Shake Out the Ghosts

Chapter 1

MIRROR IN THE BATHROOM

Cosmo - Three Years Ago

Cosmo’s hand shook as he brought a cigarette to his lips. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep crying or just throw up all the champagne sloshing around in his stomach, but this balcony was suitable for neither. The lights from the city bobbed and blurred like dying stars.

“I just want” – he sniffled and took a drag – “I just want someone who will love me enough not to cheat on me. Is that really so much to ask?”

Déjà leaned her elbows on the metal railing. There was glitter in her Bettie bangs, and he vaguely wondered where it came from. “You know what I’m going to say.”

“But I love him.”

“And I love you, but if you keep going back to Zedd, he’s gonna keep cheating, and you’ll keep ending up here – standing on someone’s balcony during a party, drunk, with mascara running down your face.”

He swiped at his cheek. “That’s harsh, darling.”

“No, it isn’t. Dump him.”

“I did.”

“And this time, don’t take him back. No matter how much he begs and cries and tells you you’re the most wonderful, beautiful creature he’s ever known.”

Cosmo let out a sob. Only three days ago, he and Zedd had gone to the theme park in Fairview, fed each other spoonfuls of gelato, and gotten lost in the funhouse.

A mannequin dressed in the most dreadful outfit had popped up in his path, and he’d shrieked.

Zedd punched the thing on instinct and knocked its head clean off.

He snatched Cosmo by the arms, pushed him against the wall, and said, I’ll protect you to the ends of the earth, gorgeous.

No mannequin is a match for my love. And they laughed and made out and flipped a coin to decide who would take the giant stuffed alligator home.

Cosmo lost, but Zedd had let him take it anyway.

He wiped his eye, and his finger came away black. He should have worn the waterproof mascara, but he hadn’t planned on Zedd breaking his heart – again – at the party tonight. “I want to die.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“In case you haven’t noticed” – he gestured to himself, then lost his balance and dropped the cigarette – “dramatic is what I am. I feel things deeply. Can’t you see my electromagnetic field right now?”

She hunched her shoulders. “I can.”

She’d told him his aura was what drew her to him in the first place. So vibrant that he outshined everyone in the Art History lecture hall, radiating magenta and orange. Right now, he probably looked like cloudy paint water.

“At the moment, I don’t want to feel anything at all. I want to crawl into a hole and pull the dirt down on top of me.” He picked up his cigarette, which had burned nearly to the butt, and took a drag. A chilly breeze flung his curls into his face. “You should go back inside. Find your new crush.”

Déjà was always put-together, but tonight she’d worn a black lace dress that accentuated her voluptuous figure-eight shape, and the low neckline barely contained all that light brown cleavage.

She had on fine mesh fishnets and the sequined pumps with flamingo-shaped heels that he couldn’t borrow because his feet were too big.

She looked weird and hot and was wasting the effort on him instead of…

“What’s their name again? Wheat? Barley?

” It was something that reminded Cosmo of bread.

“Rye.” Déjà kept her gaze on him, and it was hard to look away when her severely painted eyebrows and sharp cat-eye liner pinned him in place.

“And I will, but you’re not going to get out of my lecture that easily.

This hurts now, but just like any wound, it will heal.

As long as you stop poking at it! Going back to Zedd is self-harm, and I will not stand by and let you destroy yourself.

Take out your feelings on your art; have a one-night stand with some fun thing who also thinks you’re a beautiful creature – and, let’s face it, everyone does – then let’s throw a party. ”

Cosmo blinked at the sliding doors leading back inside. The lights doubled and bled together. A pop song throbbed through the glass, and people drifted past like wraiths trapped in a bottle. “We’re at a party.”

“Not like this. Bunch of snobs insisting they understand the meaning behind that turn-of-the-century floating snow shovel–”

“Duchamp’s Prelude to a Broken Arm.” He steadied himself against the cold balcony railing.

Cars rushed by far below, and his stomach lurched.

Pushing back, he sat in a folding chair and hung his head between his knees.

“It’s not hard to understand, given both the object and the title.

You walk outside to shovel the drive, then slip on the ice and break your arm. ”

“That’s not art,” Déjà said. “I could put a hammer in a plexiglass box and title it Prelude to a Smashed Thumb.”

