Page 55 of Witchy Woman

“I am so fucking sorry, Laura.”

It’s the use of my first name in this way that pisses me off. “I don’t want your pity. I don’t need it.”

He pulls back, forcing me to meet his gaze. “I’m not pitying you, Goldilocks, I’m telling you I’m fucking sorry.”

That’s almost worse.

He presses the sweetest, softest kiss to the top of my head, and it hammers at the cracks in my heart so hard that they all splinter.

Sobs wrack my body, leaving me heaving and gasping into his t-shirt. Every single tear I’ve kept locked inside since my mom disappeared, since Hazel left, since Dad died, is determined to finally be free.

And I can’t stop it.

“Come here,” Ash says, lifting me into a bridal carry. He lays me down on my bed, takes off my shoes, and settles in beside me.

His arms hold me until his shirt is soaked to the bone and I have nothing left. Until my breaths even out and I have nothing left.

Until I hear him whisper, “I love you, Laura Hollis, and I’ll be your safe place until the day I die.”

Chapter 25

She Loves You

Ican’t sleep.

Not with Mom’s ‘I’m sorry’ ringing in my head. Not with Ash telling me he loves me. My head is full of fireflies, lighting up and buzzing around until I can’t sit still anymore.

It may be three a.m., but there’s no way I can just keep lying here. Despite Ash being the most comfortable human heated blanket on the planet.

I walk along the cold wood floors with bare feet, which sends shivers up my spine. No socks in winter was a very bad idea.

Eventually, I reach my destination. Mom’s room.

No one—to my knowledge—has been in here since Mom vanished. Granted, I don’t think I’ve ever actually been in her room at all.

There were no lazy mornings snuggling together as a family in our mom’s bed, no hair braiding on the comforter, no book reading.

That all happened in Hazel’s room, just the two of us.

Every nightmare was Hazel’s to soothe. Every late-night chat was hers. Every lazy morning.

She’s my family, and she’s the person I’m the furthest from right now.

I open the door. It makes a noisy creak of disuse, and I shush the house. “People are sleeping!”

The door quiets, but not without a sassy groan in reply.

The décor is plain, and a thin layer of dust coats everything, but that’s not surprising.

What’s surprising is how many photos of Dad litter the surfaces. Old frames, new frames, some just left loose on the dresser. There are no pictures of him anywhere in the house. I thought maybe she’d burned them all or cried over them so much they were warped and unrecognizable.

But no. She hoarded them in her sacred space and didn’t share them. Let us believe there weren’t any left.

My heart pangs at the betrayal. Maybe she doesn’t deserve to be saved.

Maybe she deserves whatever hell she’s burning in.

I lift the closest frame. It’s of Dad standing on the front porch, a camera of his own hanging lazily at his side. I forgot how big his smile was. I forgot about the little gray wisps at his temples.