by Megan Hart
“Nicky! Come play!” Missy had shown up, sans Ryan, and was already pulling Nick toward the other side of the room, where a group of boys and girls sat in a small circle. “Truth or Dare, c’mon!”
“C’mon.” Nick grabbed Bess’s hand and pulled her along, too.
They all sat down, the circle widening to fit them. By now the edges of Bess’s vision were pleasantly blurred, but the warmth in the pit of her stomach came from Nick’s fingers linked with hers more than the booze. He didn’t let go of her hand even when they sat and someone handed him a plastic cup of beer. Then he squeezed her fingers once, twice, and let go, but they were sitting hip to hip and thigh to thigh, which was almost as good as him holding her hand. The game was already in progress when they sat. Someone had put an empty bottle in the center of the circle.
“It’s Spin the Truth or Dare,” Nick leaned in to say into her ear. “If the bottle lands on you, you get to pick one or the other.”
Bess nodded, half disappointed it wasn’t simply Spin the Bottle. When it was her turn, she picked truth and had to tell everyone how old she was when she lost her virginity. Eighteen, an easy answer. When she spun, it landed on Missy, who picked dare. Figuring it was a no-brainer, Bess dared Missy to flash her boobs, which she did before Bess even finished the question. The game got rowdier and rowdier as it went on, as those sorts of things usually did. Someone dared a girl named Jenny to kiss Bess on the mouth, which they did to the accompaniment of hoots and shouts.
Bess, laughing, excused herself when they’d finished. She needed to use the bathroom and get another drink, though she planned to have straight soda this time. She wasn’t drunk and didn’t want to be. Even so, giddiness swept over her as she washed her hands at the bathroom sink.
Why had she been so worried about coming to Nick’s party? It was fun, that was all. Just fun. Andy went out and had fun. Lots of fun. Why shouldn’t she go out, too? It was summer fuhgodsakes. Didn’t she deserve a little—
“Fun,” Bess said to her reflection.
She was a little drunker than she thought. Sort of. The thought made her laugh.
When she came out of the bathroom, the people fucking with the spirit world had abandoned the Ouija board and joined the other circle. Bess stood in the doorway for a minute, watching, but instead of going back, took a seat by the abandoned board.
“Have you tried it?” a girl with long black hair tied in a high ponytail asked from her spot on the couch. “The Ouija?”
“No. You?”
The girl shook her head. “No.”
“Hey, Alicia.” Nick waved a hand at the girl, who waved back at him as he sat at the coffee table. “Do it with me, Bess.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” But she was already sitting, so she put her drink to one side and placed her hands on the plastic planchette.
Their fingertips touched. Bess licked her lower lip at the imagined tingle she got from touching him. It was imagined, wasn’t it? People didn’t tingle in real life. Did they?
“Do you know how to do this?” she asked Nick.
“Nope.” He grinned at her and leaned forward a little to look down at the board. “Is anyone here?”
“Don’t you have to have a quiet place, or light a candle or something?” The girl he’d called Alicia leaned forward, too.
“People were doing it before.” Bess blinked and lifted her fingers for a second before putting them down again. Definitely a tingle.
“You ask it something.” Nick lifted his chin to her. “Make it work.”
“Is anyone there?” Bess asked.
The planchette slid to YES.
“Holy shit, that’s freaky.” Alicia scooted back and put her feet up on the couch, as if something might reach out from underneath and grab her.
Nick didn’t seem perturbed. He grinned. “Ask it something else.”
“What’s your name?” The alcohol was beginning to wear off, leaving Bess owl-eyed and sensitive to sound.
The planchette moved without hesitation. “C-A-R-E. Care?”
YES
“Is that your name?”
YES
“Where are you, Care?” Bess glanced at Nick, who stared at the Ouija board.
I AM A GHOST
“Shit,” cried Alicia. “Seriously, that’s freaking me out! Are you pushing it?”
“Not me.” Nick looked at Bess.
“Not me, either.”
