Twenty
“Luce, look what came in the mail today!” Esther shimmies with excitement as she presents a package to her empty apartment, presumably in the direction she thinks I must be.
I politely pull myself in front of her, so it’s like she’s showing me the box, instead of showing it to her bed.
It’s been several weeks since our discovery, and hours of conversation through recordings; she should know I saw the package when she picked it up from the mailroom.
However, she’s acting like I haven’t been everywhere with her all day.
I’ve repeatedly explained that I’m haunting her—not her apartment—but it hasn’t fully clicked for her yet.
Or maybe it has clicked, but she needs to pretend that I’m only haunting her apartment. I imagine she feels more comfortable talking to me in the privacy of her home, after Gilda caught her talking to me in her office last week.
Understandable. If I wasn’t the one haunting her, I’d think she was batshit.
“It’s a sound amplifier. Allan mentioned using one for bird-watching the other week, so I figured if a sound amplifier would allow a dinosaur to hear a warbler, it should allow me to hear a ghost, right?” Esther explains with a laugh as she opens the box.
She’s made the same joke three times since she decided to order one. Every time, she laughs like she’s the funniest person alive. Of course, I can’t help but laugh along with her. Her bad jokes and awful puns are terrible but—as with everything else about her—endearing.
“I hope this is charged.” She turns the sound amplifier on and puts it in her ear. “Can you hear me, Lucy? Testing, testing, please say something.”
I’m not confident a sound amplifier will actually work, but this opportunity to fuck with Esther cannot be passed up. “Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit!” I recite dramatically. Esther knows some Latin, but I don’t know if she’s well-versed in Poe.
“Lucy, what the fuck?” Esther sighs, flopping onto her bed. “Blood of innocents? Really? I do something nice for the ghost in my apartment, and she tries to prank me by acting possessed.”
“Remember, I’m haunting you, not your apartment.
” I could keep up the prank; I’ve had The Pit and the Pendulum memorized since I was eleven.
But her reaction isn’t as fun as I hoped, even with how demonic my voice still sounds through the electronics.
I settle on the bed next to her. “I was going for more scared shitless than resigned exasperation.”
Esther laughs, sitting up against the headboard as she shucks her work pants. She’s facing almost the right direction, so I scootch down the bed to be in her eyeline. “Sorry, I have five younger siblings. A little creepy Latin is nothing. Were you expecting me to call an exorcist?”
“Most sane people would have by now. That, or a therapist. Not buy a sound amplifier to make it easier to hear their dead colleague haunting them.” I pause before adding, “Although it is nice to talk in real time. You ask a lot of questions. It’s hard to remember them all.”
“Sorry.” Esther laughs again, biting her lower lip to hide her crooked bottom teeth.
“Stop that.”
She freezes. “Stop what? Sorry, did I bump into you somehow?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. My filter really is gone.
I try to explain, embarrassed to even have said my initial thought out loud, let alone elaborate on it, “You hide your teeth when you smile around other people. You don’t need to do that around me.
Well, around anyone. But you don’t normally do it at home. You have a nice smile. Stop hiding it.”
“Sorry.” Esther blushes.
“Don’t be sorry. That’s not something to apologize for.” I laugh. “Oh my god, it’s so nice to say that when you can hear me! That’s another thing! You apologize too damn much!”
“Sorry.”
“Oh my god, stop!” I laugh harder.
Esther laughs with me, but she doesn’t bite her lip this time. “You sound like Dr. Frederick.”
I scoff. “Oh, that’s insulting. I hate to say it, but she’s right. You should apologize only when you do something wrong.”
Esther rolls her head back, hitting the headboard with a thunk. “Great. I’m being haunted by a life coach.”
“I can’t move on until you stand up to Dr. Frederick,” I tease. “You’re my good deed, so I can go to Heaven.”
“What? Really?”
“No.” I laugh. “I’m being sarcastic, East. I honestly have no idea why I’m haunting you.”
That’s a lie. I’m Tied to her because she was the last person I cared about. But I barely knew her before I died, so admitting that would leave me feeling far too…vulnerable.
I wrinkle my nose at the thought. “And I don’t think there’s a heaven even if I do move on.
The other ghosts just slowly fade into nothingness.
Not sure where they go, if they go anywhere.
” I shrug, finding comfort in my facts. “At least, that’s the current hypothesis, but it’s hard to remember it all.
I think the thing I miss most about being alive is my journal.
” And dreaming, of course, but Esther doesn’t need to know about that.
