a lecture hall full of people. I couldn’t stay behind in the dorm—couldn’t skip class—because I didn’t want to disappoint the professor or the guy who copied off of my notes or, whatever, the person in the mascot costume.”

I closed my eyes a moment, willing away the tightness in my throat.

“I’d lie awake at night ruminating about whether I should ask for an extension on the paper due the next day because even though it was complete, I wasn’t sure it was good enough. But what if I asked for an extension, and the professor thought it meant I wasn’t ready for the coursework, and it tainted their opinion of me? So I’d vow to turn in the paper as written because at least it gave me a reason to go to class—a goal. After class, I’d skip lunch to rush back to the dorm immediately because I’d been up so late the night before, stressing, and my stomach was in so many knots from constantly, constantly trying to be mentally one step ahead.

“I’d hide out in the dorm and try to ignore the way my insides cramped, hoping the discomfort would go away, until something whispered in my head, ‘Maybe it’s appendicitis, wouldn’t that suck.’ I’d always had a high tolerance for pain so maybe it was appendicitis, and I had been ignoring it. And if it was appendicitis, would the surgeon tell me he was disappointed that I’d waited so long to go get it checked out?

“Then I’d wonder, who would even take me to the hospital? You probably can’t drive with appendicitis. Bothering someone for a ride was totally off the table—I didn’t want to be a burden. If I didn’t show up to class because I was in the hospital undergoing surgery, would anyone notice? And what was the recovery time for an appendectomy, anyway? Catching up on coursework if I had my appendix out was going to be impossible.

“Groups would funnel from the building for whatever party or sporting event was going on, and I’d listen from beneath my comforter, in my bunny slippers—because even if I couldn’t put on a happy face, at least my pajamas could. While the entire school was writing goofy ‘getting to know you’ notes on door-mounted whiteboards the first week in the dorm, nobody was writing on mine, since I’d missed all the icebreaker games. Meanwhile I’d wonder if I should skip class the next day just to give myself a break, maybe head back to Stowe to hang out with Natalie, because she was there for me, and I’d always have her, and that was all that mattered. But I couldn’t skip class. What if there was a pop quiz, and the professor noticed I was gone?” I exhaled. “And begin again.”

My mother’s eyes widened and my father’s hemhem reverberated through the room. Jordan scooted from her spot into the space James had vacated, and looped her index finger into my curled fingertips. The nearness, while unusual, warmed me from the inside-out.

“So I left, okay? I went home. Home was safe, I knew what to expect. Natalie and her parents gave me the care and comfort I’d always wanted from you but never got. So it’s fine, really. Water under the bridge. But like, for once , could you please trust that I’m making the decision that’s right for me and ask how it makes me feel instead of telling me all of the ways the decision doesn’t work for you ? Because this is what I want. I know it’s a longshot but it’s my shot to take.”

The room was silent. My mother’s eyes glittered with unspilled tears while my father clutched the knees of his pantlegs. Jordan’s eyes trekked a triangle between me and our parents, staying quieter than I’d ever known her to. The person in my life who took up the most space was actively making space for me to share my feelings. I swallowed, my throat tight as I waited for someone—anyone—to say something.

“We had no idea. We assumed you had everything under control,” my father admitted.

“You’ve always been so independent. We didn’t know. We’re sorry.”

“Of course you didn’t know. You didn’t ask, and I didn’t want to tell you that I couldn’t manage the bare minimum of ‘go to class’ at college. It’s fine.”

“Is … there a way your mother and I can help?” my father asked hesitantly. “I don’t mean financially, unless that’s what you want.”

“Now that you mention it, maybe pay for my therapy appointments? The out-of-pocket costs are cutting into my savings account.”

My father patted his hip, like he was searching for a wallet.

“No, stop! I’m kidding! I might work in a tiny bookstore, but my health insurance is covering it. Honestly, you could come visit when it’s not as a detour while on a business trip. Or, when you call me, start small by asking about my day before you hurl criticism in my direction. I’m doing better now, and even though my anxiety is going to keep me company for life, I still want my parents to check in. Or just ask how my day was.”

My mother wiggled her bottom lip between her teeth. “How long have you felt this way?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like I can check it off on a calendar. I didn’t write in my diary, ‘Today I realized my parents like Jordan most.’”

“Hey,” Jordan said, shoving me gently with her shoulder. We were going to be okay.