I AM A GHOST
I AM A GHOST
I AM A GHOST
The planchette moved faster now, sliding easily from one letter to the next without stopping, a cycle of words. Then it stopped in the center of the board. Bess noticed she was breathing hard. Nick, too.
“Are you a good ghost?” The line from The Wizard of Oz rose in Bess’s mind, but this wasn’t Glinda talking to Dorothy.
The pointer spun slowly, twisting their hands with it.
YES
“He didn’t seem so sure.” Nick looked at Bess. “Maybe he’s a bad boy.”
The planchette moved so quickly Bess’s fingertips nearly slipped off.
NICK
“What about him?” Bess asked.
BAD BOY
Nick laughed. After a minute, so did Bess, though ruefully. “You’re doing it, Nick. You’re moving it.”
NO
I AM A GHOST She knew before the pointer stopped moving what it had said. “And Nick’s a bad boy?”
YES
BUT U LIKE IT
Nick laughed again, and so did Alicia, but Bess only smiled self-consciously. “How much does Bess like me?”
ALL
“All what?” Bess asked, before she could stop herself.
ALLOT
“He might be a good ghost, but he’s not a good speller.” Alicia still watched the proceedings avidly, though she hadn’t put down her feet.
BAD BOY
“You’re a bad boy?” Bess watched Nick watch the pointer move.
WAS
“He’s a ghost, now,” Nick pointed out in a low voice.
YES
They all laughed.
“How’d you die, dude?” Nick asked.
The pointer didn’t move. A small vibration rumbled through it, as though it were trying to skid across the board, but it stayed still. After the way it had fairly flown along the curved alphabet to spell out its answers before, this was the same as silence.
“Awkward,” Nick said.
“Maybe that was a rude question.” Bess looked at him.
YES
She gazed at the board. “Do you have anything to say to us, Care?”
MISTAKE
Nothing more. “You made a mistake?”
NO
“One of us made a mistake?”
WILL MAKE
Bess looked at Nick. He looked at her. She had to swallow slowly before she asked the next question. “Which one of us?”
The pointer spun to her, then immediately to Nick.
“Okay, this is just too freaking weird.” Alicia got off the couch. “Later, guys.”
A burst of laughter rumbled up from the group still playing with the bottle. The thump of the music reverberated. Bess and Nick stared at each other.
BAD BOY
MISTAKE
I AM A GHOST
“Yes,” Bess murmured when the planchette stopped. “We know.”
“Does Bess want to be with me?” Nick asked.
Bess held her breath.
YES
Nick smiled. “Is that her mistake?”
NO
It was a stupid, silly parlor game, and she’d been drinking, but the sight of those two letters seemed more important than logic or anything else. “Should Bess break up with her sort of boyfriend?”
MISTAKE
“It’s a mistake for her to break up with him?” Nick didn’t look away from Bess’s eyes. “Or to stay with him?”
Bess took her hands off the planchette. “This is silly.”
Nick h
adn’t taken his hands away. He looked at the pointer. “Don’t you want to know what the spirits say?”
“No.” She got up on shaking legs. “This is dumb.”
Nick stood up, too. “Hey, don’t be upset.”
But suddenly, she was. Tears fought for freedom and won, slipping down her cheeks to paint her lips with bitterness. Bess pulled away from Nick, away from the party. Away from everything.
She fled outside. On the porch, more people hung out, drinking and smoking. They blocked the steps to the street, but she pushed through them, not caring if she was being rude.
Her feet hit the sidewalk, then the street. She’d forgotten about her bike, tied around the side of the house Nick had the bottom half of. She clenched her fists and swiped away tears, heading back for it.
He found her there, fumbling with her lock. “Bess.”
She stiffened and stopped trying to turn the small, stubborn dials to the correct combination. “It’s just a game.”
Nick moved closer. Bess turned, but the house met her back and he was in front of her. She had no place to go.
“I didn’t mean to make you upset.” He looked as if he wanted to touch her shoulder, but didn’t.
