by Celia Crown
It needs new parts, and I need to put effort into changes.
What I have in mind might break us, and I will never be ready for that, but if it works, we will have a chance of being together.
I am ready for that.
“Let’s go home.”
Chapter Seven
Jacqueline
“You’re awfully quiet,” Eli remarks, but his approach isn’t pushy for me to answer him if I don’t want to.
“Just thinking,” I reply softly, toeing off my shoes and slinging my backpack off to the side of the couch as I maneuver through the furniture to find the remote control to the television.
It’s hidden somewhere. When I don’t need it, it’s everywhere and when I do, it’s suddenly in the void and I will never see it again. I rarely watch television. We only have it because it came with the apartment and we figured that one day it can come in handy.
Danni and I are still waiting for that day.
“Tell me,” he says.
I hum, distracting myself from telling him what I’m thinking while fumbling through the kitchen for something to eat. I can start on dinner. Danni would be coming home soon from her day at the hospital, and I know she gets hungry from having to deal with all types of people.
I hear the stories of how she sees the worst of people when they are in the hospital, but she also feels the happiness and relief that comes with a successful day.
It takes a certain type of bravery to be in the medical field and I don’t have that in me. I don’t do well under pressure and stress. Time restraint frightens me to no end. I rarely do well when one of my clients pushes up the deadline of the product they have paid for.
They often ask with an option of paying extra, but it’s the mental health part of me that tells them that I can if it is absolutely necessary, but for future projects, I will have to decline if it is a continues cycle.
“Jackie.”
I stifle down a groan. Eli has this tendency to not let things go, and it’s a great character trait if it’s applied in the position of an IRS agent. Those government employees are bloodhounds to people who don’t pay their taxes, and they don’t care what crimes they have committed, but if they don’t pay taxes, then it’s a playing field.
“I’m having a revelation.”
His silence is loud, and his eyes are burning through my brown hair as I have my back towards him. I fiddle with the refrigerator door with my hands and dinner takes some of my tension away from Eli.
He may be a ghost, but his presence is of a man with raw power. I cannot ignore the nagging of his eyes on me, and it’s as if his phantom arms are an iron lock around me, chaining me to his side and possessing the tempo of my heart.
“I can’t tell you,” I say, and the grimace pinches through my facial muscles.
That sounded better in my head. I had a whole explanation planned and it was not what came out of my mouth. My brain and my vocals tend to fight against each other. Danni doesn’t take offense to things I say, and I hope Eli doesn’t either.
It’s not that I don’t trust him, but this matter is too private to share with anyone. Danni doesn’t know either, but I just found out about this crisis that I have not long ago and I didn’t have a chance to figure it out myself.
“Do you not trust me?”
I spin around, heart hammering in my ribs and my breath shallow at the defensive tone in his voice. The accusation hurt, small bites of anxiety land on the risen goosebumps on my arms as a shiver of dread curl in my toes.
“No!” I shake my head, fingers wringing in front of me. “I… I have to—it’s just that—it’s complicated.”
“What is?” he steps closer.
“I don’t know,” I admit with a sigh, “I do trust you, but this is something I have to figure out myself.”
“Will you tell me one day?” Eli leans down; his waist bends lower as he stares me into my eyes.
The swirl of his green eyes reflects signs of sincerity and openness; it’s one of the many things I love about Eli.
And there lies the problem.
I’m in love with him.
Complicated doesn’t even come close to an understatement. He’s a ghost, which means he’s dead and who knows for how long. There is no way to tell how long he will be with me or if he will be with me when I tell him my feelings. That will be another big if; he might not feel the same way.
A relationship between a ghost and a live human being doesn’t spell out a future.
The main problem lies with me.
I have never been in a relationship longer than two weeks, and Fernando only lasted to the third week because he was on a business trip and he thought it was rude to break up with me over the phone.
They all gave the same excuses.
We weren’t compatible.
They make it sound like I was their chosen choice in a marriage competition or that show about bachelors.
If they straight up told me that they thought I was weird, then I would understand because that was something I knew already. They went into a relationship with me because they thought I was interesting, a bit odd from other women, and they soon discovered that I was too peculiar for their taste.
That was fine. Everyone has different preferences.
I’m scared to take that step with Eli. Being a roommate that doesn’t pay rent and being friends with friendly banters is one thing, but being lovers is completely different; I am not girlfriend material, and I don’t know the first thing to be in a relationship.
All my past boyfriends are the ones to initiate anything, and maybe that’s the problem. I just go along with what they want and I don’t ever tell them what I want, but that can come to bite me in the butt later if I tell Eli what I want.
Would I be a terrible person if I tell him that I don’t want him to move on?
If he finds what is keeping him here, then he’s going to leave and—
A whimper bursts through my trembling lips.
I’m never going to see him again.
“Jackie, what’s going on?”
I sniff, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand and silently scowl at myself for being dramatic. One step at a time, I remind myself that constantly as the clock ticks on. This is what happens when I let my mind run in the flower fields. I’ll overthink and it always ends up at the edge of the cliff, and I wonder to myself how I get there with the worst possible outcome of that particular thought.
