frowned. “I was getting better.”
Ryan was hunched over, cleaning out my cuts. He paused, straightening to meet my gaze. “What?”
“I was getting better.” My head felt so heavy suddenly.
I was sleepy. I bent forward, my forehead resting on Ryan’s shoulder.
“She went away today, and there were four pieces,” I mumbled against his shirt. “They all fit. I was getting better.”
Ryan went rigid and slowly, agonizingly slowly, reached up to cradle the back of my head. “Who went away?”
“Willow.”
But that wasn’t completely right. She’d spoken to me, hadn’t she? That had been her in the car. Right?
He was like a statue. “Willow’s been with you?” His voice sounded rough.
I nodded, straightening. It hurt to look at him. The sun behind him was so bright that it made me tear up. “She left me earlier, but she talked to me in the car.”
“She talked to you?”
“Once.”
That had been her? The question was still bugging me.
“She’s been talking to you?”
His hand moved to my neck. He traced some of my hair, smoothing it over my shoulder. Bending forward so only a few inches separated us, his eyes found mine.
I looked away. I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I didn’t know why, but I had messed up.
I wasn’t able to think clearly. What did I say wrong?
Willow, what did I do?
I felt a tear slide down my face. “She won’t answer me.”
“Willow won’t?”
Willow . . .
I shook my head. “She’s gone.”
I wanted her back. My heart clenched. I wanted her back. I wanted to talk to her again, feel her again.
More tears slid down my face. “Ryan, where did she go?”
He stared at me, his pupils dilated.
Willow. I wasn’t supposed to talk about her. But she was gone again.
I crumpled inside. I felt myself curling into a ball, and Ryan cradled me to his shoulder once again.
I cried while my arm bled.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The sanity ship sailed. I’d officially snapped.
I was talking to dead people, seeing dead people—and I wasn’t psychic.
Ryan drove me to Mallory the Homewrecker’s house. He’d cleaned up my arm after I got myself back together, but I kept using my arm to clean my tears. So the bandage was soggy, and blackened from my makeup.
Going up to the door, Ryan knocked. His other hand laced through mine.
I considered lifting my bag and saying, “Trick or treat,” but the door opened, and nothing came out of me.
The woman gasped, seeing me.
“Is Mr. Malcolm here?” Ryan asked.
Her hands shot up to cover her mouth. She matched her pictures on Facebook, but she was even prettier in person.
I hated her.
My hostility helped push away some of my craziness, and I was able to stop some of the tears—some of them. I was still sniffling like a crack head.
She eyed me for a moment and leaned forward. Comprehension flared, and she stepped backward. “Phillip!” she yelled over her shoulder before turning back to me. “You’re Mackenzie.”
I didn’t answer. I summoned all my energy into a glare. I wanted to give her the full force of Willow and me. It was only right, since she was missing out on the more wrathful one of us.
She sucked in her breath, her mouth twitching down.
Footsteps came from behind her, and she moved back. My dad filled the doorway, frowning at her and then us. “Wha—Mackenzie?”
His gaze switched to Ryan, whose hand tightened around mine. “Can we, uh . . . can we come in?”
I don’t know why Ryan brought me there—if it was closer than a mental hospital, if he didn’t want to deal with me, if he wanted to pawn me off on my dad. It could’ve been any of those reasons. When I’d realized where he was taking me, I had tried to pull my hand from his in the truck.
“No, Ryan. Take me where I need to be to get the right help. Going to see her won’t do it. I was wrong.”
He hadn’t let me go, and he’d pulled our hands from the console between us into his lap. “We’re going to see him.” His voice was gentle but firm, and his eyes were tender as he looked at me. “And that is where you’ll get help. Trust me.”
His gaze almost sent me off on another crying escapade, not that I had really stopped. But as he kept holding my hand, a fifth piece had melded with the others. I didn’t know why, or how, but it had happened. I was coming together even as I was falling apart.
Go figure that one out.
“Yes.