Chapter 15 – Elise #3
He gave a small, almost bashful laugh. “I’m shy.”
She blinked. “You’re… what?”
“Painfully shy,” he repeated, as if the word tasted strange in his mouth. “Always have been. I just learned early on that if I act detached and disinterested, people stop looking too closely. You keep the armor on long enough, eventually it fits.”
Elise tilted her head, trying to match this admission with the version of Graham she saw onstage—commanding, elegant, confident. “But you’re literally a romantic lead.”
He gave a small smile, then shrugged. “Onstage, sure. That’s the role. There’s a script. A mark to hit. I’ve had a lot of practice pretending to be the guy everyone falls for.”
His voice softened. “But that’s never really been me. Offstage, I get in my head too much. I overanalyze every look, every word. It’s easier to stay a little removed—to act like I don’t care—because if people don’t really see me, they can’t reject me.”
She studied him, seeing through something now. “You really believe that?”
“Oh, I believe worse things too,” he said, still half-joking. “I’m wildly insecure. High-functioning, mostly. I panic over punctuation in texts. I rehearse jokes in the shower. I’ve already convinced myself I’m not your type, and I’ve been waiting for you to come to your senses.”
Elise blinked. “You’re… shockingly self-aware.”
“I’ve got a very expensive therapist,” he shrugged, smiling wryly. “Figured I should get my money’s worth. I’ve tanked enough relationships to realize I need to face the baggage instead of hiding it. So this is me—trying something new. Leading with the chaos. Did it scare you off yet?”
She stepped back from the wig stand, brushing a few stray hairs off her apron. “Honestly,” she said, voice soft but teasing, “it’s kind of working in your favor. Especially since you already know I come with my own suitcase set.”
“Haunted, hexed, and high-functioning,” Kevin added dryly from somewhere nearby.
Elise ignored him, eyes still on Graham. “Let’s just say... it’s refreshing not to be the only one with a complicated backstory.”
Elise started curling the wig, wrapping the papers and strands around each roller with practiced ease, though her hands moved a bit slower than usual.
Graham hesitated, his voice low. “Am I allowed to ask about your ex? I mean… did you find out anything more? Have you seen him again?”
She nodded, not looking up. “He’s dead. Apparently, it happened three years ago. Just a couple days after the last time I saw him.” Her fingers paused briefly over the next section of hair. “We ended things on really bad terms. I was trying to get away from him for good. He didn’t like that.”
Graham stayed quiet, letting her continue at her own pace.
“He’d started showing up at places I used to go. At first it felt like coincidence, then it didn’t. So I stopped going to my usual spots. That’s when he started following me more intentionally. I didn’t know what he was capable of.”
She reached for another pin, her tone matter-of-fact but tight. “I tried to keep my distance, but he didn’t take it well. He was angry—scary angry.”
There was a stillness in her next words, like she was remembering a dream that began last night when she first read the article, and still hadn’t fully ended. “He was hit by a bus. Outside the theatre I was working in.”
Graham’s voice was half-incredulous, half-apologetic. “Sorry, he was actually hit by a bus? That… that really happens?”
Elise gave a dry laugh, like the punchline to a joke only she found funny. “It does, apparently.”
She glanced toward the half-styled wig in her hands. “I think I remember that day. I left work early. Next morning, people were whispering about an accident near the stage door. I didn’t know it was him.”
She set the curler and finally met Graham’s gaze. “I started my touring contract right after that. It was the perfect excuse to disappear. I haven’t been back to that city since.”
Graham’s expression shifted—grief and quiet outrage all flickering across his features. “It’s awful,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “That one person could take up so much space in your life. Even now. Even in death. You deserved better than that.”
Elise didn’t speak, but her silence felt like agreement. They sat in a pocket of stillness, the kind that hums with everything left unsaid.
Eventually, Graham spoke again. “So… the ghost. At the cast party. Was it really him?”
Elise’s breath caught. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
Her voice was slow, as though the words had to be coaxed out. “It shouldn’t be. It doesn’t make sense. He’s gone. He should be gone.”
A strand of hair slipped from the curler in her hand, like a thought unraveling. “But things have been… off. Too many strange things. Too many signs pointing back to a version of my life I thought I’d buried. Like the past is clawing its way back up.”
Graham glanced toward the door to stage right, like the memory of it was still sitting there. “What happened earlier? In the quick change—I saw the lights come on, and you and Lark looked… scared. I didn’t know what I was looking at.”
Elise nodded slowly. “We saw something.” She hesitated. “It wasn’t a ghost—not like the others. It was like the opposite. A shadow. But… not just a shadow. It was sentient. Aware. It was reaching for us. And when the lights came on, it…dissolved.”
Kevin drifted over, arms crossed like a Victorian auntie with a secret. “I have a theory.”
Elise, without looking up, said, “Kevin has a theory.”
Graham tilted his head. “Can’t wait.”
“I think the lighting malfunction was the techie ghost,” Kevin said, floating closer.
“He knew something was coming. So he flipped the lights on. Tried to protect you. But…” He glanced toward the far end of the backstage, where the corners held stillness like a held breath. “I haven’t seen him since.”
Elise relayed the thought to Graham, who looked vaguely unnerved. “The ghost is… missing?”
Kevin hovered by the wig dryer as Elise loaded in the last of the curls. “Something’s off,” he murmured. “The ghosts here—something’s got them spooked. They’ve gone quiet. They’re hiding.” He frowned. “Whatever this is, it doesn’t fit. And if it is your ex… then someone’s rewritten the rules.”
Elise gently shut the dryer door and stood still for a moment, a ripple of unease settling through her. “I need to tell Cici what happened.”
She covered her eyes with both hands, as if she could shield herself from the flood of uncertainty building behind her ribs.
The sigh that escaped her was long, frayed at the edges, the sound of someone who had hit their limit and only just noticed.
She’d spent the entire day stitching herself together with bobby pins and costume changes, with clever jokes and motion—constant motion.
But now that the stillness had returned, she felt hollowed out.
Empty and tired in a way that lived in her bones.
Graham stepped closer, careful not to crowd her. “Not to overstep,” he said softly, “but you look like you could really use a hug.”
She looked up, blinking once. Then she nodded.
He folded his arms around her, and she let herself lean in. Her breath hitched once, twice—then began to slow. She closed her eyes, let the familiar smell of backstage and Graham and something faintly cedar-scented anchor her. It wasn’t magic. But it helped.
“You’ve been through a lot,” he said, voice low. “It’s okay to take a moment. You don’t have to carry all of it at once.”
She didn’t answer, but he didn’t seem to expect her to.
“I’ll walk you back to the hotel,” he added. “You should have space to breathe. Call your friend. Try to rest.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, the words heavier than she meant them to be.
He picked up her bag with one hand and kept the other lightly resting over her shoulder. As they headed for the exit, a melody drifted through the hallway—soft and slow, a piano that played itself, each note like a sigh in the dark.
Graham paused, tilting his head. “Am I imagining that, or...?”
Elise smiled faintly, not bothering to hide her exhaustion. “Yeah. It’s a ghost thing.”
He blinked, bemused, and then they stepped through the door. It clicked shut behind them, and the last note hung in the air.