Page 94 of Wicked Games

“I’ll be watching you. Never doubt it. If you’re close enough to breathe the same air as she is, she’ll be where Brooke is now. I made a mistake once, but it won’t happen again. Trust me on that.”

He walks away, casually, like we had a conversation about the weather, and mourners who are lingering near Brooke’s grave rush to comfort him.

Avery’s still kneeling and speaking to Hattie, and I walk toward her, in shock. I don’t notice the sun or the puffy clouds, not the heat because I’m not hot anymore. I’m cold, so cold, and I’ll never feel warm again. Do it fast, I think. Cruel, hateful. Despicable. Anything so when I walk away, she doesn’t try to follow.

“Avery,” I say, my voice raw.

She stands, her heels lying in the grass. “What is it?” she asks warily, already sensing the bad things that will come out of my mouth.

She’s so beautiful, her hair pinned back and her skin a milky white. Falling in love with me didn’t erase the ghosts in her pretty brown eyes, only a steady life full of happiness would have done that. We weren’t together long enough. Not nearly long enough.

“I can’t do this,” I say, and I turn off my emotions like I did when Theo died. Like I did when Brooke left me.

“Can’t do what?” She licks her lips, panic flashing across her face.

“Be with you. I deserve better than a broke writer who can’t pay her bills. You won’t be anything but a drain. I thought I could love you, but I can’t. Go back to Darren. He wants you. I don’t.”

A tear drips down her bruised cheek.

It takes all my willpower not to throw up. Pushing her at Darren. After this, she will. She will.

“You don’t love me,” she says hollowly.

“No. So I would appreciate it if you stayed away from me, yeah? You and Darren can go back to Lakehaven Falls and finish out the summer. I won’t be there.”

Slowly, she nods. “What about your things at my apartment? Will you have Violet pick them up?”

“Throw it all out. I didn’t leave anything I can’t afford to lose.” That’s not true, not true at all, and the words cut at my throat. I left the last few pieces of my heart in her tiny apartment, in that small space where she created a home. I turned her into my home, and without her, I have nothing.

She wiggles the ring off her left hand and puts it on her right. I’m glad she didn’t try to give it back to me. I think I would have broken down.

“It’s better you do this now, right? Instead of in a couple of years when you realize that all I ever was is a washed-up writer who earns pennies when you make thousands a day. You need a woman like Violet, who speaks dollars and cents. I got it.” She wipes her cheeks. “Fuck you if you think I’ll go back to Darren. I’d rather drown. Goodbye, Seth.”

Picturing her sinking in the inky black water the night Vale tried to kill her, I say desperately, “Please don’t do anything stupid.”

She lifts her chin and her eyes harden. “What do you care?”

It’s what she said to me that afternoon in her room, after she lay in bed for three days. I can’t think of her hurting herself over this, and I’m dizzy, a cold sweat dripping down my back, but I have to convince her to hate me. I can’t have her looking for me.

I shrug. “I don’t.”

I turn and walk away.

Behind me, I hear her drop to her knees, and she sobs, horrid shrieks that everyone in the cemetery can hear. They rip at my soul, and I want to cover my ears. Violet whips her head in my direction and she rushes over the grass.

“What’s going on?” she asks, grabbing my arm.

“Get the fuck off me,” I yell and jerk out of her grasp, enraged that Vale got the last swipe after all. “Can’t you get out of my face for one fucking second? Jesus Christ.”

She stumbles back, shocked and confused. I’ve never spoken to her like that before. “I-I’m sorry,” she stutters.

I stride toward the paved path that winds through the cemetery, and Vale catches my eye. Satisfaction gleams in his, but knowing that he’ll leave Avery and the rest of my friends and family alone is small consolation.

My whole world is gone.

I reach my truck and fumble with the fob. The inside is like hell and I struggle to breathe. I don’t have anywhere else to go, and I drive to the house I shared with Brooke and my little boy.

No one has been in it for weeks and it feels abandoned.