The scream rips its way up my body and explodes like a volcano out my mouth. I take a step back and feel bits of glass cut into the bottom of my foot. Lifting my weight off the foot I tumble backwards, landing in a pile of glass and porcelain.
“Stop moving,” Logan commands. “You’re going to cut yourself to shreds.”
I take a deep breath and scream again, only this time my voice is strained so the sound comes out ragged and strangled.
“Will you please stop screaming? Seriously Zoe.”
My eyes are wide. My heart is pounding against my ribcage so hard I think I might actually throw up. I take another breath, but this time I hold it in until I can’t anymore and it expels in a hot rush.
“What are you doing here?”
He folds his arms, looking smug. “What am I doing here, as in here in your kitchen, or do you mean here in more general terms? As in why am I not—“
“Rotting in the ground somewhere?”
He wrinkles his nose. “I was going to say dead, but thanks for the vivid.”
Slowly my senses start coming back into focus. The pain in my foot is intense, but not enough to distract from the sliver of glass stuck in my forearm.
“I’m bleeding,” I say, watching the crimson leaking down my arm and off of my elbow as I inspect it.
“That happens when you fall into a pile of broken glass.”
I glare at him, “Shut up, Logan.”
I grab the sliver of glass with two fingers and pull it out quickly. The blood flows more freely, pooling beside me. I toss the toothpick sized sliver aside. Using my other arm like a mop to clear a space, I slide myself back out of the glass and press my back against the wall. Bringing my foot up for inspection, I see the cut. It’s shallow and there is nothing in the wound. My hands shake as I pull myself to my feet, using the handle of the fridge door for support. I skirt around the glass, stepping carefully as I maneuver around Logan without looking up at him, and make my way, limping, to the bathroom.
Scooping the first aid kit from under the sink I flip the lid down and sit on the toilet. I can feel Logan staring at me as I clean the cut on the bottom of my foot and stick a bandage over it. My arm is still bleeding, but it’s not too bad anymore so I wipe off the excess blood with a wad of toilet paper.
“That probably needs stitches,” he says. I can see that he’s leaned up against the counter, his feet crossed at the ankles. But I don’t dare look up. Looking him in the eyes is like feeding the delusion.
Ignoring him, I slap a band-aid over the cut. When that’s done I just sit there for a minute with my eyes fixated on the spring behind the door. I’m trying to decide what to do, what to say. I squeeze my eyes shut and count to ten.
“Still here,” he says when I open them. I sigh.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you here?” I ask, finally looking up. “And what exactly are you?”
“Well, I’m here because for some weird reason you can see me when no one else can.”
I sit back, still clutching the plastic first aid box to my chest.
“Why can I see you?”
He cocks his head, “How am I supposed to know?” He rubs his hand down his face in frustration, then glares at me. “Do you see dead people often?”
I make a face. “No. you’re the first.”
He throws his hands up. “Great. Just freaking great. The one person who can see me, and she has no clue what’s going on.” His eyes fall back to mine, “I was really hoping you’d have some answers.”
“Well, I don’t. So maybe you should just…you know. Go.”
“Go where exactly?”
I stand up. “I don’t know! Go into the light or something. Shit, what do I look like? A ghost expert?”
“You look like the only person who can see and hear me.”
I let out a deep breath and squeeze the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. “This isn’t happening. This is just some bad dream.”
“Yeah, that’s what I told myself too. For days I stood in my living room screaming at my parents while they sobbed over my picture. I thought I was losing my mind. Then I followed them to the funeral. And I saw you.”
I flick my hands and he moves so I can toss the kit back under the sink. I turn and walk to my room with him following me.
“This is exactly why I don’t go to funerals,” I huff and flop onto my chair.
“This is why you don’t go to funerals?” he asks, one eyebrow arched.
I shrug. “Fine, not this exactly. But nothing good ever comes from funerals. People are always like, you should go, get some closure. But that’s all a load of crap. All it is, is another way to traumatize yourself. Just more bad memories to heap onto the pile.”
He sits on the edge of my bed, Brimstone stands, arches her back in a stretch, then looks right at him, hisses and runs out of the room.
“Looks like you aren’t the only one who can see me.”
“That bi-polar cat is not proof that you aren’t just a figment of my over caffeinated, over Poe’d imagination.”
“This is getting old. How can I prove I’m really here?”
My head is beginning to ache. “I don’t know. Being haunted is new to me, can you give me a minute to come to grips, please?”
He sits back on his hands. “Fine. One minute. Clock starts now.”
I throw a pillow at him and it passes right through. “Well, I suppose I should have expected that,” I mumble. He rolls his eyes.
