Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Nash and Hunter helped me move all my stuff to their house, and now I find myself back in the guest room I thought I had left for good this morning. Removing my brush from my toiletry bag, I unravel my braids and run the brush through my hair.
It’s already late, and I assume everyone is in their rooms, as the house is way too silent for my liking. So I grab the radio I fortunately remembered to bring and plug it in, letting it hum softly.
Much better.
My heart rate slows, the anxiety fading, and I decide to change into my leggings and shirt, preparing myself for bed. When I’m finished, I grab my toiletry bag and head to the bathroom.
I take a moment to admire the space as I get ready, brushing my teeth.
It’s cute. The shower curtain has little duckies on it, and Lio’s toothbrush is blue with a purple kraken on the end.
While the rest of the house lacks any form of decoration, this bathroom is overflowing with adorable children’s stuff, and I can’t help but wonder how Lio’s room looks.
When I finish, I return to the hallway, briefly glancing at the other rooms before entering the guest room and closing the door behind me. Of course, as I set down the toiletry bag on the desk, it falls over, spilling its contents on the floor.
Just perfect.
Saylor’s gold necklace falls out, and I pick it up to examine it. It’s so pretty. Turning it, I read his name and birthday again, running my thumb over it, feeling a tingle in my chest.
You can’t have feelings for a ghost, Sloan. Where would that lead?
Only more pain for both of us.
Or getting pegged as crazy even more easily.
But when I have to live this life alone anyway, why can’t I keep him?
Because it wouldn’t be right.
My heart aches as I place the necklace back in the bag. I don’t even know him. I just like him. More than like him. He’s there for me. He gets me. But maybe it’s only because he has nowhere else to go, and I don’t have to hide from him.
No, that’s unfair.
My thoughts drift to his room. It’s only a few doors down from mine, and curiosity gets the best of me. I step out of the guest room and peer down the dimly lit hallway again. The closed doors of the other rooms line the corridor, and it’s still silent.
I walk down the hall on my toes, my ears straining to catch any sounds that might indicate someone’s awake or approaching. So far, so good.
As I approach the second-to-last door, the one Saylor said was his, I hesitate for a moment. Then, I push it open slowly and slip inside, closing the door behind me as gently as possible.
The room is a haunting snapshot frozen in time, and to my surprise, Saylor is standing in the middle of it.
He gazes sadly at the landscape photographs adorning the walls, capturing the Milky Way over Lubec’s lighthouse and the sea.
There’s a boombox from the eighties, its shiny chrome and colorful buttons standing out amidst the otherwise modern decor.
Several cassette tapes are scattered in front of it.
His bed is neatly made, the camera and tripod on his desk seem ready for action, and a black hoodie is casually draped over the back of the desk chair as though he had just left his room for a day at work.
Everything appears to be in its place, waiting patiently for Saylor’s return.
My heart aches as I take in the sight before me, realizing nobody must have touched his things for years except for dusting them. It becomes clear how big of a hole he left in this family.
“I try to remember the last time I felt… anything, honestly,” Saylor muses, his voice carrying a mixture of nostalgia and sorrow.
He turns to me, and I take a few steps to stand in front of him.
“Before you came, there was nothing left for me, and still, I just existed. There are no friends or family in the afterlife, only watching the ones you love live on without you.” His gaze darts around the room again.
My heart breaks for him, and I want to reach out and pull him into a hug, but I can’t. There are so many things I want to do and can’t.
But what I can do is keep him as long as possible.
As long as he stays, as long as there is no light for him, I’m going to be selfish.
For me.
For him.
We both need someone in this. We both deserve not to be left behind.
We’re both lost in this world, just on different layers.
I move even closer, my own emotions swirling inside as I watch his eyes well up. “You make me laugh,” I tell him softly. “Even with your bad pickup lines. We make each other feel alive and less lonely. Doesn’t that make us friends?”
Saylor turns to me, his translucent eyes meeting mine. There’s a hint of a smile on his lips as he nods. “Yes, Slo, I suppose it does.”
“Can I keep you?” I ask, my soft voice cracking with emotion as my eyes well up too.
“As long as I can keep you.”
“Birds?” I chuckle, rolling from my side to my back on her bed in the guestroom, holding my stomach, which hurts from all the laughing I did in the last half hour while we were talking. “Whose favorite animal are birds?”
“Mine.” She glowers at me when I turn my head to look at her again.
She’s laying on her back too, our heads turned toward each other.
We decided it was better to return to her room to chill since she could always pretend she was on the phone if someone heard her talking.
It would have been much more difficult to explain why she was in my room, even though I would have loved to have her in my bed.
Plus, she’s wearing one of my hoodies, my favorite green one from my closet.