My father scratched at his hairline and brushed his fingertips together. “We assumed, with the ghost stories and all, that you were just expressing yourself. Normal teenager stuff.”

My mother reached for the hand Jordan wasn’t gripping. “You didn’t seem to want our help with anything—and you still don’t.”

I let out a shaky breath and said maybe the hardest truth of all: “Going it alone has been my constant state for so long that now the idea of asking for help is terrifying.”

We all sat with that for a moment. Then, my mother asked, “James didn’t know about the ghosts?”

I pressed my lips together.

“Did we ruin it?”

A tremble shook my chin and my head began to throb from the stress of the evening. So much for a quiet night with the family.

“If anyone ruined it, it was me. I need to talk to him.”

The door to James’s room was open a crack, just enough for a sliver of light to creep onto the hardwood floor of the hallway that separated our doors. I’d planned to sneak across the hallway and slide into his bed that night, just to wrap up the holiday on a high note—but after the secret slipped about the documentary meddling, the chance was long gone.

A squeak of the bedframe filtered through the door. I raised a hand to knock, expecting that I’d find him reading or playing with his language learning app. A split second before my knuckles rapped the door, he spoke.

“If you think it’s best, then I guess … cut the bookstore footage before word gets out? Maybe the bridge, too. We’ll have to rework the flow, rerecord the voiceovers for some of the cutaways. There will be some tweaks to the credits.” A zipper scratched. “I don’t know. We’ll talk about it. No, it’s not important now.” Another zipping sound, and the rustle of a jacket.

Was he packing? After everything, I probably deserved that he’d leave. All the more reason to never ask for the things I wanted: there was always a catch. Borrowing money came with interest, accepting help always made me feel beholden, and asking Charles to sell me the bookstore came with a side of fake ghosts. I’d never asked James to trust me, but I’d found the caveat there, too—he’d given his trust freely, but I couldn’t handle it with enough care to keep it from blowing up in my face.

And listening by the door wasn’t going to improve the situation any.

I knocked on the doorframe and nudged the door enough to peek inside.

He stood with his phone to his ear, a packed bag sitting on the bed.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

“Julian, I’ve gotta go. I’ll let you know when I land,” James said before hanging up and turning to me. “I got an earlier flight out. It’s all hands on deck to fix this.”

“What do you mean, ‘fix’ it?” I inhaled a shaky breath as owning the store slipped even further from my grasp.

“Any pieces where we weren’t in control of the atmosphere need to be stripped and either refilmed or abandoned. The submission deadline is coming up fast, so it’s looking like stripped is our only option.”

“It all has to come out? Can’t you at least leave the interview in? Take out the instrument tampering, but leave the story.” Mary was more than a ghost story. Her existence, in my vlog and beyond, comforted me. Mary and all the rest of them, creating those stories had filled a space inside my ribcage where emptiness could have grabbed hold. But they were bigger than loneliness. Maybe they weren’t real , but they were real to me .

“The documentary rules weren’t specific about authenticity, but we need to make sure the project is saying what we mean for it to say. And, in this instance, it feels like we’re saying it’s okay to run small business owners out of town rather than help them.”

“No, that’s not what’s happening here!” I gripped the edge of the footboard. “It doesn’t have to be in the film! The idea alone is enough for him to keep up his end of the deal. We can make an excuse to Charles for why you cut the bookstore piece, but please don’t tell him it was fake. Please,” I begged. “He’d been thinking about selling anyway, he told me so. It just … moved the process along a little bit when your crew mentioned the ghosts.”

“I suppose we should have done our research, then? We could have avoided the trouble if we knew what we were getting ourselves into.” His eye contact was like flint striking steel—hard, and fiery, and charged.

“Oh yeah, real nice. Base your entire documentary on a vlog from fifteen years ago, then make me out to be the bad guy. Thanks a lot.”

“You know there was more to this than your vlog. Don’t be so self-centered.”

Self-centered . Had he really just? He’d turned the argument into a tournament. “Sure, dropping everything to get you spectacular footage was self-centered of me. Welcoming you into this town, introducing you to my friends, my family. How selfish.”

