I ignored her. “It’s kind of a long story,” I said to Ed. “But the gist of it is that Erin has sort of taken a body that doesn’t belong to her, and we need your help to fix that.”
He lurched forward, once again making me wonder about the vomit potential of the moment. “A body?” He frowned. “She’s possessing someone? Is that even possible?”
“Seriously,” Alona said, “do you ever listen to me?” She pushed herself to her feet and stalked away.
“Kind of,” I said to Ed. “Like I said, it’s complicated. We need you to help us find her and get her out, back here where she belongs.”
He struggled to focus, rubbing his eyes. “But she’s in a body? Like, she’s alive?”
Oh, crap.
“Told you,” Alona singsonged from somewhere behind me.
I refused to look at her. “Not exactly,” I said to Ed, struggling to keep on topic. “The point is, the body doesn’t belong to her. We need to get her back here as a spirit, so she can resolve her issues and move on to the light. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Is she happy?” he asked.
I thought of Erin gleefully smashing her mouth against mine. Happywould be one way to describe her. Ecstaticmight be more accurate. But that didn’t change the fact that what she’d done wasn’t right. She was in this only for herself. She didn’t care who got hurt—Alona, Lily, Lily’s family . . .
“I don’t think you understand,” I began.
“No, youdon’t understand. I oweher.” He pounded his fist against his leg. “What happened was my fault. I could have stopped her from going, or I could have gone with her, like she wanted, and she wouldn’t have had so much to drink. Then none of this ever would have happened.” He gestured around, obviously including his parents and their financial distress in the mix. “If she’s happy now, I’m not going to stop that. At least something decent will come out of this mess.”
I stared at him. “Are you not hearing me? She’s possessing an innocent person!”
“She’s my sister,” he said, jabbing an unsteady finger in my direction. “And I killed her.”
I stood up and stepped back from him, frustrated. “No, you didn’t.”
“I might as well have.” He stared glumly at the floor.
“Look, it was her decision to go to the party and to drink on the freaking roof or whatever. She died, and she needs to move on. End of story.” I raked my hands through my hair, trying to find the words that would click with him, that would make him understand. “Her choices are not your responsibility. And sometimes you have to let people go.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were a mistake.
I heard Alona’s sharp intake of breath behind me and turned quickly to face her. “I didn’t mean you.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Why not? The same rules that apply to Erin apply to me, too. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“It’s different,” I insisted. “You were sent back for a reason, even if no one spelled out what it was.”
“Glad to hear you think so now,” she said quietly.
Ed, of course, noticed none of this. He forced a laugh. “Let people go? You keep telling yourself that, man. Let me know how it works out for you in real life.”
Damn it.Drunk and ridiculous, Ed had a point.
I followed Will down the stairs after he stormed past me. He started pacing the empty living room, back and forth in front of the windows in the rapidly fading squares of sunlight on the carpet.
I leaned against the wall in the foyer and watched. The frustration rolled off him in nearly visible waves, and I felt a pang of sympathy for him. He was doing his best. That being said, I couldn’t leave it like this. We couldn’t just hangout in an empty house and hope for all of this to resolve itself. I mean, I guess we could have, but not without a lot of the collateral damage we were hoping to avoid. “So, what now?” I asked.
Will stopped to glare at me. “I don’t know, okay?” He rubbed his hands over his face. “You were right,” he said, his voice muffled. “This was a stupid plan.”
He sounded miserable, and it tugged at me in a way I normally would have worked very hard to ignore. Except…this was it. The end. In that knowledge, I felt a reassurance and freedom I’d never experienced before.
I straightened up and approached him cautiously, my steps soundless on the carpet. When I touched his shoulder, he jerked his head up, startled.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It wasn’t a stupid plan. There were just more variables than we counted on, is all.” Actually, more variables than hehad counted on. I’d foreseen that Ed might not be as easy to maneuver as Will had thought, and Will might have avoided some of this if he’d listened to me. But I saw no point in bringing that up now and making him feel worse. Hey, look at me, growing as a person.
He laughed bitterly. “You can’t fool me. You’re gloating on the inside. You tried to tell me, and I wouldn’t listen.”
That stung. Maybe I wasn’t perfect yet, but I was trying. I pulled back from him, but to my surprise, he reached out and enfolded me in his arms, pulling me closer and burying his face against my neck. “I’m sorry. I just want everything to be easier, like it was before,” he whispered, his lips moving against my skin.
For some stupid reason, this sparked tears in my eyes. I gave a shaky laugh. “Who doesn’t?” I smoothed his hair down; it was softer than it looked and shorter than it had been when I’d first been forced to take real notice of him. The idea that at some point he’d gone out and gotten a haircut without my knowing made my heart ache. He had a life without me, and he would continue to once I was gone. It was ridiculous to get upset about it, and I knew that, but I couldn’t quite stop myself, either.
I blinked a bunch of times, trying to get my emotions under control, and cleared my throat. “You know, it wasn’t so great before. I was kind of a bitch sometimes, and you were hiding from everything.”
He laughed, and I felt the vibration of it beneath my hand on his back. I would miss this. I would miss him.
“It just seems harder now because we’re not used to this,” I continued, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Not used to being something other than what we were.”
“You are so damned practical,” he said with another laugh, one that held more than a little sadness. He leaned back from me without letting go and reached up to touch my face, brushing his thumb across my cheek, maybe to catch a tear that had somehow escaped. “No one would have ever guessed that before, least of all me.”
I could see the warmth in his gaze and sense the words rising up inside him, words that not a single person had ever said to me and actually meant. My mom loved that she had had someone else to blame. My dad loved that he’d had someone else to clean up his mess. My ex-boyfriend Chris had apparently loved someone else entirely.…“Don’t,” I said quickly, pushing away from him.
He frowned. “Why not?”
Because Will knew me in a way those other people hadn’t, and I might have believed him. And that seemed way too dangerous, especially now. I stepped back from him and wiped under my eyes, as though my mascara would run. “It doesn’t change anything,” I said in my haughtiest tone.
Which rolled off him like I hadn’t said anything. “If things were different…” he began.
“But they’re not,” I reminded him.
“They could be.”
He meant being Ally again for good. If we could track Erin down, if it was even possible that that arrangement could last, if I wanted to literally be someone else for the rest of my life…if, if, if…“Maybe.”