Page 3 of Almost You

Jesus. Yes, please. To all of it.

I wasn’t sure if I could have sex, being dead and all. Yet my desire to fuck remained. Also…I was clearly, fabulously gay.

I didn’t remember a boyfriend or a lover. Not even a hookup. Had no clue if I was totally vanilla or kinky as hell. My sexuality, though, clung to me. More a fact than memory.

2+2= 4

This ghost is gay as fuck.

“Christopher?”

“What?”

I had nothing to say, really, but I wanted to keep him speaking.

“There air is different here.”

He raised his bushy eyebrows. “How so?”

“I don’t know.” I noticed my nails were ragged at the edges. Did I bite them often? “Have you always been able to talk to spirits?”

He nodded. “Since I was ten. My foster dad hurt me to the point I was dead. Once I was revived in the hospital, I began to see things.”

My mouth fell open. “God, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. They took me away from that family and placed me with a better one.”

“When you woke in that hospital and began to have visions of the dead, did it freak you out?”

“Hell yeah, but I had nobody to talk to about it, so I tried to ignore everything. Eventually, I accepted that seeing other realms was a part of me.”

“What about personal ghosts? Did you ever seek out your family?”

Christopher’s face tightened. “My mom and dad could float right by me, and I wouldn’t know them.”

That got to me—his loneliness. It felt so much like mine.

Part of me wanted to reach out and hold him, whisper in his ear that everything would be fine. For us both. But if I said the wrong thing, or moved too fast, I might cause Christopher to leave. He looked poised to run already with his harsh tone, defensive stance, and haunted eyes.

THREE

Christopher

I’d lied about my parents. I wouldn’t know my father if he glided past me, but my mother I might recognize. She’d been there my first four years on the planet…until the day she left. I’d tried to forget her face. I’d learned to bury my memories of her to avoid the pain. And it worked. Who really remembered before age four? It was like being under murky water and trying to see. But if I saw her, all the hurt and recognition would bubble to the surface.

“Christopher? Please keep talking to me,” the young ghost begged.

I sighed. “All right…we could talk about religion if you want. Some ghosts find it a comfort.”

“No, thanks.” His jaw tightened.

Somehow, I knew not to push. A strong, tingling sensation raced down the back of my neck. It was impossible to know why, but his essence was familiar to me, even as his looks were excitingly new.

“Tell me more about you. You have no family?” he asked.

“I got my wife, Abby.”

“You’re married?”

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