Page 41 of Ghost of a Chance
“It’s dumb.”
“Deep feelings always make me vulnerable and sharing them out loud always sounds, I don’t know, ridiculous.But it does help?”
“Who do you share with?”
“My mom.But yours isn’t here so spill,” she said in a joking way.He was deflecting.Something she couldn’t allow.
“Fine.He sort of grounded me.Kept me from going too ‘Jasper’ about things.Since he’s been gone I’m drifting.”
So having Paul in the book…was starting to make more sense.Jasper needed to see that Paul was safe to move on.
Taking her phone out she added that note to the ones she’d been compiling.
“He’s with you for you,” she pointed out.
“I guess.Who knows?I’m more listless than ever,” Jasper admitted.“And this—” he made a wild gesture toward the book and television “—really isn’t helping.”
He was getting agitated.“Did the book ‘return’ to you by mail the other times you left it?”
He let go of her hand and she sat up.
“No.Only when I sent it to Victor.Do you even believe any of this?”
Sure she did.She believed that he believed it.And with everything she’d witnessed since meeting Jasper, it was hard to deny that something strange was going on.
Trying to get to the bottom of what was really going here wasn’t as easy as she’d hoped.
There was no one except her mom that she had let into her life that way.There was a lot going on with Jasper.A lot more than she’d been prepared to unpack tonight.This wasn’t just a college story of fun and games and one-upmanship.
This was his life.
He needed answers, and she had to find them for him.
When she went to her room later, she’d contact her cousin Liberty who was a tarot card reader and witch.Maybe she’d be able to give her some insight into that voice from the séance and how spirits might interact with the human realm.
“Sorry.I can see how much this means to you,” she said.
“But you think it’s just guilt—right?”
“There’s no denying you feel guilty.”
“Of course I do.Paul had his life planned out.He was going to get his degree and a job in his field.Ask Victor to marry him.I’d be best man even though Victor was technically the best man that Paul knew.You know what I had in junior year?”
She stared at him.It was clear he wasn’t expecting an answer.
“A low C grade average and not enough credits for a degree in anything but media.I had a reputation for being a serial dater who broke up with women after two dates.I had no map to my future.So yeah, when I think about the one who was left behind, I wonder if fate got it wrong.”
“Jasper—”
“Don’t.Survivor’s guilt has been discussed at length with my therapist.I get that part.But the fact that you might think I’m just manifesting the idea of my roommate into a book because I can’t get over it…that pisses me off.You’ve seen what he does.”
“I have.”There wasn’t much more to add.Jasper’s pain was raw and she hated that she’d driven him here.All to prove something to him.Was there really anything more cowardly than what she’d just done.Forced him into a corner emotionally so she didn’t have to admit her own feelings?
The answer was a resounding no.
“I’m going to bed,” he said, getting to his feet and walking out of the living room.
For a moment it had seemed as if this time she was going to be different.But no.Turns out at the end of the night she was still the same Kirsty, whose real talent was keeping people at arm’s length, never admitting just how much she wanted to let them in.
