Chapter 16
Lanston
Despair consumesme as I search the grounds for her.
I held her so close last night, but when I woke, my arms were cold and my Ophelia was gone. A chill floods through my veins.
She wouldn’t leave like this. She wouldn’t.
I’m usually good at suppressing emotions, but she knows how to really get beneath my skin and rustle old wounds. Our bucket list is crumpled in my left hand, fisted tightly as I check everywhere I can think of. I end my search in the foyer, reluctantly coming to the conclusion that she isn’t here.
Did she wait to leave after I fell asleep? Why does that hurt so much?
Why doesn’t anyone I develop feelings for stay?
Snakes coil inside my stomach as rage and sadness war inside my head. I bury my face in my hands. Abandonment. My weakness. My forever trigger. It stings almost as much as the fucking bullet that killed me. I ache inside with more emotions than I’ve felt in years.
She left me.
I’m always the one left behind.
The remaining spring days move slowly. The moon goes through its phases and more phantoms start to leave Harlow.
It’s her fault,I think to myself, weary and half-drunk on the rum I’d been saving. My frown grows as I stare at the books piled in the corner of my room. I’ve read them all four times over and need a visit to the bookstore. I sigh and lean back against my wall; palms braced on the cold tiles of my floor.
Jericho was inspired by Ophelia’s notion of the bucket list and Charlie’s ability to pass after finding his missing photo—so much so that he implemented it in his program. He wants phantoms to move on and find their reasons, but it only bleeds what’s left of Harlow into a shell. The halls have become empty, and the counseling groups now have vacant seats.
Yelina and Poppie decide to stay, but they are among the few that remain. Jericho has developed a look in his eyes, a longing for the world beyond these walls.
I fear he will soon pursue that call too.
It’s her fault that Harlow is changing, I think as I browse the bookstore. The shoppers are clueless about my existence and the way I move about them. Each book I pull off the shelf is very much real to me, but when I glance back to the original, it’s as if I’ve never touched it. The notion of my inability to reach the living world claws at my heart, creating fresh wounds where old ones have long since scabbed over.
One book in particular catches my eye. It has a dark cover and a very gothic aesthetic. A smile spreads over my lips as I instantly think how Ophelia would love it. There’s a pain that lingers in my jaw as I grind my teeth together. Against my anger toward her, I grab it anyway because I know how much she’d adore it. Just in case I happen to see her again—a thought that both irritates me and fills the void she left inside my chest.
Sometimes, I pretend to check out and pay like a person, but today, I’m feeling rather somber. I leave the bookstore with a handful of books in my backpack and glance over my shoulder to make sure no one truly sees me. They don’t. Of course.
My feet carry me back toward the alley that leads to the lookout, but instead of heading to the summit like I normally would, I stop at the swing set that troubled Ophelia so much. Although we completely destroyed it, it’s back as it was. It was so the moment we ran away from it that night.
I stare down at the old chains and the plastic seats for a long while before allowing myself to sit down on one. It brings me nostalgia. Of all the times I’d been alone on the elementary school playground and even after hours when I’d run away from home to avoid my father’s cruel gaze.
Did she have similar thoughts? Perhaps worse.
I tighten my grip on the chains and push the ground so the swing glides. The air is stagnant, but the small motion soothes something inside me. I glance to the swing beside me. Her absence creates a new hole in my chest. One much louder and more profound than I ever thought possible.
She never seemed to mind my silence, and I didn’t mind hers. But her presence is something I yearn for—her soft stolen glances at me and the blush of her cheeks. Her words that no one else can speak.
I miss her.
By midsummer, the sun is hot and the walls of Harlow have started to turn gray. Almost as if the phantoms that resided within it were what kept it in this purgatory. Now it crumbles, a sad image of itself.
I think of Ophelia often, and with thoughts of her come immense anger and pain.
It would be a lie to say I haven’t considered checking on her. The yearning to do so only grows. It’s unbearable at times; I want to see her and demand answers for leading me on. I want to be cruel for once in my fucking life. But that’s not me.
