I don’t wait for him to open it and figure out what it is if he hasn’t already.

At the door, I pause once more. Without looking over my shoulder, I say coldly, “Throw that shit away if you’re not going to keep it. Burn it for all I care.”

I don’t wait for a response.

My ears ring as I finally make my way into the hall and head toward the stairs. My vision threatens to tilt, and my hands feel clammy. I feel like a ghost. Like maybe I did die in this house when I was sixteen, and I’m just finally waking up in the Hell that is my afterlife.

I don’t realize I’ve come to a stop at the top of the stairs until a hand squeezes my shoulder.

I suck in a sudden breath, and I wonder how long I’ve been holding it. How long I’ve been frozen here, staring wide-eyed and unseeing down the flight of steps. How long it took before Will followed me out.

“Hate me all you want, but I’m here, okay?” he says in a low rumble next to my ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”

My eyes burn and I finally force my legs to move, shaking him off.

The living room looks almost exactly how I remember it, save for the empty space where my dad’s old, plaid recliner sat. I remember many a night where I’d sneak in as a teenager, tip-toeing my way toward the stairs so as not to wake his snoring, drunk ass up.

A shadow of movement has me whirling toward the kitchen.

Reggie’s hands come up in a show of peace. “Easy. It’s just me.”

Heart pounding, I stare at my uncle hovering in the archway.

He exhales, fixating his eyes over my shoulder. On Will. The two seem to share a wordless conversation that has my hackles rising.

“I’m right fucking here, you know,” I mutter as I make my way into the kitchen. “Glad to see you two are all buddy-buddy now.”

Much like the living room, nothing in the kitchen has changed. It’s brighter, but only because my uncle replaced the two bulbs in the ceiling fan light that had been burned out for years. The round table in the middle is the same from my childhood. A flash of my dad sweeping the dishes off the table in a drunken rage flits across my memory.

I feel two sets of eyes drilling into the back of my head, but I don’t pay them much notice. In a daze, I trail my finger over the cracked counter as I make my way toward the opposite end of the table. “Where’s Ivy?”

A beat of silence, then Reggie answers, “She’s home.”

I stiffen.

“She just needs a little space right now,” Will explains gently.

I work my jaw. “She’s pissed.”