James sighed. “Lex, this could be a big opportunity for Julian. He’s worked for years perfecting his craft, and he’s sure this is the one that’s going to break him into the industry. The prize money was important, too, for both of us, but this isn’t about winning . It’s about the future, and when we started this journey you weren’t even in the picture. You could have been honest with us. We could have worked something out ahead of time, but instead you sabotaged our sets and manipulated the results—manipulated us . I know you have goals, too, but we need to do what’s right for the project and crew. There’s an entire world out there filled with stories to tell, and if we don’t get this one right, there is no second chance.”

I could have listened to his “broader horizons” speech, but I’d heard it too many times before. “California has the best medical schools, I just have to go,” or “Your sister could really use our support right now, you understand,” or “Honestly, babe, I think I need to explore this opportunity on my own.” I didn’t need to hear it again when it was practically a MadLibs exercise. Input reason here, sign off with half-assed apology there.

“I was perfectly happy working at my little store, until you strolled in and ruined everything.” My chin wobbled to accompany the little break in my voice.

“Whoa, Lex. Wait.” James’s face fell.

“I didn’t need you. I didn’t need anyone. I had my job, and I had my house. Then, somehow you come around and show me that I could have more. Your perfect swagger and chilled-out attitude. No stress, just go with the flow. And your dog, too. Your perfect little dog with her perfect little face and impeccable manners. You come into my store, my town, and wave it all in my face. Just to take it all away. You could have gone anywhere. Why did you have to come fuck up my life?”

“That’s what you think? I’m fucking up your life by being here?” His voice was thick with emotion. “Wow. That’s … I thought we had something, but this is sounding a lot like you have already made up your mind, and I’ve been left out of the thought process.” James crossed his arms.

“You’re going to leave anyway!” I cried. “So what does it matter if Charles thinks the store is haunted?”

“You’re right. I don’t seem to have much to stick around for anyway because the ghosts aren’t real and neither are your feelings for me. I thought we had a connection, but it turns out that I was just a pawn to get your precious store.”

My jaw dropped.

“I—I didn’t mean that.” James reached a hand toward my shoulder, but pulled back last-minute as if he’d thought better of it. He took a breath. Centered himself. “Julian will absolutely murder me for telling you this, but … the hauntings aren’t real.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know, we covered this. I messed up.”

“Not those ghosts. Our ghosts. Before we filmed with you. We falsified our own results, long before you came along. Paranormal investigations are trending way up these days so we figured it wouldn’t hurt to embellish a bit. That’s why we were stunned by your results. We were counting on the power of suggestion and a few tricks we picked up along the way. The demand is there, and we wanted to get in early. Make our move before the popularity waned or the market was too full.”

My teeth ground together as I digested the confession. “So, wait. It’s only okay if you benefit from withholding the truth?” I’d lied, but he’d lied first. And I felt guilty about my involvement. Guilty for doing what I had to do to make my own dreams come true.

“I didn’t expect to be around long enough for it to come back to haunt me, so I was less concerned with the repercussions,” he admitted.

And just like that, it was happening again. I was going to be left behind to wallow while someone moved on without me. Off to some city somewhere, probably near a beach that’s well-known for laid-back vibes and easy-going, all-day chill. Where people come and go, experience whatever they set out for before moving on. Meet some people, say goodbye, set off on the next adventure. Something decidedly not my style.

The cycle wouldn’t end. I’d known better than to get involved with a guy from out of town. Whether he’d been there to ski or there to film a documentary, the reason didn’t matter. It was leave or be left. And I’d already been on the losing side of that battle too many times.

“Listen, it’s not like we were going to last anyway. Goodbye was always creeping up on us; a countdown clock tripped the day we met.”

“I guess I really am a Sal, after all,” James said, eyes downcast.

“Kerouac wouldn’t be able to tell you apart,” I said. An ache settled in my chest and my eyes blurred despite trying not to cry. “I think we’re on different paths here, James. Which is a shame because I fell for you. Hard.”

He hefted his bag over his shoulder and straightened the sleeve of his shirt beneath the strap. “I’ve been falling for you from the moment I met you, Lex. But if you can’t let people in because you’re too afraid of losing them, then I don’t think you can ever fully love someone back.”

My mouth gaped, goldfish-like, as his words hit like shrapnel. I’d have argued if I had any words, any declaration that could have salvaged us. Instead, he walked toward the bedroom door, and I let him, wordless.

“I’ll find another way home. I need to clear my head and figure out where to go from here. Be safe.” He lifted a hand, as if to reach for me, but awkwardly pointed at the door instead before opening it and walking away.