Addicted 2 U

Ghosts Are Real

GWEN

I wake up drowning in warmth that does not belong to me.

Soft sheets. Heavy sheets. Sheets that smell like bleach and citrus—hotel sheets. My eyes snap open, and the ceiling above me is unfamiliar. Too white. Too smooth. Too… intentional. I don’t remember checking in. I don’t remember walking through the lobby or speaking to a single human being. The last thing I remember is—

No. I don’t want to think about her. Not yet.

My head throbs, a deep, blooming ache pulsing behind my eyes. My body feels bruised everywhere, like I’ve been hit by an emotion I couldn’t outrun.

A sharp knock slices through the quiet.

I tense instantly. My heart trips over itself. No one knows I'm here. No one should know I’m here. Not even Mr. McNeill, the tyrant who sent me across the country, would—

Another knock, deliberate this time. Confident. As if the knocker already owns the space behind the door.

I push myself up with a wince, every muscle complaining, and stagger to the door. I press my eye to the peephole—

And I freeze.

No. Oh god. No, no, no.

Her.

Sara.

Standing outside my hotel room like some nightmare that followed me across the country. The same face that haunted my sleep for over eleven years. The same voice that broke something inside me before I even understood what she was.

I jerk back from the door, stumbling until my spine hits the wall. My chest squeezes tight. I can’t breathe.

Her voice slips through the wood, smooth as silk and twice as dangerous.

“I know you’re at the door. Open up.”

Just hearing her makes every nerve in me riot. My instinct screams run. My memory whispers want. My sanity begs hide.

I sink to the floor, curling in on myself. My voice comes out a shaky whisper pretending to be firm.

“Go away.”

Weak. Pathetic. I hate how small I sound. I hate that she can still do this to me.

“I’m not leaving,” she says, like it’s a promise. “Not until I talk to you face to face. Besides, it’ll either be me or my manager. And trust me, sweetheart… you want it to be me.”

I shut my eyes. The air is thick with her presence, even from the other side of the door. I can almost feel her smirking, confident that she’ll get whatever she wants because she always does.

I don’t respond. I can’t. If I speak again, I’ll crack. She’ll hear it. She always hears it.

There’s a deep sigh. Shuffling. A thump that sounds like bags being dropped.

Then—

A click.

My blood runs cold.

The lock turns.

The door swings open violently, slamming into me and shoving my body hard into the wall. Pain flares up my arm and back, but it’s nothing compared to the shock that paralyzes me as two figures step in.

Her first.

Then a giant of a man, built like a brick wall with legs.

Sara glides into the room like she owns it, her designer bag hitting the couch with a casual toss. She settles onto the cushions, legs crossed, sunglasses dangling from her fingers like she's posing for a magazine photo.

The man—her manager, I assume—looms over me. “Who is this to you?” he asks without looking away from my crumpled shape on the floor.

“A really good friend from high school,” Sara says lightly. “We haven’t seen each other since graduation.”

Lies. All lies. The kind she tells with a smile that convinces the whole world she’s telling the truth.

“Ah,” the man grunts. “Valedictorian girl.”

“Precisely.” Sara sounds delighted by that. “Which is why she makes an extra good cover. Especially after a huge makeover. She’s perfect, honestly. And Patty will lose her mind.”

She tilts her head back and laughs—a bright, beautiful, terrible sound that lodges itself under my ribs.

Then she notices I’m still on the floor.

Her expression changes. Softens. Warms in a way that is far too intimate for someone who shattered me and walked away like I was nothing.

She kneels in front of me. So close I can smell her perfume—something floral and expensive and devastating.

She reaches out, fingers poised to touch my arm.

I flinch. Violently.

Her face falls, the softness evaporating, something unreadable flickering behind her eyes. She rises without another word.

The man clears his throat. “Are you sure we need her? We can grab any fangirl willing to—”

“Jason, she is the one,” Sara snaps, whipping toward him so fast he startles. “Don’t challenge me. I don’t care what production says. Or what fans say. Or what you say.”

Her voice sharpens to a blade.

“She. Is. The. Only. One.”

My stomach drops. My pulse stutters. Why? Why me? After everything—why can’t she leave me alone?

Jason mutters something under his breath.

Sara ignores him. She rushes to me, presses a kiss to the top of my head—my head—and runs her fingers through my hair like she has any right.

Then she’s gone. The door slams behind her.

Jason watches her leave, then chuckles. “When she wants something, she sure doesn’t let go.”

He offers his hand, but I don’t take it. I stay sitting on the floor, staring at the door as if she might burst back through it.

“I’m Jason Stang,” he says when I give him nothing. “Sara’s manager. And bodyguard. I keep her on schedule. And I keep her safe.” He lowers his voice. “From all kinds of harm. If you know what I mean.”

I can feel him studying me, waiting for a reaction. I give him nothing. My eyes stay fixed on the door, on the space where she stood, on the ghost that refuses to stop haunting me.

Jason sighs. “Look, I hope you don’t mind the question… but what’s the real relationship between you two?”

Something inside me snaps.

Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe it’s the past slamming into the present so hard it knocks the truth loose. Maybe it’s the fact that for once—someone actually wants to hear it.

“Freshman year,” I start, voice raspy, “I saved her from a guy at a party. And I… I accidentally confessed my feelings.”

Jason nods, encouraging.

“And the next time we met, she touched me like it was some… game. Like rewarding a dog. She mocked me. She broke something in me and walked away like it was nothing.” My throat tightens. “Since then, I’ve spent years trying to hate her. Trying to pretend what she did didn’t stick like a thorn in my ribs.”

Jason raises an eyebrow. “That’s rough. But that sounds like high school. I don’t see how it affects you now.”

“I saved her,” I say heatedly. “And she violated me. Who the hell does that?”

Jason’s lips twitch like he’s suppressing laughter.

“And at graduation—” I choke out a bitter laugh. “She kept… touching me. Sang a song about our ‘moment.’ Like she owned me. Like she still owns me. And I spent five years loving her from a distance and hating myself for it.”

The words spill out faster now, angrier.

“And when I finally get a summer to myself—to go to Paris, to see my best friend—my employers force me into this nightmare instead. So yeah. I hate her. I hate everything about this. I hate—”

Jason interrupts by turning on the television.

And my blood stops moving.

On the screen—

Sara.

And me.

In front of the airport.

Her kissing me.

Cameras flashing everywhere.

I go completely, utterly still.

The image is bright. Beautiful. Dangerous. And unmistakably real.

A ghost from my past.

And a brand-new threat to my future.