“It’s Dadaism.”

“It’s stupid. All I’m saying is we can throw a better party, in your honor, where we hype you up and send you on your way toward a brighter future without Cinereous Zedd.

Prelude to Cosmo finding the love of his life who will fuck the brains out of his pretty head, treat him like the queen he is, and never cheat on him. ”

He didn’t see anyone like that in his future. But an event was a great idea. No art show after-party. Not a birthday. Not a trite celebration where people attended to congratulate him for making it one more turn around the sun but in reality only came for the booze.

There was only one way to shake loose of his life clinging to Zedd and his counterfeit affections. It had to be a farewell, a send-off. And it had to be dramatic. The grandest display possible to demonstrate that there were plenty of people who loved Cosmo, even if a soulmate wasn’t in the cards.

Every end was a new beginning.

Cosmo needed to die.

Micah - Present Day

Distorted synthesizer thumped through the dark studio.

The bass wasn’t strong enough to rattle the frames on the walls, but it prodded a tender spot in Micah’s brain.

Sweat dried to his forehead as he stared at the ceiling, one foot growing icy beyond the edge of the sheets.

Faint lyrics drifted, Mark Almond singing about being desperate for love and attention.

Someone was playing Soft Cell. Again.

Groaning, Micah shoved off the comforter and donned his glasses.

He snatched the broom from its habitual spot near the headboard and rammed it against the ceiling.

Ximena had taken his complaint seriously, but the memo she’d taped to all their doors, reminding people to keep the noise down after nine, hadn’t been given the same consideration.

He switched on the light, then rubbed his face and staggered into the kitchen. The clock on the microwave said 2:24. After downing a glass of water, he dropped into his chair at the drafting table and blinked at stray pencil shavings.

After three weeks of the same songs recycled through the midnight hours, the lyrics and beats were familiar enough that he should have been able to sleep through them. But it didn’t happen every night, and the volume fluctuated, so it wasn’t predictable enough to anticipate.

Micah picked up a kneaded eraser and squeezed the gray putty between his fingers.

His eyelids sagged. Snippets of song floated, and he questioned again whether it was really the upstairs neighbor.

The sound almost seemed like it was coming from the middle of the front room.

He’d pounded on other walls though, and the tenants had called him an asshole and complained that he’d woken them up.

The song changed, slinky synth and bright sax filling the room.

He was never going to fall back to sleep with this going on.

A stretched canvas sat on a nearby easel, the half-finished landscape staring at him judgmentally.

Making a dent in it would at least be productive; he hadn’t touched it in so long that the thick oil strokes were probably dry by now.

He should have said no to it to begin with, but all his portfolio submissions so far had ended in rejections, and he needed any commissions he could get.

When someone asked for a painting of a field, it hadn’t seemed like a challenge.

Blue sky, green grass, her grandmother’s barn in the background.

But clouds were weird, and trying to paint tiny, thin-stemmed plants was torture.

The curves of a body, the way shadows fell on defined thighs or the tendons in a hand, was much easier to get right.

Who was he fooling? He wasn’t going to work on the painting when there was something far more tempting he could be doing if sleep wasn’t an option. After poking through his pencils and selecting an HB, he tore a sheet of paper from the drawing pad and set the materials to one side.

As always, he started this guilty pleasure by opening his phone and scrolling through contacts.

Sometimes he dialed random numbers. Those were the most fun, because the conversations could go anywhere, the calls lasting for as long as he and the other person wanted.

But most people thought he was either a pervert or a scammer.

And starting the conversation with I’m definitely not a pervert or a scammer tended to be the opposite of reassuring.

Customer service lines hardly ever worked. Those people only wanted to help him with his credit card, or his health insurance, or computer issues. But sometimes bored restaurant hosts would humor him while they took his order.

The sex hotline was expensive, but it was much easier to find someone willing to tell him whatever he wanted, especially this late at night.

He clicked the number and wedged in his earpiece.

A sultry robo-voice purred: “Thanks for calling, lover. Our operators are aching to talk to you. What gender are you interested in?”

“Surprise me.”

“Hang tight while I find your perfect match.” There was a click, followed by legalese about call privacy and how much he was being charged per minute.