Breathe

Chapter 31

Lucie

Returning to the Hornes' house felt different this time around.

Less like that feeling of relief after returning from a long pilgrimage, more like stepping foot into a universe in which you didn't belong. I hated it with every fiber of my being, that I could never look at Vinny or anything that had to do with him the same way again. When his lips had met mine, we'd crossed a threshold we could never cross back over. His image in my eyes, my image in his, had both been forever warped.

I was beginning to believe there existed two types of every person in the world: the person before you kissed them, and the person after. They were never the same thing.

We'd agreed never to speak of it again. As far as we knew, that night on the roof had gone very differently.

I stepped into the foyer of the Hornes' home, hesitating. I could hear voices in the kitchen, the sizzle of something cooking on the stove, but not much else.

I forced myself to move forward, only halting when I heard Vinny's soft voice, not addressing me: "He's coming back, Mom. I promise—he promised."

I went still, cold freezing my blood. So she'd figured it out, then, that her son was gone. Her husband and her son, all in one week. I hid my face in my hand. Cian couldn't have chosen a better time. "When we said our vows, your dad promised to me he'd always be faithful," replied a female voice, Mrs. Horne's. There was a clang of metal, and I thought I heard Vinny gasp. "Promises don't mean a thing. They're made to be broken, Vincent."

"Cian wouldn't—" He didn't finish, swallowing back the words and beginning again. "He's just doing some angel business."

"Angel business? How can he still be involved in angel business without angel wings?" Mrs. Horne fired back. I heard her sigh. "God, everything's going down the drain, isn't it? None of this happened when you were dead."

I winced, waiting for Vinny to say something back, but he didn't. I hurt for him.

"You can hope Cian will come home," his mother continued, "but that doesn't mean it will happen. If you're going to be alive, you'd better quit acting like a toddler, Vincent."

Footsteps, brisk and purposeful, began to move away from the kitchen. Too late to move out of the way, I hid the hurt in my expression, faking a smile as Cian and Vinny's mother rounded the corner. Her lips were in a frown, hair a frayed mess around her bare face. Without makeup, her eyes seemed sunken in, lips thin and skin speckled with a blemish here and there. Even less perfect, so to speak, she was still an achingly beautiful woman. "Hi, Mrs. Horne—"

She knocked into my shoulder, brushing past me without another word. The next noise I heard was the slamming of the parlor door.

Here, and the next moment, gone again.

I was standing in a broken household. It had been fractured before, but now, it was nearly gone in all.

I continued into the kitchen. The lights were off, the sun's golden light glinting off the steel pots and cast iron pans, bouncing off the mason jars filled with various spices. Vinny stood at the island, a cutting board in front of him, filled mostly with neatly chopped vegetables and flawless miniature cubes of ham. The only thing not perfect about this kitchen was the expression on Vinny's face.

He should have looked disconsolate. He should have looked frustrated, or angry, or anything. But there was nothing on his face, just a bleak stare into the distance, the only evidence he was feeling anything at all his white-knuckled grip on the edge of the island.