Page 17 of Ghosted
If I were artistic, the park would make for a fantastic painting, especially now. The leaves on the trees are just starting to turn a rainbow of color. Mostly green, but the edges of the trees are a riot of reds and yellows. The low-hanging sun gilds everything it touches, and the only ripples on the calm surface of the lake are where the ducks drag small wakes behind them.
By the time I get to the halfway point around the lake, I still haven’t come up with a better solution. I thought briefly of renting out the space for parties or something, but the witchy aesthetic of the interior would probably only attract people during the month of October. Which is kind of the thing we’re trying to find a solution for.
We already sell a variety of supplies for anyone interested in spirituality or the occult, and even some basics for the average Joe who happens to wander into the store, so I don’t know what else we could add that fits our niche. I think for a moment on the “potion” idea that the teen was asking after the other day, but that feels way too disingenuous for me.
I’m grumbling about retirement homes by the time I insert my key in the lock of my front door. I don’t actually resent Aunt C for wanting to go. It does seem like a good fit for her, but damn—when it rains it pours.
I hang my coat on the rack by the front door and kickoff my boots. In my socked feet, I walk to the couch and sit down with a huff. I cross my arms and lean back.
I guess I can just… open up my senses and see what I can feel. If it gets to be too much, I can always pull back.
Satisfied with that plan, I begin the process of slowing my breath and closing my eyes. I’ve done this in the past just to see if I could tug on someone I was already in contact with, but I’ve never just thrown out the net to see what I can catch. I reach out with an ever-expanding web, scanning with my mind’s eye.
I’m a little scared of accidentally grabbing someone who would rather be left alone to really push myself. Like Dean. Apparently,hewants me to leave him alone. Well, lucky for him, I will. In fact, I’m so pissed off at the way he’s treated me, that if I never hear from him again?—
“Rae?” My eyes want to pop open at the intrusion, but I keep them screwed shut in disbelief.
I know that voice. Oh, God. Iknowthat voice. That can only mean…
“Dean?” I ask, cracking my eyes open to see him standing in front of me. He’s wearing a deep-navy suit with a crisp, white button-up shirt, undone at the collar. He looks the way he did on our date, but he’s shimmering around the edges just so. And he’s suddenly appeared in my living room. Unless this is a “living in the walls” situation, I think I just discovered why he never texted me back.
“Oh, fuck. You didn’t ghost me! You’re… Well, a ghost!” I blurt, jumping up.
“Ha-ha. I didn’t ghost you, silly. Our date was literally yesterday. You can’t miss me that much already, do you?” He gives me that same charming smile that made my heart race on our date, and while it would have worked on me weeks ago,now it just makes me nauseous. Because he doesn’t know. He thinks I’m playing some silly prank on him.
Oh, no. I’m going to be the one to have to tell him that he’s dead.
As he looks around my apartment, his smile melts off his face slowly, like an ice cream cone left in the sun for too long. “Wait… Where are we? And how did I get here? I just left work, right?” He looks down at himself, brushing his hands along his suit jacket as if to confirm his outfit is indeed work appropriate. “Where’s my phone?” he asks, patting his pockets.
I wince. Yeah, he won’t be finding that in the afterlife.
I gnaw on my lip, unsure of how to break the news to him. Of course, I’ve had to tell others that they were dead, but this is the first time I’ve had to do the same for someone I know. Someone I’ve kissed.
Andwow,he’s dead. And I don’t even have time to process that information, let alone the surprising wave of grief. Because obviously, right after the one time I hit it off with someone, they have to give up the ghost. Really funny, Universe. Hilarious, actually.
But this isn’t about me. Poor guy is about to have a rude awakening.
He continues patting his pockets and looks at me suspiciously. “Is this your place? Did you drug me? You know, you didn’t have to do that to get me to come to your apartment, right? All you had to do was ask.” He gives up on the search for his phone and crosses his arms. I can tell he’s fighting to stay calm, but his mind is frantically trying to make sense of where he is and why.
He frowns at me. “Actually, after this little stunt, theanswer will probably be no,” he says, backing away from me a step.
He must be very disoriented right now, and I would wager he hasn’t been sentient since he died. Most people who die take a while to “come to” in this form. It’s a traumatic thing for the soul to separate from the body. And I just yanked Dean to me without intending to. I wince, hoping I didn’t disturb some vital part of the process that I’m not aware of.
“I didn’t drug you, Dean. Our date was over three weeks ago now,” I say slowly.
He shakes his head adamantly. “No, I swear. Ijustsaw you, and then—Didn’t I go home?” he asks himself, looking up at my ceiling as if to find some reasonable explanation among the cracking plaster.
“Look, it’s September 27th and our date was on the 5th.” I hold out my phone to show him the date on the lock screen.
His brows scrunch together violently. I consider blurting out the truth, but he’s so confused, I think that would just freak him out more. I’m trying to slowly lead him to his new reality.
“That can’t be right,” he says, intending to grab my phone and pull it closer to him.
Only, he hasn’t mastered anything about being a ghost yet, so his hand goes right through. He doesn’t know he has to concentrate on the object and his hand to make contact. He’s still operating like a live person who assumes that if they reach for an object, they’ll be able to touch it. He shakes his head as if to clear it and reaches for my phone again, sending goosebumps along my arm as his hand passes through mine for a second time. “Okay, what thefuckis going on?” he asks, sounding close to panic.
Well, so much for easing him in. I sit down and gesture forDean to do the same. When he tries to sit, though, he passes straight through the couch and lands with an “Oomph” on the ground. Guess I should have seen that coming. Man, I’m really screwing this up.
Don’t ask me why he didn’t go straight through the floor. I know very little about ghost physics, but I can only assume it’s something to do with his unconscious ability to control where he is. And while he definitely doesn’t think he should go through couches, hereallydoesn’t believe he can go through the floor.
