Chapter Three
Belle
I don’t have time for this. I really need the ghost of my ex to not be here right now.
How is it that he always riles me up like this?
It’s been ten years and we’ve somehow fallen back into the exact same patterns as when he was alive.
Why do I turn into my worst self around him?
Ten years of therapy and I’m back to being twenty-five-year-old Belle in under five minutes.
I really thought I was better than this – I haven’t cried like this in a month, since my last scheduled cry-session.
I turn away from him and face the mirror instead.
I’m an absolute state. The woman who stood there just ten minutes ago is long gone.
In her place: a mess. My hair is now knotty, my mascara smudged and, somehow, the button of my blazer has pinged off.
Deep breaths. Compose yourself. Think. What would Beyoncé do?
First things first, she would absolutely not let an ex get under her skin like this, especially when she’s worked so hard to build her dream life.
I turn back to face him. Thankfully, he’s found the decency to look sheepish. I’m composed. And I’m going to stand up for myself.
I clear my throat. ‘If you hadn’t noticed, it’s my wedding tomorrow, so I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have time for a trip down memory lane.
’ I smooth my hair down and look around for my brush.
‘I have a hundred guests downstairs for our rehearsal, and press photography in fifteen minutes. So if it works for you, shall we reschedule to … Hmm, let’s see … the twelfth of never?’
With that, I spot my brush on the dressing table, and as I walk over, I notice the smashed vase on the floor behind Jake. I sigh, shame washing over me, but I can’t stress out about this too – one thing at a time.
I half-expect him to be gone when I turn back around, but he’s still there, leaning against the far wall, with his arms crossed.
‘I wouldn’t ignore this, if I were you. Not unless eternal soul damnation is on your wedding itinerary.’
Something cold runs through me. ‘That’s really not something funny to joke about.’
I don’t believe in the devil or heaven and hell, but I have spent the last six months attending Sunday services at church and midweek Bible study in preparation for this wedding.
Timothy was raised Catholic, and I respect his and his family’s beliefs, so I had to do that to be allowed to marry in a chapel.
Still, I’ve often felt like a polite observer in the pews.
I stand when I’m supposed to stand, kneel when I’m supposed to kneel and try to find comfort in the teachings.
Death comes up more than I expected. Not in a dramatic way – it’s as if everyone understands how to accept the inevitability of it.
And if wedding vows are to be believed, I am committed to taking the oath to be married to Timothy till death do us part.
But what’s after that? Heaven or hell? And how is Jake here?
My first encounter with death was my pet hamster, Barty.
I was six when old age finally took him, and it devastated me.
Is it very sad to admit that might be one of my earliest memories?
I couldn’t get my head around the fact that he was there one day and gone the next …
that I wouldn’t be able to share a carrot with him anymore, watch his little paws working to stuff the orange sticks in his cheeks until his face was all pointy and hard.
Then my grandad, who died when I was twelve.
That hit me hard. It was the first time I’d seen my dad cry, whimpering into a sleeve, through a crack in the bathroom door – a sight I’ve never been able to forget.
And when Jake died … everything went quiet for a long time.
I stopped expecting things to make sense. It took a lot to get over that.
I love my life. I’m not ready to leave it.
Death has always felt so final, so if there’s even a chance of heaven, I’m willing to try and secure my spot.
Except … Jake was twenty-five and solid and impossibly alive right up until he wasn’t – and now somehow he’s here, seemingly solid and familiar and very much alive.
‘What do you mean, eternal soul damnation? How come you’ve showed up, then?’ If he’s here, then death isn’t the end. It’s the most comforting thing anyone has ever told me, so I have no idea why, instead of relief, all I feel is the ground falling out from under me.
‘I’m in the afterlife – good news. Bad news: unless you follow me, your soul gets damned for all eternity. Ceases to exist entirely. So either do as I say or no afterlife for you. Your call, princess.’
How could this be happening? It’s my wedding weekend!
But I don’t want to just stop living when I die if everyone else is going to get another existence.
How did Jake manage to wangle his way into the afterlife, but my eligibility is being called into question?
I say as much aloud. Jake shrugs, rambles something about being ‘perfectly suited’ to the job – his charm, how well he knows me – but it doesn’t answer the question and I don’t think he means it to.
‘Okay but follow you where? How long will this take? I have ten minutes before I need to attend my party and I still need to clean up my mascara.’
