All The Pretty Ghosts (The Never Series Book 1), Jamie Campbell [english reading book TXT] 📗

“How long?” My voice hitched in my throat. “How long have you been… gone?”

“It happened a few months before you came into the city.”

“That’s how you knew I could see ghosts. I could see you,” I said, it wasn’t a question but a statement. His head nod confirmed it was true. “You said you always knew I could.”

“I’m sorry I lied,” Oliver confessed. “I wasn’t ready to tell you yet and there was no other way to explain how I knew about the spirits.”

He had lied a lot to me. I never thought that was possible.

But I didn’t think my best friend would die either.

“I forgive you,” I said, really meaning it. I didn’t mean just for that particular lie, but for them all. It must have been so, so hard on him going through the crossover alone.

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, I should have been.”

He shook his head, taking another step closer again. I could have reached out and touched him if my hands wouldn’t go straight through his body. “There was nothing you could have done. It happened, I’ve accepted it.”

“You didn’t deserve to die.” The bitterness was back in my voice, but it wasn’t directed at him this time. He knew that, he knew me too well to think otherwise.

“Nobody deserves to die, Ev. But I’ve made peace with it. It was my time and we all have a purpose.” His eyes were nothing but sincere, he really had made peace with his death.

Another reason why Oliver was a much better person than I was.

I would have been out for revenge.

“And what’s your purpose?”

“I’ve been helping people,” he replied, shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal. “So many kids are dying, they get scared crossing over. I’ve been comforting them to try to make it better. Some are really young, they don’t understand what’s going on.”

“That’s where you’ve been going every day?”

“When I’m not with you, yes.”

My hands twitched, they wanted to reach up and cradle his head so badly. If ever there was a time when I just wanted to hug him and make everything better, it was right now.

But that was never going to happen.

Not now, and not ever.

“Why did you keep coming to see me?” I asked. I needed to know, I needed all the details until my mind stopped spinning. If that was possible anymore.

“I couldn’t leave you.

“Why? Why would you stay for me?” My tears were on the verge of brimming over my eyelids and falling down my cheeks. Even the door wouldn’t hold me up for much longer. Not with the pain in my leg starting to become real again.

“Because I love you, Ev. I’ve always been in love with you from the moment we first met.” His gaze went to the floor, leaving me for the first time since he had shown up. “There was no way I could leave you.”

My heart clenched in my chest. I had been wanting him to say those three little words for so long, and now it was happening, it was nothing but heartbreaking.

I pushed off the door, standing up to my full height in front of him. His attention came back to me, our eyes locking on one another instantly. Those brimming tears were now staining my cheeks, weaving little rivers through the black soot.

“I love you, too,” I said.

I had imagined that moment so many times in my fantasies. I always thought it would be different. That I would jump into Oliver’s arms and he would carry me off into the sunset. We’d find Faith and then live somewhere remote for the rest of our lives, letting the rest of the world fade into nonexistence.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it with Oliver being a ghost.

“I love you,” I started. “And you’re going to have to leave me. You’ll cross over and I’ll be all alone again. I don’t know how I’m going to live without you, Olly. I really don’t.”

The hand he had been fighting to keep at his side came toward me. He brushed my cheek. I didn’t feel the soft warmth of his skin like I should have. It was just a cold breeze, a feeling that would normally send a shiver down my spine.

It didn’t help the tears.

Or the ache deep within my ribcage.

“I’m not going to leave you,” he promised. “I’m always going to be here for you for as long as you need me. I’m not going anywhere without you telling me I can first. Not until you’re ready.”

Not until I’m ready.

Which implied he would still leave me one day. He was just allowing me to choose the day that a part of me died and disappeared with him.

Was it selfish of me to keep him here?

Chapter Eighteen

At Oliver’s insistence, I found a bandage in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and thoroughly cleaned my leg. There was no cream to put on it so I loosely wrapped the burn and hoped the open wound wouldn’t stick to it too badly.

Agatha had given me a few hints on keeping it clean, the entire time slipping in comments about how I shouldn’t have been in a situation to get burned in the first place.

All I knew was that the minute the burn got an infection, I would be a dead woman walking.

Perhaps that wouldn’t be a bad thing anymore. If I died, that is. I kept that to myself, knowing Oliver wouldn’t want to hear it.

The spirits that had been listening to us earlier were still quiet. If I knew Oliver would be able to make them shut up, I would have invited him in months ago.

Oliver