The Time Seekers (The Soul Seekers Book 2) Read Online Free

I tell him, much less show him, all the thoughts in my head? This process of grief was finally on my shoulders, and I had to deal with it, but I didn’t want to. It meant accepting it. It meant letting go.
    I placed two bowls of hot tomato soup on the table and sat down. The pounding in my head began to cease; the aspirin was finally doing its job. William lifted the evening newspaper to read while eating, a bad habit he’d picked up but which I said nothing about. A copy of The House of Seven Gables sat on the table as well. “So, is that Ms. Jacomber’s favorite book or something?” I joked, and he lowered the paper in surprise.
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Well, I’ve already read it,” I said, grinning smugly. “In tenth grade. Want me tell you all about it?”
    Will shifted in his chair and peered at me from under a stern brow. He picked up his book. “That would be cheating, Emma.”
    “Cheating, shmeating.” It’d serve Ms. Jacomber right. I couldn’t think of a reason why, but it would.
    Will continued to read, and it reminded me of the library back in Indiana where we first met—back when he was a ghost, and I’d first come to town and couldn’t figure out what the hell I was doing with my life. William became my obsession to replace all that; he was mysterious and beautiful. Only seventeen at the time, I fell hard and nothing and no one was going to stop me from having him.
    A memory of a rebellious longhaired boy came to interrupt the image—someone more stubborn than me. My head pounded and I clenched my fists under the table.
    “Your teacher really gave me the eye today,” I said, averting the subject dwelling inside my subconscious.
    “Who? Ms. Jacomber?”
    “Yeah. It was weird.”
    He spoke from behind the book. “Ah, she’s just serious about her class, that’s all. Just like your art teacher.”
    I sat for a while and slopped the soup around with my spoon before getting up to wash it down the sink. I couldn’t eat. I needed that cigarette. “Exciting plans, now that I’ve fed you?” I asked, without really needing an answer. My husband would go upstairs, like he always did on Friday night, to start a weekend-long writing jig. These sessions were sure to produce the next Great American Novel, and I was proud to witness such a magical event; only, he sure was taking his time tonight.
    Standing behind, I flipped his ebony locks around for a moment before leaning in to kiss the top of his head. Bad idea. He’d really laid on the Brylcream. Will placed the book down next to his plate and cranked his head to look up at me. “How’s your headache?”
    “Better.”
    “Really?” He turned and slid his hands around my waist and pulled me close so his face nestled in my midriff. Lips pressed into my navel, and it was no casual gesture.
    My body stiffened.
    Jesse. Jesse was still in my head and my heart, and was poisoning everything.
    Pulling away with a hurt glint in his eye, Will pretended he hadn’t felt my body’s reaction. I watched him shrug a little and reach for the book. “Well, I’ll just finish this chapter and go up to write.”
    I reached around to grab his empty bowl and spoon. I swept crumbs of bread—leftover remnants from his beautiful mouth. Then I walked to a sink of dishes needing to be washed. They had been there all week. I was a horrible cleaner.
    A few minutes later, Will pushed away from the table and quietly announced he was going upstairs, and I said the same thing I always said: “Don’t put me in your book!”
    After he left, I lowered an unscrubbable plate and filled the sink to the top so everything could soak. I heard the sound of a door closing upstairs and waited another minute or two, all the while contemplating myself in the dark kitchen window. A young face stared back, one I both sympathized with and hated. I stuck my tongue out at it before reaching into a corner cabinet for a pack of cigarettes.
    Outside, the sky was clear with the stars