Bess took a deep breath. “It’s not you. It’s me.”
“I’ve heard that before.” His grin tried to tempt her into answering.
More tears threatened. She wanted to blame the booze, but it was more than that. It was Andy. And Nick. All of it. Everything.
“I just don’t understand,” she said, her vision blurring again, “why, if I love him, all I can think about is you?”
Once said it was too late to take back the words. She didn’t want to. Truth lifted the weight from her shoulders.
Nick said nothing.
Bess looked away. She should have known it. He wanted what he couldn’t have, and when she told him the truth, he didn’t want it anymore.
It was wrong to want this. Bess stood on the edge of a cliff and stared into the murky waters of moral ambiguity, waiting for Nick to push her. He didn’t.
So she jumped.
When she kissed him, she put her hands up to press his shoulders back against the house. He did nothing at first, just moved at her touch, but then one hand slid around to cup the back of her neck while the other went to her hip. She pinned him to the wall with her body. His mouth nudged hers open, but his tongue didn’t slip inside. He pulled away, just a little, the slight pressure of their lips touching making an unbearable tickle. Bess thought he might speak, but the only whisper came from their mingled breath. She leaned forward and kissed him again. Her tongue darted into his mouth, stroking tentatively and then harder when he did the same.
Their mouths met, slanting, and parted, only to come together immediately. She breathed him in and held the scent and taste of him in her lungs. His body pushed against hers, her tight nipples and the heat between her legs. Heat throbbed through his jeans against her belly.
Nick was the one who broke it, pulling away to stare into her eyes. “This isn’t a mistake, Bess.”
“No,” she said, surprised she could speak. “It’s not a mistake.”
CHAPTER 19
Now
There was no way Bess could sleep in her bed, which still smelled of their lovemaking. She sought the overstuffed couch in the living room. The denim slipcover hid what had once been a floral-print sofa, and while it had done much for the room’s decor, it made the cushions stiff and slippery and cold. She grabbed up a throw from the back of a chair and wrapped it around her.
Her eyes hurt from holding back tears, and so did her throat. She couldn’t allow herself to weep, fearful she’d dissolve into hysteria and be unable to stop. Instead she bundled herself in the afghan her grandma had knit, and curled on her side to stare through the sliding-glass doors. The deck railing hid most of the beach from her, but she glimpsed whitecaps as the tide drew them higher up the sand. There’d be an undertow tonight, she was sure of it.
Bess had never been much of a swimmer, despite spending every childhood summer at the beach. She liked to build castles or lie in the sand, though now the memory of all those sunburns had her compulsively checking every freckle and mole on her fair skin. She liked to pull her chair up to the ocean’s edge and let the water tickle her feet while she lost herself in stories of other worlds. If the day grew hot enough she might go in for a brief dip to cool off, but she didn’t really like to swim in the ocean.
Because once she’d almost drowned.
She didn’t remember much about it, just that she’d been small. With Grammy holding one hand and her mom the other, little Bess had kicked and splashed, until a rogue wave had pulled her from their grasp and tumbled her, head over foot, beneath the water. She could recall the tug of the tide and the scrape of sand on her back and face as she rolled. She’d held her breath instinctively, and closed her eyes against the sting of salt. Her lungs had hurt within moments, worse than the scrapes on her knees and elbows. A rough slice of broken shell cut her hand as she scrabbled for something to hold on to.
Just before they pulled her out of the water, the pain had stopped. And she’d seen…
“The gray.” Bess gave a start, the words on her lips tasting like blood from where she’d bitten her tongue.
They’d pulled her out of the water and she’d vomited up the sea, and until now she’d forgotten all about how the world had turned to gray. Until now. Bess sat up straighter, her heart pounding. The afghan tangled around her feet.
She smelled salt water and seaweed, and, blinking, turned to the doorway, where a dark figure stood silhouetted.
She heard the soft plink-plink of water dripping onto the hardwood floor. She heard the sound of her own breath. She heard the rush and roar of the ocean outside.