She shivered, and I took the chance to tell her to grab it and wear it while sleeping. It brings out the green in her hazel eyes, and I’m mesmerized as our gazes remain fixed on each other.
“Why would birds be your favorite animals? There are so many good ones,” I ask, grinning, trying to steer back on topic and not get lost in my thoughts.
“Because they are free.” She shrugs, looking up at the ceiling. “They can fly everywhere. They don’t need a home.”
Her tone betrays her, though. “You don’t want a home?” I ask, furrowing my brows.
She shrugs again. “I don’t have one.” I ponder what to say to that. I mean, I could tell her I can be her home, but that still doesn’t make a house. “What’s your awesome favorite animal then?” she asks before I can come up with a better answer.
“Dogs.” I grin at her, making her bark out a laugh, and quickly cover her mouth with her hand. “Shh,” I scold her, but I can’t help but laugh too.
“You’re berating me over my animal choices, and you come up with the most basic one ever? I thought you’d say something like the lanternfish or something special.”
“You know what a lanternfish is?” I gawk at her.
Fucking dream girl.
She giggles the cutest giggle. “You’re such a dork.”
Can a ghost feel butterflies? Because I sure as fuck do right now.
“I know.” I grin, sitting up and propping my back against the headboard, prompting her to get up and sit next to me, close, but there is still space between us. She’s sitting to my right, bringing her birthmark on her cheek into my vision when I look at her.
The place where I would kiss her every day.
“We have the same birthmark,” I murmur, my eyes still on her cheek.
She laughs softly. “I noticed.”
My eyes come back up to hers, filled with amusement. “You know, if I were alive, I would press them together all the damn time. It’s just like it’s supposed to be.”
She giggles and tells me, “Then do it.”
My heart flips, and I look at her with wide eyes. “Really?”
“I mean, I’ve only touched one ghost before when I was a little girl, but it’s not like it hurts. I don’t feel anything. So it’s fine. You’re allowed to touch me if you want to.”
Has she noticed how I always reach out for her but stop at the last second?
My grin becomes mischievous as I scoot closer and lean in to touch my cheek to hers. But the second they touch, tingles spread across my face with a vengeance, making me pull back and spring up from the bed, panting.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask, holding my cheek, still feeling the afterglow from the tingles on my face.
“I-I don’t know,” she stutters, looking at me with wide eyes.
“But you did feel it too?” I ask, completely out of my mind.
It was strange to get a hard-on and feel butterflies around her after not feeling anything bodily for years, but this, this is next level and something I hadn’t experienced even when I was alive.
“I did, but…” she has to clear her throat, “… it tingled, my cheek tingled, but it didn’t hurt. Did I hurt you?”
I force myself to calm down. She’s right, it didn’t hurt. It felt foreign but not bad at all. I let myself down on the bed again, scooting back to her side.
Holding out my finger to her cheek, I ask, “Can I…” She nods, and I put my fingertip on her birthmark, feeling how the tingles spread through my forefinger, soft like a caress. She takes a deep breath, but her eyes are on me when I get my gaze back up to hers. “Do you feel that?”
“I do,” she breathes out, sounding as overwhelmed as I am. I let my finger trail over her cheek until I’m cupping her with my palm, and she closes her eyes, leaning into the touch. My whole hand is tingling with the butterflies that just took flight in my chest.
I caress her cheek with my thumb, and her eyes open slowly, finding mine again. My gaze flicks between them, and she lets out a soft gasp when I shift a little closer, letting my thumb run over her bottom lip that stayed slightly open.
“Still feeling good?” I ask, my voice husky, completely transfixed by the fact that I can touch her, and she can feel me, just as I can feel her, even if it’s not in the traditional way.
She nods but pulls away so we’re not touching anymore. Her breath is coming in short pants, and I can practically see her mind reeling again, spiraling even. Gone is the peaceful expression she just had.
I need to fix that.
This is something amazing. Not a reason to panic. I want to continue this for the rest of my existence. What I don’t want is her pulling away because she’s scared.
“Can you do me a favor?” I ask, grinning at her.
“What?” she asks innocently, her eyebrows rising slightly.
“Could you hold this for me?” I offer her my hand, fingers spread. A small laugh escapes her, and she gives me an exasperated look, but she brings her hand into mine, threading our fingers. The tingles spread from my palm nearly halfway up my forearm, and I smile. “This feels amazing.”
“It does,” she whispers, her gaze fixed on our hands. Just as I’m contemplating if it would be too bold to reach my other hand out to cup her cheek again, I feel the pull.
“Fuck,” I breathe out, clamping my eyes shut, trying hard to resist, but when I’m pulled away, I can’t do shit about it. When I open my eyes, I look into her sad ones.
“Bye, Casper,” she whispers.
“Bye, Boo,” I whisper back, just before I’m gone.