9. Girls Who Kiss the Dead
Girls Who Kiss the Dead
Three days quickly turned into more. We’re going on day five, and aside from some city officials coming by with pay scale offers and goodwill, I’ve spent it locked inside my childhood home.
Glued to darkened windows others kept burning to draw her attention away from the recesses where I sit.
She wasn’t supposed to stay here. I was supposed to come back and only be needled and haunted by the memory of her, not an in-the-flesh grown version.
We had plans, dreams. Well, she did. I felt content to be by her side while she succeeded in each one.
I’d decided that very first day that wherever she was, I was going to be.
None of her big dreams involved this fucking town and the small people trapped in it.
Audrey’s smile was too bright for a place like this; she was supposed to leave.
I’d pictured her over the years, at least a hundred times a day, showing off an art gallery in New York.
Her pretty blonde hair smeared with paint as she fussed over a canvas.
Her delicate throat being crushed between my hands as her eyes welled with tears and questions.
I never believed in ghosts like Audrey did.
In fact, I’ve never put much stock into anything I couldn’t touch, see, or confirm with my own hands.
Emotions, while I feel some of them to a degree, are like ghosts.
Passing through without ever affecting me one way or another.
Unless it seems, I’m broached with any matter concerning the wispy shadow from a few hours ago, dragging the landline cord between her slender fingers.
Twisting and untwisting it the way she has my brain from the moment we met.
My fixation on my best friend was never something I needed proof of.
It existed as an entity in and of itself.
Poking, prodding, and needling, filling my chest with things I’d never experienced before her.
If ghosts are real, then my obsession with that girl is a poltergeist. A malevolent and consuming one that’s plagued me since I was nine years old.
The day I led a tiny, sniffling seven-year-old girl into the woods.
An overwhelming, drowning buzzing curiosity I hadn’t understood at the time.
I didn’t have a plan, only a need, a feeling I was chasing.
Any feeling. I went into those woods that day with excitement building in my gut.
I was going to scratch the bone-deep itch.
Instead, I emerged entirely, oddly devoted to that sniffling little girl.
The one with bright hazel eyes, a bloodied head, and big feelings.
I’ve felt no allegiance to any country, ideal, religion, or person but her since.
Aside from a single promise. A vow that I’ve now obliterated and left scattered in the dirt of my family home.
Dad’s hands are hot and clammy as he grips my face, the smell of death clinging to his apron. “You will never come back here. Give me your word.”
I don’t at first, studying the dark bags under his eyes instead, because he taught me not to stare too hard.
Limit eye contact. To adapt. Now he’s asking me to adapt again, but this one doesn’t leave me curious, ready for another challenge to pick apart until I’ve perfected it.
This one makes me feel like I need to vomit.
“Gideon, listen to me! You cannot see her again. We cannot come back here, ever. For God’s sake, you can’t help it, son.
I know you can’t help it, but you’re sick.
You can’t… Oh God, help us. Gideon, you can’t do these things without thinking!
They’ll take you and lock you away somewhere like you’re some goddamn animal. ”
I pace the embalming room, staring blankly at the polished equipment as if it’ll offer a solution.
It doesn’t. The heavy double doors smash against the outside wall as I stalk into the lounge room, my clothes folded neatly alongside musty blankets in the now worn gray couch.
My back aches like shit, but when I go upstairs, I can’t seem to stay away from the windows, which means sleeping in the basement.
Those first few days back home, I spent hours watching her, just like I used to.
Desperate to acquire everything she leaves behind.
Like I was making up for lost time. I would force myself away from the windows, the shadows outside her house, and immediately, some unseen fists would take hold of my chest, squeezing my lungs until I returned.
When the lights went out, I paced the front porch of my house, not letting myself take even a single step closer to her.
Telling myself I was content with just knowing I could.
I could take just a few steps, then I could cross the desolate road.
I could just sneak around back; it would be so easy to have my Audrey again.
My pajama pants hang low on my hips, my feet bare on the cold tile.
