Page 26 of Chasing Your Ghost

“Don’t worry, Riley,” Noah said. “Chris’s skin will probably be all ugly and leathery when he gets old. You and I will be the ones laughing then.”

Chris scowled and reached over to slap the back of Noah’s head. “Ass.”

Riley met Asher’s gaze again. She knew she’d already made him wait too long when she saw the impatient purse of his lips. “Speaking of skin, I should probably put some more sunscreen on,” she told Noah and Chris after standing back up. While her back was to them, she used her eyes to gesture to Asher that he should follow her to the pool house. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“If you bring it out here, I can rub some on your back,” Chris suggested, his eyebrows moving up and down in a mockery of flirtation.

Riley rolled her eyes, and Noah pretended to gag. “Gross, Chris,” he complained. “That’s my stepsister.”

“And I’m perfectly capable of applying sunscreen by myself,” she added with a chuckle, used to pretending everything was fine even when there was a ghost impatiently waiting to speak with her. “But thanks.”

“I’ll grab us some drinks,” Noah called out to her as she walked to the pool house. “What do you want?”

“A Coke, please,” she replied over her shoulder as she opened her door, pausing to the side to let Asher go ahead of her. “Thanks, Noah.”

She went in and shut the door behind her, drawing in a deep breath to prepare herself for what was about to happen. Turning around, she found Asher staring at her with a furrow between his eyebrows, clearly not sure what to make of her.

This close to him, she could see the five o’clock shadow on his face and that his eyes, which were framed by unfairly thick eyelashes, were green. If she wasn’t so incredibly sad for him, she might have been flustered by the weight of his attention.

But she was a professional. She was completely unaffected by him. Well, maybe not entirely unaffected.

“Hi.” Riley swallowed the lump in her throat.

“I can’t believe you can actually see me,” he murmured. “That day you moved in, I thought you were looking at the tree or something. But you weren’t, were you?”

She gave him a tight smile. “No. I could see you,” she said. “You’re Asher, right?”

He nodded, his frown growing deeper. “How do you know that?”

“Noah’s dad told me about you. He said you’ve been missing for a few weeks.” She licked her lips nervously— talking to the dead never got easier— and shrugged. “I put two and two together.”

“But how can you see me when no one else can?” he asked, his eyes frantically flicking back and forth as he searched her eyes for an answer.

“Because I can see what they can’t,” she explained, buying herself a little bit more time before saying what she needed to. Spirits didn’t always understand what they were and why people couldn’t see them, and she’d learned early on not to assume they remembered their deaths or knew what they’d become. “I’m a medium, which means I can see ghosts.”

Asher blinked at her, and her stomach dropped as his confusion gave way to understanding. “I’m dead,” he said after an excruciatingly long silence.

Riley bit her lip. She nodded her head slowly, a sting building behind her eyes. He was so young. Only a year older than she was. It was so profoundly unfair. “I’m sorry, Asher,” she said quietly.

“I’m dead,” he repeated, this time sounding frustrated.

“I wish it weren’t true,” she told him, her voice cracking as her heart broke for him. “But it is, and you need to let go of whatever is keeping you here so that you can move on.”

“Move on?” he asked as he roughly ran his hands through his hair. “You just confirmed something I’ve been trying to deny for the past two weeks, and now I’m just supposed to accept it and move on?”

Riley winced. “I know it’s hard to accept—believe me, I know.”

“You know?” he scoffed. “You know what it’s like to be attacked on the side of the road, do you? You know what it’s like to wake up not knowing how you got home or why nobody can see you?”

“No,” she replied gently, used to this kind of reaction. “But I know what it’s like to want to cling to the people you love and not let them go,” she told him. “I know how hard it is to accept you’ll never see them or speak to them again.”

His anger seemed to dissipate with her words, but there was still a raging storm inside his eyes. “I can’t be dead,” he whispered hoarsely. “I don’t want to be dead. It’s not fai—” His words cut off as he clutched at his chest, doubled over, and let out a groan. “No,” he said desperately, his eyes lifting and seeming to beg Riley— for what, she didn’t know. “Please help me.”

Riley gaped. “What’s happening?” she asked, the calming tone she’d been using before non-existent.

She’d seen a lot of things, but she had never seen a ghost in pain before. It just didn’t happen.

The strangeness didn’t end there. While she stared at him, made a statue by her confusion, Asher was jerked back by an invisible force. Even though she knew her hands would glide right through him, she instinctively reached out to grab him. He disappeared before she could do anything—there one second and gone the next.

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