Reese #2
“Sometimes I wonder why they don’t get a divorce when it’s obvious they hate each other.
It’s not like there’s anything wrong with that.
People do it all the time,” I say. What I don’t say is that I wonder sometimes how long it will take for one of them to snap and actually kill the other, and that I wonder—sometimes late at night when I can’t sleep—which one of them it would be, hedging my bets on Nolan because Emily’s ability to provoke people and push them to the limit is next-level.
Sometimes I think I could kill her myself.
“Does it bother you when they fight?”
“Sometimes. But mostly I just try to ignore it, to imagine I’m somewhere else.”
“Like where?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere they’re not.”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
He says, “Soon you’ll be gone and you won’t have to listen to them anymore.”
I’m counting down the days.
Except the way he says it—soon you’ll be gone—is ominous.
He mocks Emily again. “This is a family vacation. You’re supposed to be with family, not isolating yourself out here.” It lightens the mood. I laugh, but then he gets more serious and asks, “What would she do if she knew where you were right
now? If she knew you were with me?”
“Ground me. Literally never take her eyes off me for the rest of the trip. Never let me go anywhere without her. Never let
me see you again.”
He says, “I wouldn’t let that happen,” and my whole body warms, because I’ve never had anyone in my corner like that, except
for Skylar, but she’s not my friend anymore, I don’t think.
Daniel stops walking. He lets go of my hand all of a sudden, turning to face me, and I think that this is where it happens,
this is where we kiss.
But we don’t. Instead, he asks, “Wanna hit?” while reaching into a pocket for a joint, which he lights, rotating the tip in the lighter’s flame, the flame so close to his face that it illuminates it with an eerie glow, the fire reflected in his eyes.
I hesitate because I’ve only smoked weed like twice in my life—and only ever with Skylar, alone—watching as he sets the joint
between his lips, a smoothness to it that I could never replicate.
“Is that a no?” he asks, pulling the joint from his lips, because of my hesitation. My throat tightens. When I say nothing,
he says, “Don’t be afraid. It’s just you and me, Reese like the candy. No one will know. It will be our little secret.” He
cocks his head, asks with that same voice from before, “You have smoked weed before, haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Of course.”
“Then show me.”
I take the joint. I press it between my lips. I breathe in, feeling my lungs instantly ignite. I fight the urge to cough though,
inevitably, I do, and he asks, “You good?” grinning, his smile teasing and hot. He moves closer, setting one hand on the crest
of my hip, lighting my whole body on fire, saying, “Don’t worry about it. Happens to everyone,” as if he can feel my embarrassment.
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?” he asks, because I’m still coughing. For a minute, the clouds above us part, and in the moonlight, there is an
intensity to his eyes, his eyes like black holes. He doesn’t blink, not often, so that I have to look away to lessen the intensity
of his stare.
“Yeah.”
He takes the joint from my hand. “You’ve got to take smaller hits and slow your inhale, like this,” he says, showing me, and this time, I watch.
I learn, like he’s the mentor and I’m his protégé.
“Try again,” he says, his voice patient but persuasive, so that I couldn’t say no if I wanted to.
He holds out the joint. I reach for it, taking another hit, and this time, I don’t cough.
This time, a lightness blooms through my body, spreading to my limbs.
He sees it on my face and in my eyes.
“There you go,” he says, smiling, pleased. “Good girl.” He leans closer so I feel his breath on my cheek. He asks, “Can I
kiss you now?” while reaching out a free hand to move my hair out of my eyes.
And I want to say yes. Kiss me. But again, I think of what Skylar said about playing hard to get, about how when you give
guys what they want, they don’t want you anymore. “Is this what you wanted to show me?” I ask.
He shakes his head, says, “No.”
“Then no,” I say. “Show me.”
He stares too long, his face too close so that I think he’s going to kiss me anyway and if he did, I’d let him. I wouldn’t
say no. I’d let him do more than kiss me. But then he doesn’t. He takes the joint back. He takes another hit and then stubs
it out, saving it for later.
We keep walking, down a small hill and eventually into a clearing, which I know, not because I see it (it’s too dark to see)
but because I feel the change in the terrain, the scrub no longer reaching out to touch my knees. The trees widen so that,
all of a sudden, there’s space. Breathing room. The air around us changes too, becoming heavy, moist, and the temperature
drops.