It’s a forty-minute drive to the closest big city.
If I tried hard enough, timed it right, I could be back before my tailoring appointment.
Seems like if I’m here, I might as well keep the business running.
For that, I need to look the part. I’d gotten too comfortable in my job, away from the families, the showboating that is a funeral.
Covered in a white coat. Just me and the bodies, the occasional intern, a foul-mannered cop or two.
If I go right now, I could find a girl, exercise this gnawing—
When the phone rings upstairs, my head snaps toward the receiver beside me, waiting for it to follow, of course, it doesn’t.
Another testament to how gone to shit my father’s cousin had let this place go.
My fists clench as my feet hit the painted wood, avoiding the windows but not willing to just close the fucking curtains.
I almost get there when the sound of tires turning onto gravel catches my attention, halting me.
Dragging my fingers through my black hair, I lean into the buzzing, letting my eyes slide to the column windows by the front door from where I’ve paused in the foyer.
The phone stops ringing, but all I can see is the small car that’s haphazardly parked next to Audrey's father’s truck.
The one she’s been taking to and from wherever she goes from ten a.m. to six p.m. the first three days, then yesterday noon to eight.
I rip my eyes away for a second, to the mantle clock; it’s almost midnight.
A little late for visitors, Audrey. My heart is thundering in my chest because I know that familiar front door is about to open, and nothing will be the same again.
That I’m so far fucked that the idea of keeping any promise, any good intentions I ever deluded myself into having, is goddamn laughable.
What starts in my chest as a buzz, a need, excitement, flips to anger the moment a girl steps out of the car dressed in a bikini top and shorts that expose nearly all of her ass, despite the chill in the air.
Followed by a bulky man carrying a large tote bag.
My jaw clenches as I adjust my glasses. My own front door looms closer with each step they take to her porch.
When my sweet Audrey flings open her door, dressed in a fuzzy robe, her long, pale strands of hair soaked fresh from the shower, I’m out of the front door, standing on my porch without having ever made the conscious decision to walk outside.
“Surprise slumber party!” the man bellows, whooping like a fucking caveman.
Our houses are set far enough off the road that she sees nothing but a shadow looming in the background.
She can’t make anything out without the porch light on, but she sees me.
I can feel her hazel eyes; I know they widen before refocusing on the two before her.
My Audrey, for the first time in her lifetime, sees me.
The girl tugs at Audrey’s wet hair before all but shoving past her into the house.
My fist clenches, eyes narrowing on the man. If you let him touch you—
My puppet leans away but takes the corpse's kiss all the same. Their lips touching makes acidic vomit rise in my throat. The phone blares to life inside the foyer, but I can’t move.
I can’t breathe. The distance between us is something inflicted upon me.
Something foul that whispers to me that she should be punished for moving on, but I’m the one who did it.
I’m the one who walked away. She steps to the side, letting him pass before I feel those pretty eyes again, and I hope she can feel the warning in my glare.
My obsession. My vow. I hope she knows that nothing ever changed, not for me.
Audrey, Present Day, 1994
I quickly scramble over to the couch where my sketchpad lies open, colored pencils scattered across the coffee table that I’ve bruised my shins on since I was a kid, right next to the bills I was supposed to be figuring out how I’d pay and not drawing on the backs of.
I give the portrait of a little boy, glaring at a brooding grown man I’ve been working on for days, a final glance before slamming it shut just as Jess flops on my couch, stretching out like a house cat. “Where have you been, dude?”
Bryan snags me by the waist, trying to peek over my shoulder, but I’ve already got the pad closed.
God, I can’t deal with any of his jealous bullshit tonight, especially when he always tries so hard to mask it as innocent teasing.
The whole I was just playing around after acting like a total dickhead instead of just apologizing gambit was old months ago.
His older sister’s eyes check the movement, smirking up at me.
I open my mouth to answer before Bryan cuts me off. “She’s been working, like always.”
Yeah, that’s what you do when you’re fresh out of parents to pay your bills.