“You get the answers you were looking for?” Luke said, leaning against the doorway.
Addison was sitting on the ground, her legs crossed over one another, contemplating what had just happened. “Someone died here.”
“What?”
Addison glanced upward, catching a brief glimpse of the effect her words had on Luke’s face. “I’m sorry—I don’t know what I’m talking about. I was thinking of something else when you walked in, and I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “You looked like you knew exactly what you were saying when you said it. What’s that then?” he said, pointing at the dress.
She set the lid on top of the box. “It’s nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
“I found it in a box at the bottom of the trunk.” She pushed the lid to the side, just enough to allow a small piece of the fabric to dangle over the edge. “It’s just some old party dress.”
“What’s all over it?” Luke asked.
“A design of some kind, I guess.”
Addison tried covering the dress without touching it, but Luke knelt down, pushing the lid to the side, and pointing. “That doesn’t look like any design I’ve ever seen.”
“What does it look like to you?”
“Honestly? Dried blood,” Luke said.
“Maybe. Or something was spilled on it. It could be a lot of different things.”
“Like what?”
Nothing came to mind.
“Who would go to the trouble of boxing up a dress without cleaning it first?” He tugged at the edge of his chin. “Is that why you said someone had died here?”
“I told you—I don’t know why I said that.”
Luke stood. “If you don’t want to tell me, fine. But don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
He slid a hand down his face and groaned. “I’m done for tonight. See you tomorrow.”
He’d made it out the door and almost to his truck before Addison caught up with him. “Wait.”
He kept walking.
“Would you wait just a minute?!” she yelled. “Please?”
He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Why?”
“You’re right. I wasn’t honest with you before, but believe me, it’s better this way.”
“How do you know?”
“If I shared certain things with you, you’d never see me the same way again. You’d think…I was crazy.”
He shrugged. “You seem normal to me.”
“Right now I do.”
“All right. Tell me something…see what happens.”
“And risk you leaving and not coming back?”
Luke faced her. “It’s not going to happen, Addison. We’ve become friends over the past few weeks, haven’t we?”
“I’d consider us friends, yes.”
He sighed. “Then don’t be afraid to let me into your life. I’m completely open. You can ask me anything, and I’ll always give you a straight answer. You can tell me anything, and I won’t judge you.”
Even standing there, listening to his words, she didn’t believe a person like him actually existed. “It’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is,” he said. “There’s no need to be shy, not around me.”
Shy? Is that how he sees me?
“Are you happy?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
He dug his hands into his pockets. “It just seems like you’ve built a wall around yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. Just one brick—that’s all I’m asking,” he said, holding a finger in the air. “Tell me one thing you thought you couldn’t ever tell anyone.”
The Great Wall of Addison was created at a time in her life when trust should have been forming, not row upon row of bricks. But seeing things others didn’t want to accept had taught her the value of keeping things to herself. As she aged, so did the need to separate herself from everyone else. Her introverted, untrusting nature came with a price, often at the expense of her relationships with men. None of them had ever lasted longer than six months, and usually, it was even less. They tried to get close, but she resisted, never trusting them enough to let herself go—not completely. She firmly believed that if she ever showed her true self, they’d laugh, and then they’d leave.
Luke was giving her the chance to do something different. She desperately wanted to keep the promise she’d made to herself to become a new, improved Addison, the one she’d always wanted to be. She just wasn’t sure who that was yet. She looked at Luke, contemplating the next course of action and whether what she was about to say would haunt her forever. All he wanted was a single brick, but he was about to get a good bit of the wall. “Do you believe in spirits?”