Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
Phoning a Friend
It’s been two hours since I landed and my clothes are still scattered across the apartment. I haven’t cleaned a single thing. Instead, I’m finishing season one of All or Nothing, pretending I don’t have ten days to drum up media interest for Holden.
The audition sides have already been sent his way, enough to keep him busy and distracted from everything that happened in New York.
Meanwhile, I am sucked into every article about us. Reporters predicting how long we will last before he gets bored of me. A small part of me allows it to bother me. So much so, I’ve fully committed to a whole day of bed rotting.
A large thumping sound beats on my door like a drum.
With all the random sounds from Skye and strange gusts of wind, I close all my windows, check all the burners and raise the temperature on my AC unit before creeping to the front door.
In the peephole, I can see her four-foot-ten frame patiently waiting for me outside my door.
Lena Davis is wearing a black miniskirt and red tube top. Making herself feel right at home after I swing the door open to greet her, she tosses her bag on the couch and immediately gives me a hug. I inhale her perfume of cashmere and vanilla with hints of alcohol on her breath.
She still has on her back cat-eye sunglasses, taking up almost her whole face as she storms through my apartment, looking exasperated from the day.
In a rush, she sorts through the bag she just tossed on my couch for two Advils, which she pops in her mouth immediately.
“You won’t believe what just happened to me.”
“What?”
Lena takes out her miniature mirror from her handbag and applies her red lipstick.
“Remember Karen from Accounting?”
She doesn’t give me a second to answer before she jumps into telling me about her day. I am not sure why she is applying lipstick, because as far as I know, we have no plans of leaving this apartment.
Lena starts, “She somehow convinced the whole team to go day-drinking. On our fifth bar, I started to hear people talk about Holden at the table across from us. A bunch of twenty-one-year-olds gossiping about who he is dating.”
My hands go up, covering my face. And I know exactly where she’s going with this.
“To my pleasant surprise, it’s my good friend, Charlotte. Care to explain?”
The impact of her statement makes me wince. My whole body locks up and my eyes close as I blurt out the words, “I think I’m being haunted” in one fast-paced breath.
Once it goes from being in my mind to slipping out of my mouth, it becomes real. It’s no longer a passing thought anymore.
Lena’s eyes are wide and her mouth is hanging open. Unusual for the girl who can’t keep quiet even if she tries on most occasions, she is currently tight-lipped.
I push her open jaw back into place. It takes a moment for her to respond. She goes through the five W’s—who, what, when, where, why—before she lands on the coherent sentence of…
“What do you mean, you’re haunted?”
Lena places a hand to my forehead. And once nothing comes of that, she moves her ear to my chest to hear my heartbeat.
“Did you go day-drinking too?”
“I am fine,” I say, pushing her hand away, taking a step back.
“I think I’m being haunted. Remember that pendant you caught me finding in my bag the other day—the one that was glowing and luminescent and also just crazy because I’d never seen it before?”
She nods slowly, leaning into the pendant hanging around neck, analyzing every intricate detail displayed on it.
“Well, I think it belonged to a dead girl, because I’m hearing things, I’m seeing things, and the last few weeks haven’t been adding up.”
“So, you hear dead people?”
Lena displays a cheeky grin on her face, knowing I will understand exactly what she’s saying, referencing a ’90s movie about a little boy seeing dead people.
“Clever,” I say.
Immediately, she takes my hand and leads me back to the couch.
One look in her eyes tells me she’s on the verge of putting me in an involuntary psychiatric hold.
I can tell she is trying to be understanding with her long pauses, but when you tell someone that you are seeing things nobody else can see, it makes it kind of hard to do that…
Knowing this logic, I still keep going. The relief outweighs her bewildered look.
“Lena, there was a girl who died in the unit directly across from mine a few weeks ago. It took me a while to put the pieces together, but somehow, it’s all making sense. Holden picking on me. Chris letting me handle the PR mess. Things going south with Aidan. Quitting my job.”