I fist my hands as I aimlessly walk back from the fields where Crosby shot me. The town decided to sell off the land and build apartments over the course of spring; the foundations are already set and somehow, it feels like another piece of me has been stolen away. Forgotten.
This is how the warm evening nights go, played out with melancholic songs of the cicadas and flocks of birds that take to the sky. Ghosts walk beside the world we once knew. My feet are heavy tonight and I stop more than once to rest. I glance down at my hand, where I wish her fingers were intertwined and her thumb would brush over the back of my hand in slow circles.
I close my eyes, trying to will away the thoughts of her. The craving to have her beside me on long walks where we don’t say anything. Or ones where we have more to say than we do time to walk.
The asphalt and the quiet road leading to Harlow are at least the same. Today, like most days, I felt like going for a long walk in solitude—something to take up the entire day because I have all the time in the world, don’t I? This is who I’ve become. A seeker of silence and solitude.
My eyes linger over my feet as I trudge down the long driveway. The sun set hours ago. The stars and moon have offered me guidance home and I don’t mind their dull light. I think about the alcohol in my room and whether or not it’s sadder for a phantom to be a drunk or that it can’t kill him.
“Darkness, take me,” I whisper to the stars. I smile then because it was Ophelia who made me think to admit things to them. Like she does in her forest where no one else can hear. Is she speaking to the stars right now too? I wonder.
Another set of shoes enters my line of vision, black-laced boots.
I halt. A scent falls over me… roses. I’m reluctant to look up at her, but I do anyway. More eagerly and tragically than I expected to.
Her face is impassive; I school mine to reflect her lack of emotions. A sharp pulse threads through my veins as my traitorous body responds to seeing her here. My heart aches, throbs, twists, and my stomach flutters with a mix of dread and excitement.
I thought I was angry with her all these months. But I suppose I was wrong.
I missed her terribly.
“What are you doing here?” I ask coldly.
Her head tilts a bit as a loose grin forms on her lips, though her eyes are remarkably sad. “I came to see you.”
My brows raise in surprise before I quickly smooth my features. “Why?”
Ophelia nods in understanding at my callous tone; she knows what she did was low.
She shrugs and says, “I wanted to see if you were still here.” And then, as casually as she stood there waiting for me, she walks straight by, heading back toward the highway. “See you later, Lanston.”
Her voice lingers in the air, drawing that ache in my chest lower.
The muscle in my jaw flexes and I force myself to stay put. I won’t turn and watch her leave. I don’t know what game she’s playing, but I want no part of it.
Ophelia. Cruel and cold, just as the stories of her go.
And yet I lie awake all night, staring at the ceiling and clenching my hand over my chest. Seeing her made the yearning worse—a fresh cut along an old wound that never even began to heal.
Fall always brings me deep nostalgia and pain. It’s the season I met Liam. Then, two years later met Wynn. It’s the season I died. And now, it’s the season when my friends get to visit my grave.
Even though I know they’ll arrive near the middle of October, I consistently linger in the graveyard, waiting and eager to see them. Sometimes I fall asleep out here, especially on the days around the festival.
It’s October 2nd, and I haven’t seen Ophelia since she paid me that nighttime visit months ago. I linger in the music room, finding that I think more of her now than I do of Liam and Wynn. Her determination to help Charlie was cathartic and drew so much happiness around Harlow. Even though more phantoms leave each day, the overall dread around here is fading. We are finding our peace—well, everyone except me.
But still, I enjoy the silent afternoons of enjoying the sunlight. Yelina and Poppie don’t come to this room anymore now that Charlie is gone. I’ve taught myself how to play a few songs on the piano and even wrote a song, though I don’t plan on letting anyone else in the world hear it. But the lyrics are there. It’s a good place to thumb through a book and lose time, but as the days drone on, and I continue to glance to the open spot on the couch, I know my missing her will not end.