He says, “This is it. We’re here,” and I stop dead, holding my breath, squinting and trying to see through the darkness.
“What is this place?” I ask.
I shiver, an actual chill moving up my spine, everything all of a sudden more acute. My shoulders jerk, which he notices,
asking, “You feel that too? Not everyone does. I thought it was just me.”
For the first time, I feel scared.
“Feel what?” I ask, though I do feel it. The sense that we’re not alone. That someone, or something, is here with us, just beyond reach, just beyond what we can see.
He says, “The cold.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I feel it.” I wrap my arms around myself, afraid to turn around and see if someone’s behind me, because there’s
a different energy at my back all of a sudden. A felt presence, like someone is there. “What is it?” I ask, about the cold,
thinking of the lake effect back home and how we must be close to the lake, and that’s what’s causing the change in temperature.
Daniel doesn’t tell me, not in words. Instead, he shines his phone’s flashlight just out in front of him and I make out names
and dates on stone tablets before me. Millie Green. 1889–1925. Dorothy Frank. August 19, 1902–June 1, 1919. Janice George.
1912–1968.
A cemetery.
The chill in the air has nothing to do with the lake.
“They say it’s haunted,” he says, his voice toned down, doomy, so that I start to shake. “They say that sometimes, late at
night, you can hear the sound of someone crying. And that some nights there’s a girl in white, holding a baby and asking for
help.” I can feel his eyes on me in the darkness. “Are you scared?” he asks, and I know that’s what he wants.
He wants to scare me.
He wants me to be scared.
“No,” I say, except I am. “Because there’s no such thing as ghosts.” But as I say it, a sound like gnashing teeth, like driving
on gravel, comes from behind and I flinch, spinning, crying quietly out as we both turn at the same time, staring into the
darkness, searching but seeing nothing.
It doesn’t matter.
I don’t have to see it to know. Someone or something is there.
I picture her with long, flowing hair like cobwebs, a gaping mouth, hollowed-out eyes.
But then no one and nothing emerges from the woods and I start to second-guess myself. Maybe I didn’t hear anything. Maybe
nothing is there. Maybe it was just my imagination.
Except that he heard it too.
“How do you know?” he asks after a minute.
“Know what?” I ask with my back to him.
“That there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“I just do.”
Except I don’t. Because after Grandpa died, I was pretty sure he came back and that he left coins for me on my dresser. I
didn’t know him, not really, because he had dementia for most of my life and half the time thought I was Emily and the other
half that I was her mom, my grandma. Emily used to say how he collected coins his whole life, how he hunted flea markets for
them, how he went to coin shows and auctions, how he kept them in hard plastic storage cases at home. She thought it was a
dumb hobby, a waste of time. I thought it was cool. He always wanted to tell me about his coin collection and it was like
the only thing he ever talked about that made sense. He couldn’t remember my name or who I was—that I was his granddaughter
even—but he remembered everything about his coins, like where he got them and what they were worth.
And then one day after he died, I came home from school to find three silver dollars waiting for me on my dresser, including
a Morgan silver dollar, which, when I googled, was actually worth something, not anything life-changing, but something.
If he didn’t put them there, then who did?
“Then what are you looking for, if there’s no such thing as ghosts?
” Daniel asks. He doesn’t wait for me to say.
“Don’t be scared,” he says then, like he knows I am, even though I said I’m not.
Like he can see through me, even in the darkness.
He comes up from behind, standing so close that I feel his breath on my hair, moving it, the sensation making my stomach flip like when you’re on a roller coaster, coasting out of control down the first big hill, free-falling, and my heart and stomach are somehow detached from the rest of my body, floating in space.
That’s how it feels. His arms wrap around me.
He leans in, breathes into my ear, “They’re not going to hurt you.
They’re harmless. They’re just lonely and looking for someone to vibe with, like me. ”
He turns me around, putting his hands on either side of my face. He leans down, bringing his face closer to mine, and as he
kisses me, it feels like getting caught in a rip current, like it’s pulling me in, pulling me under, and all I can think about
is don’t fuck this up. Don’t do something stupid.
Because girls like me don’t get second chances.