She opened her arms.
He knelt at her feet and buried his face in her lap. His shoulders heaved. His hair, soaking, wet her skirt, and his skin beneath her palms was hot and wet. He was naked. Bess ran her fingers down the individual bumps of Nick’s spine, the sleek curve of his ribs. He’d always been lean, but now he seemed fragile, too.
He sobbed once and grabbed her thighs. The odor of the ocean overpowered everything else, his usual sensual smell of soap and cologne with a hint of smoke gone. Nick moaned low in his throat, and broke her heart once more.
“Don’t leave me again.” Each word sounded as if it tortured him. His fingers curled into the folds of her skirt.
Though he radiated heat like sun-baked sand, Bess gathered up the blanket and wrapped it around him, then eased herself onto the floor beside him. Nick buried his face against her neck. His wet hair tickled her cheek. Bess held him tightly, the two of them wrapped in the afghan, and wondered what to say to make all of this better.
“When you’re gone, I think you won’t come back.”
Bess rubbed her cheek along his wet head. “I came back, Nick.”
His arms tightened on her. His shoulders heaved a time or two more, but then he pulled away. His eyes flashed in the stripe of light from the window. She saw no tears.
“I had to go out,” she said softly. She pushed his hair, drying now, off his forehead, and cupped his cheek.
She’d always imagined Nick as fearless. She’d been the one to doubt. The benefit of hindsight showed her he’d been as afraid as she had. Maybe more. Even so, seeing him this way disconcerted her.
“I know you did.” Shaking off her touch, he sat with his back against the couch. The blanket fell around his waist. “Forget it.”
“When I came home, and you were gone…” Bess hesitated, but she’d already decided the second verse was going to have a different chorus. “I thought you weren’t coming back. I thought I’d lost you, Nick. Forever, this time.”
He turned to look at her, the mouth that brought her such pleasure turned down at the corners. After a moment he reached to cup his hand behind her neck. She thought he might kiss her, maybe pull her onto his lap and start to fuck her there
on the floor, and despite the bruises and the chafing, her body responded at once.
But Nick didn’t kiss her. He only looked at her. “I don’t want to go back. Not ever.”
Bess shook her head a tiny bit, not dislodging his grasp from her neck. “And I don’t want you to.”
Shadows bisected his faint smile. “No?”
“No.”
“What are we going to do?” His fingers curled and his thumb pressed against the beat of her pulse. She leaned toward him, letting his heat wash over her. “When your kids get here? What then? You gonna tell them I’m your boyfriend? Tell ’em you’re fucking me, and oh, by the way, I’m not…I’m—”
She put her mouth on his to silence him. He let her kiss him, but he didn’t kiss her back, and after a second she pulled away. “Shh. I’ll think of something.”
Nick got up. The blanket dropped. She’d been on her knees for him before, but this time it didn’t feel right, with him looking down on her. Bess stood, too.
Nick stalked to the wall and turned on the overhead light. Bess threw up her hand to keep away the glare, and blinking, didn’t see him grabbing her wrist until he was already pulling her toward the large mirror. He stared at their side-by-side reflections.
“What do you see?” he asked.
Bess’s eyes had adjusted now to the brightness, but she blinked a few more times. “Me. And you.”
Nick gazed hard into the mirror. “I look the same to you. And you look the same to me. But not to yourself.”
“I don’t remember what I looked like then,” she said. “Unless I see pictures. I can’t remember what it was like to stare at my face in the mirror, Nick. I look the way I look. I look my age.”
He turned to her. “You’re afraid of what people will say.”
“There’s more than one reason to be afraid of that,” Bess told him, not meaning to be cruel, but hearing it sound that way.
Nick gazed again at their reflection. “Do you think anyone would recognize me?”
“I did.”
He smiled. “How about someone I wasn’t fucking?”
“Gee, Nick,” she said, stung. “Was there anyone you weren’t fucking?”