She haunts me—a phantom haunting another phantom. I’ve even watched movies about ghosts in my spare time to try and get some insight into the torment I endure with the thoughts of her but, of course, they”re all farfetched in comparison to my reality.
So I turn to my romance books and find a bit of solace there. From what I gather, I can either proclaim my love for her like in those sappy movies or pay her a visit to see how she likes it like a petty asshole.
I choose the latter.
My hands are cold and clenched tightly inside my coat pockets as I stroll down the bridge outside the abandoned opera house. I never understood the appeal of stalking, but now I get it. It’s fun and entertaining to watch someone. Creepy, I know, but I’m a fucking ghost, so I can have this one thing.
Ophelia hasn’t stepped foot outside of her building all day. The longer I pace and stare at other things from the bridge, I begin to wonder if she is even home, and further, how long she had waited to see me the night I ran into her at Harlow. She was clearly leaving when we ran into each other. Did she stay all day? Did she stand until her feet hurt? I think about that for a long time.
Birds swoop through the sunset above. The noisy streets grow louder as night falls and the bridge lamps turn on.
Still, I wait.
I decide to sit on the bench where we met, with rosebushes on each side. The crimson flowers are beautiful, somber, and wilting with the seasonal change. I pluck one and lean back. The thorns are sharp but draw no blood from my forefinger. There is no pain, and after a few seconds, the bloodless wound is gone. My eyes narrow at the spot that should’ve bled. How strange it is to miss the sensation of something as simple as a prick of a rose.
After some time, movement by the opera house draws my attention. I follow the figure with my eyes and am certain it is Ophelia when I catch sight of her long cream dress laden with lace and sewn flower patterns. I’ve not known anyone to wear such dresses, except her. It’s another thing that makes me covet her.
She’s walking my way.
I grin, hoping to take her by as much surprise as she took me.
She walks slowly, alone, her feet bare. Her eyes appear weary, with dark circles beneath them. She’s humming a song I can’t quite hear, but as she gets closer to the bench, her gaze lifts and meets mine.
Shock physically rolls through her: eyes wide, shoulders straightened, hands clasped together.
“Hello, Ophelia,” I say as smoothly as I can. The rose twists between my fingers as I spin it. My nerves won’t allow me a moment’s reprieve in her presence.
Her throat bobs and she stutters, “L-Lanston. What are you—” she stops, remembering her surprise visit to Harlow, I’m sure, due to the wicked smile I throw her to help jog her memory.
She lets her shoulders drop and laughs. “Don’t tell me you waited all day as I had.”
She waited all day for me?My cheeks warm and that light sensation pools inside my chest, betraying the rage I want to hold onto.
“Unfortunately,” I mutter, scrunching my eyebrows.
Ophelia takes a long breath and tucks her dress against her legs before sitting next to me. Her floral scent is overwhelming and makes me glad I came.
“You look like shit,” she says, and it instantly kills all my warm thoughts.
I scowl. “Yeah? Well, you look—” I pause, thinking critically. She raises an uninterested brow. But there’s so much there. The anguish that makes her mouth twitch, the darkness in the hollows of her eyes, the pale color of her usual rosy lips. “You look… really fucking tired.”
Her smile spreads fast and her laugh soon follows, pulling mine out as well. We laugh together for a moment and it’s the best I’ve felt since I held her in my arms the night she left. Ophelia’s presence alone speaks to me. Her laugh is a sound I cherish.
Silence drapes over us like a blanket of stars and broken promises. I observe her in the bleak October light that dims as the sun descends behind the city. Her wavy hair is as alluring as always. Her eyes are filled with less hope, though. The fire she carried in her bones has faded and she sits with a somber slump in her shoulders.
“Why did you leave, Ophelia?”
My voice is the only sound save the soft caws of distant crows.
Her lower lip firms and she dips her chin, unwilling to meet my eyes. It’s evident that her heart aches too, but I cannot understand why she is resisting me.
