Those words are a ghost whispering in my brain. Nazareth was right in that I didn’t understand before, but now, with these new eyes, I do.
VERONICA
Sawyer: I’m not letting you push me away.
Me: I’m not pushing you away. We’re staying friends. It’s better that way.
Sawyer: Not for me. I’m not scared.
Standing on my front porch, my spine straightens. He’s not scared. Saying it as if I am. Me: Neither am I.
I expect a rapid-fire response, but there’s nothing. Silence. As if he said all that there is to be said. That his statement was the final word in an argument I was just gearing up to fight.
He’s not scared.
Like he even understands what there is to be scared of.
Me: I’m not scared.
It needed to be definitively declared, but somehow the second text causes some of my confidence in myself to drift away. Doubt whispers in my mind—am I scared?… But of what? Losing him? Losing Mom? Of death? Of dying?
Not wanting to think too much more about it, I walk through the front door to the foyer and find Glory sitting on the steps, blocking my way. Just the sight of her exhausts me, and I lean back against the door as I shut it. “I am seriously not in the mood.”
“Hello, V. I smell sage.”
“That would be because I burned it. Are all the evil things lurking in the house gone?”
“No,” she answers, and I feel like banging my head against the wall. “They’re muted, but not gone, which is why I’ve been able to sit here. They’re still talking, attacking, but it only feels like a tickle on the inside of my skull.”
I don’t know if I should feel bothered or relieved. I push off the door and Glory stands. I climb the stairs, let us into my apartment and Glory chooses to sit in the middle of the couch. She pats the space next to her. I join her and wish for the thousandth time that it was my mom I was sitting next to and I could physically feel her. I broke up with Sawyer and every part of me aches. I want my mom’s hug. I want her touch. I want her caring words.
I glance around the living room, specifically at the window seat, and my stomach churns that she’s missing.
“How do you feel the cleansing went?” Glory asks.
“I had a massive headache and then I broke up with my boyfriend. So I guess it depends on where you fall on your feelings for Sawyer and me together.” Mine were the good feelings and now I feel empty.
Glory slowly assesses me. “Why did you break up with Sawyer?”
I shrug.
“Is it because of your tumor?”
I meet her eyes yet shrug again.
“You have a bad habit of this,” Glory says.
That catches my attention. “Of what?”
“Pushing people away.”
“I think you have that wrong. People push me away.”
“What about Leo?”
“He’s the one who left.”
Like my mom used to, Glory tucks a curl behind my ear. Missing Mom’s affection, I lean into the touch. It’s not Mom, it’s not the same, but it’s more than what I have now.
“I’m curious,” Glory says. “When are you going to stop making decisions based on your mother’s death?”
I flinch away from her. “I don’t do that.”
“I believe you just implied that you broke up with Sawyer because of your tumor.”
“You don’t understand Sawyer, and you don’t understand what it’s like to watch someone die like Mom did. I don’t want that for him.”
“So to save the people you love from heartache, you’re choosing what you think is a fast death?”
“Yes,” I say then feel confused. “I’m not choosing to die.”
“God knows what’s in your heart, V. There’s no point of hiding what He’s already seen. He’s been sending angels to talk to me about you.” Glory looks me over in that way she does with clients when she claims to be reading their auras. “What do you believe your mom chose?”
“A slow death,” I say.
Glory surveys the living room, and my skin prickles with how her gaze lingers over the window seat. Mom’s not there. At least I don’t see her, yet guilt rushes through me.
“Why are you letting your mother haunt you?”
My mouth dries out and my head swivels as I desperately try to find Mom in the room, but she’s nowhere to be found. Oh, God, what if by burning the sage I have muted the other spirits enough that Glory now senses my mother? If she