Page 12 of Gravehouse

Ivy on the chairlift, hood pulled low. Ivy at the bonfire, firelight turning her skin gold while she pretended not to watch me. Ivy in my bed, hair fanned across the pillow, lips swollen, looking at me the way only I got to see.

I stop on that one, zooming in on her face. Fuck that. This is gonna fuck me right up, so I swipe to the next photo.

Us on Mount Crow, me slightly behind her, both our feet clipped into our boards. I don’t remember who took it. Punk, maybe. Or Luce.

Swipe.

Wearing my jacket, she frowns up at the camera. She looked cute as fuck, even if she didn’t listen to me when I told her to bring a coat. I was mid-interview with a broadcaster, hearingher teeth chatter beside me. I stripped it off without thinking, wrapping it around her shoulders. Like she was already mine.

She was.

She is.

Because till death do us part.

The ring on my finger catches the early morning light. Platinum, simple, an almost match to the one I forced onto her hand while she stared at me like I was a ghost. I may as well be. Fucking crawled all the way back from the grave she buried me in, and now we’re not just gonna play house. We’re gonna fucking burn it all the way down.

I groan, dragging a hand down my face. Simpler times.

I scroll back to the first photo. The chairlift. Ivy’s smile, small and reluctant, annoyed at herself for giving me even that much. I said something stupid about her being too short to reach the safety bar. She elbowed me in the ribs, called me an asshole, and I felt more alive in that single moment than I had in years.

Now I feel nothing.

That’s a lie.

I feel everything. That’s the problem. Dovecrest tried to burn it out of me. Months of drugs and darkness, Aléia’s voice telling me Ivy left me to die, that Ivy never cared, that I should hate her. Hate everything she worships.

I do hate her.

I also can’t stop staring at her face on this screen, memorizing the exact shade of green in her eyes, the exact curve of her jaw. My phone buzzes, a text from Atlas sliding down the screen.

Don’t worry. I’ll keep her occupied ;)

He’ll do no such thing and he fucking knows it.

Another buzz.

Damn. For sure thought that would have sent you flying back down the mountain.

I take one last look at the photo. Her eyes, her mouth, the ghost of a smile I’ll never see again.

Then I delete the album.

Every photo, every memory, every piece of evidence that I was ever stupid enough to think she could love me back.

My thumb hovers over the confirmation.

Delete 1047 photos?

The wind kicks up, throwing ice crystals against my face. A dog barks in the distance. Normal sounds, a normal morning, but nothing about this is normal. As soon as we landed, I ran for my board like a fucking coward.

I hit cancel and pocket the phone.

Pushing off down the hill, my board cuts through powder. Speed builds as wind tears at my jacket. The tree line blurs into streaks of black and white, and for three seconds, maybe four, there’s nothing but gravity, the board beneath my feet, and the cold air shredding my lungs.

Snow sprays in a white plume as I kill the momentum, sliding to a stop twenty feet from the bottom.

Movement inside catches my eye.