Guilty Needs(14)

She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to be trapped between life and death, here and now and the hereafter. Which mean she had to move past what held her bound to her life. According to what she had been told, at least. And she believed it. It made sense.

Colby and Bree—they were the only people who mattered to her any more. None of the others from her life even seemed real. Just Colby and Bree. Almost surreally real, if that made sense. Thinking of one of them was all it took to go to them. She’d been watching them almost from the moment she breathed her last.

Bree had seen her the very first night but Colby continued to fight the knowledge. If he didn’t want to see her, she couldn’t force it on him. It had frustrated her to no end, but now she was glad of it. Maybe his stubborn refusal to see her could come in handy.

A wistful sort of yearning moved through her as she found herself in their bathroom, staring at him through a steamy panel of glass. He was in the shower, blissfully unaware of her. Leaving her to stand there and stare at him and remember. Lost in the memories, she thought of the way his hands had felt on her, the way he had touched her—careful, gentle—as though he feared he’d bruise her or mark her somehow.

She didn’t miss sex. That was seriously weird, but she attributed it to being dead. Sex was for the living. She did miss the idea of it, missed being close to him, able to touch him. But it was a distant ache, almost as though he’d been lost to her for years and years.

The pain wasn’t fresh, it wasn’t vivid and it hadn’t been, not even from the first. More weirdness to death, she supposed.

And another weirdness—her ability to know what they were thinking.

It was as though the words passing through their minds created a sound only she could hear. Now that had taken a while to get used to. Hearing his grief had been harder on her than anything else since her death. Sometimes it was still so raw, if she could have wept with him, she would have.

But his pain had lessened over the past few months and Alyssa knew if he’d just give himself a chance, he could let her go. Whether Bree believed it or not, Colby was ready to move on and Alyssa was damn well going to do whatever she could to convince him to move on to Bree.

Leaning against the marbled countertop, she watched as Colby finished his shower. When the door opened, she studied him. A frown darkened her face and the downward spiral of her thoughts made the room’s temperature drop a few degrees. Angry or upset ghosts had a chilling effect but it wasn’t until she saw him rub his arms that she realized what she was doing. Reining her thoughts in, she tried not to think about how lean he’d become. He’d lost too much weight over the past year.

Shoving away from the counter, she moved toward Colby, testing him. He never once glanced her way. She wondered once more why he could hear her but not see her. Bree was the rational, grounded type. Colby believed in ghosts, spooks and Big Foot. He should be the one seeing her, not the other way around.

Alyssa waved a hand in front of him, but still, he didn’t react. Satisfied, she said, “She loves you.”

He stilled.

How her voice sounded to him, she really didn’t know. For all she knew, she sounded like herself, just more distant. That was what Bree said—as if she spoke from the bottom of a deep well.

She trailed a hand down his arm, her fingers lingering to touch the gold band on his third finger. “It’s time to take this off, Colby.”

He jerked away, his hand clenched into a protective fist. His gaze came up, searching the room, but he wasn’t going to see her. So Alyssa settled for resting a hand on his chest and stroking downward. Down. Down. He felt abnormally hot to her, but everything seemed warmer than she remembered. Why should he be any different? He had secured a towel around his waist but she slid her fingers inside it and tugged. He hissed, eyes going wide as he backed away.

“You don’t want to spend the rest of your life alone,” she whispered, remaining still as he grabbed his jeans from the floor and pulled them on over his wet, nude body.

“I’m going insane.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I am going f*cking insane.”

Alyssa laughed. “You’re not going crazy.”

A muscle jerked in his jaw as he finished buttoning his jeans, but he didn’t say anything, just stared off into the distance. She started toward him. “She’s been waiting a long time for you.”

This time, his gaze flew toward her, tracking the sound of her voice. But he still didn’t see her. “Why did you come home, Colby? It wasn’t about this place. It doesn’t mean anything to you. Not anymore.”

One thing Colby was certain about, if he was going crazy, he was pretty sure it was natural for some part of his brain to still argue that he was sane and rational. Even if the voice sounded like the echo of his dead wife. So the soft, almost amused assurance, You’re not going crazy, didn’t do a damn thing to reassure him.

Crazy people didn’t really think they were crazy, he figured.

And crazy people definitely heard voices.

Did they feel people touching them, even when they were alone in a room?

Shoving a hand through damp, tousled hair, he tossed his towel in the general direction of the shower and said aloud, “I’m leaving now.”

A low, sad laugh filled the room.

He turned to go, determined to just ignore his current hallucination. It would go away, sooner or later, right?