I look down to check the time on my phone, which I’ve thrown on the sofa, and spot three text notifications from Timothy. If he sees me like this, he’ll see the old Belle – the one who can’t keep it together, who sees ghosts due to stress and who is a really ugly crier.
‘I’m not sure.’ Jake shrugs, avoiding an answer … like always.
Why is he putting so much pressure on me if he doesn’t even know how long it takes?
‘Have you even done this before?’ I feel my top lip curling.
‘Of course I have,’ he says nonchalantly, not meeting my gaze.
‘Okay … You said memory lane. Memory lane of what?’ I ask.
‘Well …’ Jake shuffles. ‘Really, it’s …’ He goes quiet, then opens his mouth again. ‘Your journey. The …’ He stops and looks at me, jaw clenching. ‘Your relationships. We go back through those.’
‘What? Why?’ I ask.
He bites his lip and I can’t look away. Focus, Belle.
‘Because that’s what I’m telling you.’
‘And this saves my soul because—?’
‘Because that’s how it works, Belle. And you have to do it, like, today. Anyway, I heard you’re busy tomorrow.’
‘I am very busy tomorrow. And I’m busy today, for God’s sake!’
‘Hey, do you want to go to heaven?’ he says.
I do.
A journey of my relationships … What, all of them? We might be here a while.
‘Is time the same for you in your … realm?’ I ask, as I begin to count my exes on my fingers.
Jake frowns and rubs his brow, before replying, ‘I guess it feels kinda slow?’ He seems unsure. ‘Like walking through treacle, everything is just a bit more … meh.’
Right now, Timothy should be downstairs with the photographers, having some portraits taken, and I’m supposed to be by his side in eight minutes. My palms are sweaty.
‘Let’s do a test. A quick one first, just to see if your time and my time pass at the same rate.’
‘Yeah, I don’t care. Whatever you want – you just need to get it done. And … I think you’re going to need to hold my hands.’ He scratches the back of his neck. My skin crawls. Hold his hands? The ones that are meant to be skeletal and buried six feet deep in St Mary’s churchyard?
Do we really need to hold hands? Like schoolkids? I expected something weirder, a séance circle, or a Ouija board.
He interrupts my thought process. ‘Once we’re hand in hand, you have to think of wherever it is you want to go to demonstrate your journey. In love. And then we’ll go there.’
Why is he being so vague? Why is my eternal soul in the hands of a guy who doesn’t sound sure of himself at all?
And my journey in love? Really, does it have to be now?
I’ve got a seven-course tasting menu downstairs in an hour and he wants me to …
mentally scrapbook my love CV? Then again, a ghost has showed up. On my wedding eve. That’s not nothing.
‘Really?’ I stammer.
‘Like you said, let’s start somewhere short and come back quickly. A test run. Then you can see how much time has passed and we can figure out whether your soul is actually salvageable.’
I glance at my phone screen again – it’s 3.55 p.m. now. I’ve had this day planned down to the minute for a year – colour-coded, cross-referenced, backed up in multiple places. There was no column in my spreadsheet for ‘catch up with dead ex’.
‘Jake, if I miss just a second of my wedding—’
‘Belle, just think of a short one!’
‘FINE!’ It comes out louder than I meant it to, and he’s not even hiding his smirk – we secretly both know I’ve already lost. I’m still losing arguments against Jake Marleigh and he’s been dead for a decade. Honestly, it’s just embarrassing.
The room suddenly feels huge, as I take the five steps over to him, counting them down in my head.
He holds out his hands to me and I reluctantly reach out to touch them.
Instead of cold, bone, and decay, I feel their warmth.
They are solid and calloused in the same places they always were.
Bigger than I remember, and so familiar and somehow … Somehow, they feel like home.
I shut my eyes, my palms in his, and we wait.
Nothing happens.
I crack an eye open.
‘Well, why aren’t we going anywhere?’
Jake frowns. ‘What did you think of?’
‘The Tesco on Bethnal Green Road.’
A pause. His hands still in mine, his grip steady and sure.
‘Why did you think of that?’
‘I don’t know, it just came to me. I fancied the cashier there once.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing. He scanned my Dairylea Dunkers and I never saw him again.’
‘That’s not a relationship, Belle.’
‘It could have been.’
‘Try again.’
Okay. Something more significant than a brief infatuation, but short enough that we can get back here quickly.
I shut my eyes again and think back to the evening of my first kiss.