I squint. “What are you in such a hurry for, anyway? You kind of have, I don’t know, forever, right?”
Then something dawns on me. “Oh my God. You aren’t going to haunt me forever, right? I mean, this isn’t going to be my life now. Being followed around by an arrogant pain in the ass ghost?”
“Keep up the flattery and I just might.”
I lean my head back and close my eyes. “I hate my life.”
“You know, that’s a pretty bitchy thing to say in front of a guy who no longer has one.”
My head snaps up and I stare at him. I hadn’t really thought of it that way. From his perspective, he must be miserable, in a special kind of hell.
“Sorry.”
He shrugs it off, but I can still see traces of pain etched in the curve of his jaw.
His white and blue plaid shirt is open and exposing the grey t-shirt beneath. He’s wearing a pair of khaki shorts and sneakers.
“Are you cold?” I ask without really thinking. Autumn air has come early and with the rain, it’s probably below sixty degrees outside.
He looks down at his outfit. “Nope. I don’t really feel temperature at all.”
I tilt my head, “Why are you wearing clothes?”
His expression is surprised, then melts into a sly smile. “Why? Were you hoping for a naked haunting?”
I decide to take a page from Carlos’s playbook. “Oh, honey, you don’t have the figure for nudity.”
He grins widely. “Oh, I really do.”
I look him over and realize that he’s right. He’s not the skinny little boy who used to make mud castles in my back yard anymore. Even under his shirts, I can see the tell tale ribbons of muscle in his chest, shoulders, and arms, taught but defined. His jaw has squared in the last few years, filling out into a very masculine face. I look away when I see him staring at me as I appraise him. I try really hard not to look impressed.
“Well, I see your massive ego is still intact.”
He leans to the side, sprawling out across my bed.
I glare, “No offense, but would you not do that on my bed?”
“What? Be sexy.”
“No, be dead.”
His face falls and he stands up. I immediately feel bad, but this whole thing has me so weirded out that I have no idea what to say next.
“Oh, go ahead. I can practically see the hamster wheel in your brain smoking. Ask me whatever.”
“Do you eat?”
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“No. Not hungry either. Which is good, since I can’t actually touch anything.”
“What are you standing on? If you can’t touch anything, what keeps your feet on the floor?”
He looks down at his sneakers and puckers his lips. “Good question. I don’t know.”
He squints and slips halfway down into my floor, only his upper half still visible. “Huh,” he says, then floats up so he’s hovering a few feet above the floor.
I wave my hands in front of my face. “No, no. Stop that. That’s too creepy to process.”
He shrugs and once again his feet are firmly on the ground.
“How do you get around? Do you just walk?”
“I can ride on things, in cars. I rode around with Kaylee for a few hours at first, in her Camero.”
Probably screaming at her too, hoping that she, that anyone, could hear him. Oh, lucky me.
“But,” he continues, “After I saw you leave the wake, I waited around to see everyone pay their respects.”
“That must have been strange.”
Uncomfortable, awful. Or, maybe in his case, a huge ego trip. The face he gives me tells me my first thoughts are closer to accurate.
“People wanted to say goodbye. I figured I should give them the chance.”
I nod. “I’m sorry.”
He frowns, “Why?”
“I dunno. For calling you a douche wrench at your own funeral.” For not caring that you died. I want to say the words, but I can’t get them out.
“Douche hammer. You called me a douche hammer.”
I shrug. “I knew it was some kind of tool.”
“Well, we weren’t exactly close.”
“And face it, you are a tool.”
I take a deep breath. The summer before middle school my parents took me on vacation to visit my uncle in Paris for the summer. It was amazing, but when I got back, Logan had a new group of friends. And I was the odd girl out. Then, a few months into school, my father got in a car accident and died. Mom pulled me out to home school for the rest of that year. I just couldn’t face anyone for a while. By the time 8th grade began, Logan and I were like total strangers. He was Mr. Popular. And I was nobody.
“I guess the million dollar question then Is - What exactly do you want from me?”
He squats near my feet, looking up at me. “When you saw me at the funeral, I was terrified. Because that meant that I was really dead, not just having some prolonged nightmare. But then I was relieved too because, I guess, I hoped that you could help me.”
“Help you what?”
He scratches his chin. “I dunno. Help me figure all this out. Help me just…not be so alone.”
I lean forward. “Why should I? Like you said, we aren’t friends.”
He rocks back on his heels. “We used to be.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Well, how about this. You’re going to have to pee some time. And when you do, I’ll be there.”
I make a face. “Fine. Where do we start?”
“Where all strange and possibly evil things begin. Wikipedia.”