Finally, resolutely, she meets my gaze, her eyes rimmed with dreary reddened skin. She really does look very tired—of everything, perhaps.
“Lanston… I’m not a good person.” I shake my head in denial, but she gives me a pleading look that stops my motion. “People like me don’t have good things to look forward to on the other side… we don’t get to go where people like you do.” Her hands tremble and meet in her lap, firming as she interlaces her fingers.
“Ophelia.” Her name is like silk on my lips—a plea.
Does she think something bad awaits her once she passes? How could she believe in such a thing? My chest is sore and I yearn to embrace her, to tell her sweet things, to take away all her pain.
She blinks slowly and then straightens her posture. “You deserve better.”
I shake my head. “You are more than you know, more than you’ll let yourself consider. What have you done that’s so bad, my rose?”
Her throat bobs slightly and her small fists tighten in her lap.
“Can I ask you something?” she asks brazenly.
“Of course.”
“Would you rather be physically struck or mentally abused?”
My jaw tightens and a dark, coiling sickness awakens in me. I hate both. I remember not being able to sleep from the bruises that hurt. They kept me awake until dawn sometimes. But the words. Those still keep me awake, even now.
“I’d rather be struck,” I say quietly. The admittance is like oil on my tongue.
Her eyes soften and she glances away as she whispers, “I’d rather they hit me too.”
I lower my eyes to her trembling hands. I want to set mine over them and provide some solace, but I refrain. “I wish you never had to choose.”
She takes a deep breath and narrows her eyes. “I never understood that about people. Their insistence on cruelty through words. The trickery of it. I didn’t hit you this time. No, perhaps not, but you told me I was the reason you will grow cancer one day. That I will be your undoing just for existing.” She pauses and looks at me, eyes so dull it ruins me. “At least when it’s a flesh wound it stays there. It doesn’t sink any further than my fucking bones. But when they tell me all the reasons why I’m a terrible person or why I’m worthless, those wounds infest my soul. They burn and ache and you know what happens after that? After the initial blow?”
“What?”
“Then it rots. It festers and turns into poison. The first ones aren’t so bad. You’re able to lie to yourself and bury the decay. But it spreads—it doesn’t ever stop and no matter what you try to kill it with, it remains. I’d rather they hit me… because it’s easy to hate them for it, but when they make you hate yourself—that’s hard. That never goes away. It never heals. There will always be that nagging ache in the deepest parts of your heart that whisper to you that you are vile. And you don’t know what to believe because you’ve heard it for so long. Do we not become what we’re seen as? Do we not eventually give in to the madness of it all?”
I reach for her hand this time and she only firms her lips and looks at me sadly.
“You are not those things, Ophelia.”
She blinks slowly. “I think I am. I hurt you, Lanston. And that’s all I’ll ever do. It’s who I am.”
I want to scream. At the stars, at anything that bore witness to her pain. Why do the loveliest of souls get stomped on? A knot grows inside my throat. She’s wrong.
“You should probably get going. It was nice to see you again though. I do love seeing you,” she admits as much and lets her eyes trail over all my features, as if trying to commit it all to memory.
Longing makes me bold. “I could stay,” I say slowly. I want to stay with her so badly. I’d even sit out here on the bench all night if it meant I could see her tomorrow. The next day too.
A sad smile crests her lips and she shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lanston.”
It hurts—the ache grows.
“Yeah, you’re right.” I let out a few sad laughs and thread my fingers through my hair. I stand slowly and let my eyes stay connected to hers for as long as she’ll allow.
She breaks our silence. “Will you come to my next performance?”
A voice cries in my head, that’s not until spring. Is this her way of letting me know she doesn’t want to see me until then? That thought feels oddly crippling.
I nod, forcing a smile. “Of course.”
“I’ll see you later, then.” A hesitant but beautiful smile. I hand her the rose I plucked and she takes it gently, not once breaking our gaze. Her eyes bear misery, and I can’t bring myself to make this harder for her.
So I whisper, “Until we meet again.”