Lena clears her throat before her tone becomes stronger and firmer than before. “What do you mean you quit your job? Chris said you called in sick for the past few days?”
“Wait, what?”
I bet he thought I would come crawling back, begging for my job.
Lena is still quiet and my stomach is growling. Apparently, my big reveal that I can see a dead person doesn’t seem to be the thing that sticks.
“I am going to make some popcorn while you process all of that.”
Lena is stunned as I walk away. I unwrap the plastic covering and throw it in the microwave, watching the kernels slowly pop one by one.
“You are leaving me with Chris, alone? To fend for myself?” She yells across the room.
“I mean, everyone needs you there. Chris relies on you for everything.”
She doubles down and I am not even sure how to reply. Except with, “Good luck.”
“I am sure he will find another assistant to do everything.”
“Is she around us right now? Did she make you do this?”
She wags her fingers in multiple directions. Her concern makes me want to laugh. Lena is manically looking at every inch of my apartment.
The gust of wind and blue glow suddenly appears. Skye is dancing around Lena, a chilling image that she can’t see.
“No, she didn’t,” I say firmly.
“Maybe he just wanted you to pay your dues a little longer. Really see the ins and outs before throwing you in?”
“It’s been two years, Lena.” I turn back to the living room, stuffing my face with popcorn.
“Look, I am sorry. That was insensitive. I know how rough it can be to work there.”
“It’s okay.”
A booming voice ripples throughout the apartment, saying the same chant: “A luz sabe.” The same lyrical introduction to Skye that never felt like her. The voice was too deep, too ancient sounding. Nothing that compared to the Skye I know now.
“What is going on?” Lena looks horrified.
“You heard that too?” I question. For the first time since I’ve had this necklace, it vocalized something to someone else other than me.
“What does the chant even mean?”
“I don’t know, Skye, what does it mean?” I stare blankly at her, waiting for the answer I’ve been wanting to know this whole time.
“I don’t even know myself. It started chanting this when I woke up after the fire.” Skye whispers to me only.
“Did she answer you?” Lena asks eagerly. A twinge of sadness hits when I realize she is only able to hear the chant, not her.
I nod my head yes. Lena’s bug eyes are still scanning my apartment for Skye.
“What does she look like?”
In one quick search, I found Skye’s profile picture online.
She is leaning into what I assume to be her boyfriend, wearing denim shorts and a tiny spaghetti-strap tank.
Her boyfriend is standing next to her in baggy pants and an oversized Led Zeppelin T-shirt.
Both are blissfully smiling in front of an amphitheater.
“Wow, she was gorgeous.”
“I know,” Skye says, standing a little straighter, looking over Lena’s shoulder in pure pride.
“And here’s her obituary…”
And Skye sighs so loudly, it’s the human equivalent of a tiny violin.
“How did you know she was a ghost and not just some voice in your head?” Lena asks.
I stand up, looking Skye over from head to toe, wearing a new outfit she’s manifested onto her body. Daisy Dukes and a yellow crochet top with thick wedges, a beachy look for her.
“I knew when all the signs that would happen any time before she would arrive just kept happening. The wind. The whispers. The shadows. It was like she was slowly telling me that she was there until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.”
Lena grabs a fist full of popcorn from my bowl. Every crunch she makes gnaws at me.
“I probably sound crazy to you, don’t I?”
“Oddly enough, I think I believe you?” She says.
I spent the next hour telling her about the last two months of my life.
And I think at this moment that we might actually be real friends—not just work friends, but real-life friends.
I leap into her arms for a hug and hold on to her, a hug that I know she clearly is trying to get out of, but she has no choice, because she has no idea how much this means to me.
Lena pushes me off with a smile remaining on her face.
“So, what are you gonna do about Aidan and Holden?” Lena says, biting her lower lip.
And I know exactly what I need to do.
“Well, since you asked, I did have a favor I wanted to ask.”
Her eyes go wide and for the first time in years, I am able to call the shots.