Page 25 of She Haunts Me Still

Monday, he asks about her dream role. (Maggie inCat on a Hot Tin Roof.)

Tuesday, her biggest regret. (That she doesn’t have more photos of her mother.)

On Wednesday, she asks him his.

They’re sitting on the floor, hands pressed together. The candle crackles between them, and Ezra hesitates at the question, like he’s not sure he wants to answer.

“You don’t have to—”

“I was ten the first time my dad hit me,” Ezra interrupts, and she quiets immediately. The air between them seems to shift. “But that’s not where it started. Or where it ended. People think of abuse as bruises and welts, but it’s also other things.” His gaze drops to their laced fingers. “It’s being called worthless over and over until you believe it’s true. It’s getting locked in a closet if you talk back. It’s—” He swallows. “It’s being told he’s hurting you because he loves you.”

Ezra takes a shaky breath. Before she can change her mind, Mallory carefully, tentatively runs her thumb over his. Her pulse jumps as he strokes back just as softly, and when he speaks again, his voice is steady. As though her touch is grounding him, too.

“It all blurred together,” Ezra continues. “You go somewhere in your head, you know? Make up a new life where nothing bad has ever happened. And you stay there for as long as you can.” Ezra raises his eyes to hers. “It took me years to realize I didn’t have to pretend—that I couldclaima different life for myself. I wonder who I could’ve become if I’d figured it out sooner. But it’s too late now.” He looks away again. “ ‘Regret’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

Mallory stares at him, too many thoughts tangling inside her brain.

“It’s never too late,” she finally says.

The smile that flutters across Ezra’s face can only be described as sad.

“Sometimes,” he says, “it is.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” she adds, and he tips his head. “What he did to you all those years. It wasn’t your fault.”

He goes quiet at that, staring across the flames. It takes her a breath to understand his silence: No one has ever said that to him before.

For a moment, she contemplates moving closer, close enough to hold not just his hands but to holdhim. She wonders if he’d let her. If he’d stroke her hair and tell her that the world is a fucked-up, dark mess of a thing, but there’s a small light in it now.

Before she can, Ezra blows the candles out and says, “I don’t think there are any ghosts here tonight other than mine.”

When Mallory arrives at the dressing room the following evening, it’s completely dark. She frowns, checks her watch.She and Ezra have still been meeting thirty minutes after rehearsal every night, once the theater has cleared out.

It’s getting harder and harder to come up with excuses for Arden. Yesterday at breakfast, Mallory said she’d promised to help Christina with alterations to make up for ripping her Juliet dress. Today at dinner, she wove a story about cramming for a literature test.I’ll be at the library late. It was such a tiny fib, but she saw the glimmer of suspicion behind Arden’s lashes that hadn’t been there before.

Mallory swallows as she thinks about it, hurrying down the stairwell. Arden’s friendship has always been a life raft, something to hold on to. And here Mallory is, chipping away at the one thing she’s ever felt good about in her life. Burying their shared history beneath a mountain of lies and digging her own grave along with it. Perhaps she should have told Arden the truth from the start, let her decide if she wanted someone like her as a friend. Arden’s rejection might have stung, but it would have hurt a lot less than this bottomless guilt.

Ezra is right—sometimes, it is too late.

Just as Mallory is about to exit the lobby, a clattering sound echoes inside the Crypt. Holding her breath, she creeps into the darkened theater, trepidation coursing through her as her brain works out what she might find—

She exhales in relief when she spots Ezra, center stage, tugging up a trapdoor.

“What are you doing?” she calls, approaching.

“Change of scenery.” He straightens, revealing a narrow flight of wooden stairs. “Rehearsal studio isn’t working, so let’s try somewhere new.”

“Downthere?” She warily eyes the dark opening. “I don’t know. There are probably spiders.”

Ezra just shrugs, already halfway belowground. “Probably.”

Burying her hesitation, Mallory follows him down the rickety steps to the storage vault. She’s met with a fragrant cloud, almost like the sandalwood incense Arden burns, and her eyes adjust to the shadows moving over old set pieces: a Victorian-era couch, a heavy oak armoire, a pyramid of Queen Anne chairs.

“This is veryPhantom of the Operaof you,” she says, trailing him in the dark.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Ezra drops his messenger bag onto one of the tables and pulls out his usual candles. Mallory’s eyebrows shoot up.