Page 13 of Ghosted
“Okay, fine. You can’t make fun of me for it though—” I pause at her scoff. “At least not much, alright? I’m vulnerable here.”
She holds up her hands, the stiletto points of her nails looking more menacing than surrendering, but I decide to tell her all the same. It’s not like I have a host of best friends to pull from. She’s kind of it for me as far as close relationships go, other than our parents.
“Remember Dean?” When she nods, I continue, “Well, he seemed excited about going on a second date, but he hasn’t even texted me. It’s been almost a week since we went out. We had planned to meet up again this weekend, and I haven’t heard a peep from him. I’ve texted him, but now I’m feeling like if he isn’t going to respond, I should just leave it alone. I’m so confused. Why tell me multiple times how much you enjoyed yourself if you’re just going to fall off the face of the earth?”
“Hmm. That is weird.” To my surprise, there’s no ribbing about how needy I am. “Are you sure he wasn’t giving off fuck-boy vibes?”
“No, he really wasn’t. He seemed very sincere. I know I can’t read people as well as you can, but he was a genuinely sweet guy. We both had a good time. And he was the one to initiate making more plans. He did say he’d be busy at work, but too busy to text me back at least once in the last week?” I push the rest of my plate away. It’s not appetizing anymore.
What if he saw something fundamentally wrong with me and just doesn't have the heart to tell me? What if the tiny peek behind my creepy curtain was enough to scare him away after he thought about it a little longer? He did say he wasn’t into the paranormal. Maybe he looked up the shop online and decided it was all too much. Thereisan About Us page that goes into detail about how my aunt is a tarot reader from a line of Gifted women. It doesn't mention me by name, other than to say that I manage the shop, but still. Maybe it revealed enough to scare him off.
“Maybe work was just really, really busy?” Wren’s voice brings me back down to reality.
“I guess. Seems kind of unlikely though. Honestly, at this point, I’m not really expecting a response,” I say, internally cringing at how mopey I sound.
“Have you looked up his socials to see if he’s posted anything?”
I nod. “I tried, but I didn’t know his last name, or even really where he was from. I looked up his number, and nothing came up. He agreed to Barrel and Vine for our date, but that doesn’t mean he was from this town. He could be from anywhere in a fifty-mile radius. I tried looking up ‘Dean, lawyer’ but couldn’t find anything. I even tried reverse image searching the photos on his MatchStik profile, but he’s one of the only men I know who doesn’t use the same picturefor every social media platform. Or hell, maybe he doesn’t have one. Who knows?”
“Wow, you’ve really deep dived this, haven’t you?” she asks. I nod despondently, and she sighs. “Look, maybe he’s just super busy, or maybe he lost his phone and has no way of contacting you. Maybe he’s scared of how amazing you are. No matter what, his actions say more about him than they do about you. If he did ghost you, that’s a shitty thing to do and you don’t need someone like that in your life anyway, no matter how hot he is.”
I nod again, knowing she’s right, but still wishing I had closure.
EIGHT
By Wednesdayof the following week, I have to accept it: I’ve been ghosted. Despite the fact that my date with Dean was the best date I’ve been on in years. Despite the fact that he made me feel like we had a chance. Despite thatkiss.I have to move on and stop pining over a guy I knew for less than forty-eight hours.
I tell myself all of this while also trying to convince my body to get out of bed. I need to head downstairs soon so I can open the store, but lying in bed is much more appealing. I finally sigh and sit up, righting my tatty, old Salem sweatshirt. It’s time to get back to who I was before I met Dean, no matter how monotonous my days were. I just have to get over the sting of putting myself out there and getting rejected. Again.
I shuffle out from behind the small partition that separates my bed from the rest of the living space and rub my eyes against the buttery morning sunlight streaming in from the windows. “Hello,” says a voice I don’t recognize.
I suck in a breath, ready to scream. When I open my eyes, the scream turns into a grunt. I realize it’s the ghost woman I saw when I was on my date with He Who Shall Not Be Thought Of. She’s wearing the same jeans and light pink sweater that complement her deep skin tone, and her black hair is perfectly slicked back into a high bun, showcasing her delicate bone structure and narrow eyes. She’s sitting on my couch and observing her surroundings with a blatant look of distaste. I try to leash my annoyance, happy I’m wearing pants for this ghostly encounter.
Sweats aretechnicallypants, right?
I give her a small wave and shuffle to the kitchen so I can get my coffee going, rubbing my arms to stave off the cold. Thanks to Wren, I’m a total coffee snob now and will only drink homemade if it’s done through a French press. I get the water boiling and lean on my island, which acts as a divider for the kitchen and living area.
“Hey. I recognize you from the other night. Thanks for not trying to talk to me while I was with someone,” I say, genuinely.
You’d be surprised how many dead people forget how to be polite, let alone to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and see how talking to “no one” can give you a one-way ticket to a place where you aren’t allowed anything sharper than a plastic spoon.
“I didn’t want you to look like a raving lunatic and be taken away before you can help me,” she says primly.
“Noted,” I say shortly and go about doctoring my coffee the way I like it. I cross the room so I can sit on the opposite side of the couch from her. “What’s your name?” I ask before taking a sip.
“Rebecca,” she says, eyeing my chipped cup. It’s technicallya teacup, but I use it for coffee. I love the hand-painted flowers that bloom across it. It was a gift of sorts from one of the first dead people I helped. Constance was the sweetest woman I had ever met, and helping her and her husband find closure meant everything to me. Right before Constance passed on, she directed her husband, Ralph, to give me the cup. She had hand-painted it herself a few months before she passed. I use it all the time to remind me why I help these people, even if they can be annoying. I run my hands over the textured surface and think of her, hoping that by now, she and Ralph have found each other again.
“Nice to meet you, Rebecca. I’m Rae. Sorry that there’s not a more delicate way to ask this, but do you know why you’re still here?” I ask. I want to jump right in because she doesn’t seem like the type to waste time on pleasantries.
“Hold on. Before I start answering your questions, I have some of my own. How can you see me, and why can’t anyone else? Why am I able to move things sometimes, but not others? And where thefuckam I?” she finishes, chest heaving.
It’s sort of odd that even after death, the body’s reaction to stress is the same. She doesn’t need to breathe, but she does anyway. I guess there are some things the mind doesn’t want to give up, even if the lungs no longer require air.
I take one more sip before setting it down on my coffee table. “Okay, let me try to answer those for you.” When I raise my brows at her, she nods and settles further into the couch. “First, I can see you because I have a Gift. Not everyone does. I don’t have the numbers on it, but it’s safe to say that I’m the only one around here. You can occasionally move things, but only when you get super worked up. My guess is you’ve beenable to interact with objects when you’ve been in a high emotional state. Is that right?”
She nods her head in agreement, so I explain, “If you were to hang around longer and practice more, you’d get better at it, but since you’re lucky enough to have found me, I’m hoping I can help you move on before that’s necessary. As for where you are… well, that depends. If you mean in a metaphysical sense, you’re on another plane of existence. If you mean geographically, you’re in Ravenwood, Massachusetts. Are you from here?” I ask.
“No, I’m from Ohio. How the hell did I end up in Massachusetts?” she asks, looking around my apartment with new eyes. I can’t even imagine how she views the thrifted pieces and riot of color. She seems like a white walls, white couch kind of gal.