“My mom will be so upset to hear she kicked me out for nothing.” Esther’s eyebrows twitch.
I am tempted to ask more about her family now that I have the chance, but she changes the subject.
“Do you want me to be your journal? I understand if you don’t want me to write in the one I took from the alley, or even read it, but I could… I dunno. Type it?”
“You can read it.” The words escape me before I can think about it. “I mean, it’s not very exciting, but if you want to, you can. It’s just facts. No feelings or anything.”
“Do you want to read it? I can hold it open for you.” Esther hesitates, glancing at it.
The blue cloth cover sits on her bedside table, only half full.
She’s never done more than flip through it, just enough to realize it was my private journal.
She’s left it shut since then. “It just seems really personal. Even if it is just facts.”
“No, thank you. I remember what I wrote.” The worn pages and plain cover have been taunting me since Esther brought my journal inside, but…
that chapter is closed. There’s no more life to add to it.
No observations from Dr. Monae to document.
Just Lucy’s, the ghost version of me. Adding to the current journal wouldn’t be right.
When I was alive, I’d get a new one for a new chapter in my life; nonexistence demands a fresh page.
“But I would appreciate it if you could track my observations about the afterlife. You don’t need to write in my diary or anything.
Just a word document or something? I know there’s probably no point, but it helps, to know things, to ask questions. I forget so easily…”
“I’d be honored to,” Esther picks up the lull I leave in the conversation.
She nods, fishing for the journal under a pile of other books on her nightstand.
Tracing the cover with her fingertip, she leaves it unopened, simply hugging it to her chest for a moment, before setting it down again.
“Probably better to do it on my laptop, so I can do it while we’re at work too.
” I barely dodge her as she scrambles for her backpack.
“So, can I ask how you died? It’s totally okay if you don’t want to talk about it, but they haven’t found your body or anything.
Detective Barrett thinks you skipped town or committed suicide. ”
“I thought he was ‘Defective’ Barrett,” I tease, earning another blush.
Oh, this is so fun, being able to see her blush in real time!
The instant gratification of making her blush lights a thrill in me I haven’t felt since my dreams, a visceral reminder of why I became so obsessed with her so quickly, when we had barely spoken.
“Honestly, I have no idea how I died. I didn’t particularly like my life, but I wasn’t suicidal.
Not actively, anyway. I went from drinking at home on my birthday to coming to as a ghost the next morning in your apartment.
” I perch on the table, next to the potted plant to wave my hands through the purple leaves.
Esther settles into the chair, plugging in her laptop to the cord that lives under the table.
Talking about this is easier than I expect, though perhaps it’s because I still don’t know the truth.
Right now, my death is a hypothesis; I can still delay my grief for myself, while I gather enough evidence to sate my curiosity.
This is analysis, not vulnerability. “I figured they would have found my body in my apartment, but my drunk ass must have gone out for once and got killed somehow.” I snort.
“That’s what I get for being adventurous! ”
“At least you don’t have any of those bad memories? I wish you were still alive, but I’m glad you didn’t suffer.” Esther’s eyes cloud with emotion, and my chest lurches in sympathy.
I’m an expert in avoiding, minimizing, repressing my feelings, but Esther?
Her sensitive heart is a proud badge of honor, on display for all to see.
That she cares so much still floors me. How did I really believe that no one cared about me after Cash died?
I was the one who never let anyone care, refused to let anyone in.
For months, I have witnessed her worry and grief firsthand.
Why does this still feel so uncomfortably novel?
“It’s so frustrating that no one else seems to care,” she murmurs. “For months, I’ve been so worried that you were hurt and alone somewhere. I hate how helpless I feel when everyone who could do something doesn’t.”
My not-heart twists with the reminder that my death has caused her so much pain, on top of the stress from being overworked.
I’ve caused this cognitive dissonance, burdening such an optimistic person with a hopeless situation.
While my death isn’t fully tangible for me yet, not while there are still so many unanswered questions, Esther has been grieving me.
Alone. Gilda is still pretending my absence is temporary.
Detective Barret rarely responds. And Angel?
I shake my head with a silent derisive laugh.
Who would believe her, if she were to confide in someone that I was haunting her?
Could she even talk openly, knowing I’m always mere feet away to hear it all?
All she has is me. All I have is her. A lifetime of stubborn refusal to get attached, and in death, I finally understand what I was depriving myself of.
“Thank you,” I finally whisper, my voice hoarse. It seems inadequate for all my East has done for me, but a thank you is all I have to offer. “For worrying about me. For caring.”