The Dead Romantics (26)

“Writing can’t be that noisy,” Mom said, frowning. “And I even blew up the mattress in your old bedroom for you!”

“Bad back.”

“Since when?”

“Mom,” Alice said, downing my glass of whiskey, “let it go. There’s a hole in the blow-up mattress anyway.”

Mom gave her a surprised look. “There is?”

Alice shrugged. “Was gonna let her figure it out herself.”

“Thanks,” I replied, not sure if she was lying to cover for me or if there actually was a hole in the inflatable mattress upstairs. I wouldn’t put it past her.

I just couldn’t stay here. In this house. After the episode at the funeral home, I didn’t want to test being home. Mom already had enough to worry about with the funeral. I didn’t want her to have to worry about me, too.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” I promised. “At the Waffle House?”

Mom relented without persisting. She was good at that—at seeing when people were shutting down, and letting them. “Of course, darling. See you in the morning.”

I smiled a small thank-you, trying not to meet Alice’s hard gaze, and wheeled my suitcase down the cobblestone steps again, back toward Main Street. Mairmont was quiet at night, but walking the sidewalk alone, while all the storefronts were closed, reminded me how out of place I felt here in the town that never really accepted me. In New York, I could walk down any street and find another creature of the night walking, too. But here, everyone had their cozy houses and their cozy families, all sequestered for the night, and I was alone.

I told myself I didn’t mind it.

I packed my bags and left the day after high school graduation. I never visited. I never looked back. Not when Carver proposed the idea of TP’ing my bully’s yard for my birthday a few years ago, not when my parents had their thirty-year anniversary.

Not when Alice begged me to come home.

We had been best friends once, but that was a lifetime ago. I didn’t regret leaving—I couldn’t regret leaving. It was for my own sanity. But looking back on it, I could’ve handled it a little better. That I did regret. I could’ve not shut Alice out of my life. I could’ve visited once in a blue moon. I could’ve . . .

Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve.

Hindsight was such a bitch. Because everything I ran from had caught up with me. Even the crows that now sat on the roof of the bed-and-breakfast, looking down at me with their beady black eyes.

I tightened my grip on my suitcase. They were just birds. They didn’t mean anything. And even if they did, I had nowhere else to go.





10





Dead and Breakfast


THE MAIRMONT BED-AND-BREAKFAST was a small B and B on the corner of Main and Walnut. It was tucked into a garden that was green even in winter, its blue vinyl siding barely visible beneath all of the ivies that grew on it. I pushed open the wrought iron gate and made my way up the stone pathway to the front door. A soft golden light spilled in through the front windows, which meant Dana was still minding the desk. They were the night kind of person that sat up reading Stephen King and obscure nonfiction on Queen Victoria or Lord Byron’s lovers. They were sitting on a stool behind a heavy wooden desk when I finally elbowed the screen door open and wiggled my suitcase inside. They looked up, large round glasses perched on the bridge of their nose, secured with a golden chain that draped down on either side of their pale, long face. Dana had short curly brown hair and a wide smile with a gap between their two front teeth, and when they saw me, their smile widened even more.

“Florence! I can’t believe it,” they said, putting a sticky note into their book and closing it. They wore a sweatshirt with HARVARD on the front and rib-hugging jeans, and somehow always looked more stylish than I ever could. Even in high school, they were immaculate. “I thought you were up in New York!”

“I was. Had to come home, though. For—um—”

They winced. “Right, oh shit. I’m sorry. I knew that. Sorry. It’s just—surprising. To see you.”

I fixed on a smile. “Well, I’m here.”

“Right! You are. And I’m betting you want a room.”

“If you wouldn’t mind?”

“Absolutely! I know how it is. Parents getting rid of your room and all. The second I moved out, my mom turned my bedroom into her knitting room. Knitting! She even took down my Dawson’s Creek posters. I’ll never forgive her for that, you know.” They pulled up an app on their iPad, and tapped at a few screens. “How long will you be staying with us?”

“Probably until the end of the week?”

If I make it that long, I thought as I took out the last credit card I owned and painfully handed it to them. I’d just climbed out of my credit card debt too, but I couldn’t stay at home. Not right now. Not when Dad wasn’t . . .

I just couldn’t.

Dana checked me in, asking whether I’d want one bed or two—one, preferably on the second floor of the three in this house, and not beside the stairs if they could help it. “And the least spooky one,” I added, sort of joking.

Sort of not.

They laughed. “Don’t want to solve any more murders?”

“Don’t remind me,” I begged, taking the key they handed me.