Page 22 of Road Trip With the Ghost Hunter
“Li,” he reprimanded.
“No! I want my stuff. You can go run off chasing ghosts—literally!—I’m honoring her soul. I’m letting her rest in peace.” Iwas sobbing through my speech. “She suffered enough on earth. She deserves to rest.”
I took hold of the pottery vase I made her. Her intricate blue designs, painted so delicately, instantly flooded me with peace. Pulling it out from the back, I felt Lucas behind me.
“Li, please. Let me,” he started.
“Stop, Lucas. I’m leaving.” I wrestled away from his hold.
Swinging my body out of the trunk, I turned too quickly, bumping against Lucas, causing the vase to fly out of my hands.
Crash.
Shatter.
No, no, no, no, no. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t…breathe. My name echoed around me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the shards of clay scattered on the dirty hotel parking lot floor. I wailed, loud, high-pitched, animal-like. My knees gave out, and I crashed to the hard, cracked pavement floor. I heard multiple crunching sounds. I felt pain, but I blocked it all out. Hands touched me, but I just screamed and pushed them away, reaching to collect all the pieces. So many pieces.
I frantically looked around for something, anything to put the pieces into. My shirt was too tight to use as a basket, which just made the wailing sobs uncontrollable. My vision blurred as I scraped my palms along the concrete, scooping every broken shard closer to me.
“Stop. Li. Stop,” Lucas gently but firmly took my wrists and brought them to my chest. I fought. I tried. “Shh. I know. I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispered as my body pitched forward and I used his chest to release a scream that came from the depths of my soul.
We rocked, back and forth, on our knees, in the dead of night, in the middle of this parking lot. I didn’t remember much of what happened next. I knew I felt pain in my knees, my hands, and my soul.
That was the only thing I had left of her. Her jewelry, trinkets, things she sewed or knitted, I sold at a garage sale. I had to pay off the insurance. I made peace with giving them away. Eventually. But this vase was not just hers, it was ours. It had both of us intertwined with its creation. I’d run my fingers over the grooves the paint left behind when it dried just to feel close to her.
It’s ironic that me telling Lucas we had to learn to let go. Yet, here I was, holding on with a death grip to a piece of her.
I couldn’t move.
Lucas carried me inside, cleaned my wounds, then left me in bed. It all felt like a fever dream. I stared at the wall, unseeing. Was this my punishment for going to the ghost place? Did I disturb her honor, and as a balancing of scales, I lost what I had left of her?
At some point, sleep came. I thought I stayed awake all night, but between feeling Lucas get into bed and turn off the light, me staying stock still, staring at that hotel wall, and counting the chips in the paint, the room wasn’t draped in darkness anymore. I was scared to go to sleep. I didn’t want to dream about that field or the creepy undead animals, or remember that tentacle chill that grabbed my body.
The room, when I blinked, had a faint hint of dawn coming through a broken sliver from the curtains. Turning over, I felt the tug and ache of broken skin. Sharp stabs of pain shot up my arm when I used my hand to hold up my weight. The bed was empty.
Fear of a different kind hit me.
Did he leave me?
My eyes darted around, looking for evidence. Then I saw it. His backpack was still here. The relief that washed over my body almost brought a sob. Sitting up, something else caught my eye.On the round table by the window was a large sports sweatshirt with all of my lao lao’s vase shards collected in the middle.
My bandaged hand covered my mouth as I whimpered, and instant tears fell.
He gathered them for me. He mended my scars and brought me back something precious, though broken.
In the light of a new day, I realized he and I needed to talk. It was me who insisted on going last night. I couldn’t blame him. He was grieving in his own way, too. Just as lost and desperate to move on.
I just wasn’t prepared to read too much into the fear I felt when I thought he’d left me. I couldn’t be falling for this equally broken man. We were strangers. He had a life he would go back to, while I was a nomad with nowhere to call home anymore. We couldn’t be more doomed to fail.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lucas
I held the ticket in my hand, but I couldn’t make myself open the door. I knew once I walked in, it would only be a matter of minutes before Li would be gone.
This was for the best. After last night, I couldn’t keep her with me. As worried as I was about her having someone to look after her, I was more worried about what being around me was doing to her. I missed the smile that used to cover her face. If I had to let her go in order to bring it back, then that was what I was going to do.
I took a long breath and let it out slowly. Time wasn’t my friend right now. I needed to get inside.