“I’m scaring myself,” it’s all I say, but I can see that Eli doesn’t buy it.
“Don’t do that,” he grunts; he mimics a caress on my cheek even though he knows he can’t touch me.
It’s the gesture that counts and it calms me.
“It’s my job to scare you.”
I glare at him through moist lashes, “Only on Halloween.”
“However, it is also my job to take care of you.”
My brain skirts to a halt, “You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” he whispers my name after that, “You’re going to buy a 3D printer if I do not stop you.”
I huff, dropping my hands to my side before raising them to cross over my chest in a defiant stance.
“I’m expanding my taste in art.”
He counters with sensibleness, “Begin with arts that are similar to yours.”
“You mean painting,” I say.
He loves traditional art from artists older than aged wine; Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Edward Degas, and many more famous ones.
We would have conversations about what I am more experienced in and what he understands more. I have learned a lot from him, and I start expanding my art practices to painting in order to get a first-hand experience.
Once I became comfortable with painting, I wanted to try other new things and 3D printing is another one. It’s a type of art, but some people see it as a commodity.
I was so close to emptying my bank account when I saw someone use a 3D printer to make a bracelet and they wrot
e in their blog posts that they were using it as their way of doing business.
The buyers love her work and they want more, and I applaud her approach to making her products.
It’s still a skill that takes practice.
“Jackie, can you do something for me?” he asks after a moment of silence.
I nod, “Anything.”
“I want you to look up a name for me.”
Tilting my head, my eyebrows raise to my hairline at his odd request. If he remembers anything from his past, he would have told me already.
“Okay,” I agree readily.
“After you make dinner,” he says, stopping me from stepping around him.
I would never walk through him. It’s disrespectful of me to pretend he isn’t there when I can see him. Thinking back, there were times that I have accidentally run through him when I wasn’t paying attention and it felt off.
It was the cold burst of chills that made me shudder every time I did it.
“Alright,” I say, complying with his suggestion as I turn back to the refrigerator.
We don’t have much in there since it’s close to the weekends and Sundays are the days we go grocery shopping as a family. Danni picks out the produce and anything with a quick expiration date while I am in charge of the preserved foods such as cereal and snacks.
We have chicken and it’s for Danni’s steady diet. She started this thing about two months ago where she wants to lower her intake on beef and pork isn’t her favorite, so we opted for chicken.
I get started on the chicken with a bottle of pre-grated parmesan cheese. We are poor, and we do not have the extra money to buy a block of cheese. I don’t have the patience to grate the cheese on multiple stages of cooking. It’s too much of a hassle for one meal that’s going to be consumed in less than twenty minutes.
I wish we can enjoy a meal slowly, but Danni and I have been one of those unfortunate students that had classes back to back. Part-time jobs don’t allow us much time to savor the food, and it’s even worse when it’s the times of holidays and prime times.
We have mastered the technique of inhaling food. Though we have been getting better; we talk about our days over dinner and it lengthens the time to enjoy our food.
I finish the preparation by shoving the chicken into the oven and calculate the cooking time to be the approximate time Danni would come home.
She would call me if she has a date with Scott. Danni is still in denial about her feelings for that man; she says the dates are lunches and dinners between two friends.
I have never met anyone in this much denial.
“Okay,” I dry my hands on the kitchen towel and flop it down on the counter, “What’s the name you want me to look up?”
I fish out my phone from the flowery apron. I take that off and hang it at the sidebar by the stove. My battery is below the halfway mark. I’ll have to charge it when I go to sleep.
I have had more than one occasion where I thought I charged it, but I forgot to plug it in the outlet. In hopes of having some battery in it, I let it charge when I get ready for the day whether it’s school or work.
I would be screwed if I had school because I swear every lecture hall I have never has any outlets, and I would have to wait till a break in my schedule to hunt down an outlet at the food court so I can eat and finish my work there if I had any.
“Pierre Stanton,” Eli’s voice comes right beside my ear, but my body is accustomed to his tactics that I don’t flinch anymore.
He’s going to have to be more creative if he wants to scare me next Halloween.
A smile stretches across my face at the thought of him being with me for more holidays.
“Oh,” my eyes widen, “The guy that owns that investment company?”
Eli nods, gesturing my fingers to start typing.
My fingers pull up the search engine, and it flies across the keyboard for the name, “It sounds French.”
“It is,” Eli grunts, “The name gives me a feeling.”
Surprise clouds my face as my fingers stop short of hitting the search button, “What feeling?”
He has told me that sometimes he would randomly have these feelings in him, but he never told me if he has gotten any physical feelings yet. I don’t see him practicing on inanimate objects, but that doesn’t mean he’s not trying when I’m sleeping.
Speaking of sleeping, I pushed off the question of whether he watches me sleep or not for a long time.
Do I dare to bring it up?
Of course I do, but not right now.
“I heard beeps when I was in the distribution company.”
My lips open in wonder, “What kind?”
“There were two, but they were constant.”
Wanting to ask him more about it, I slowly lower my phone before he flicks his eyes down. I hate how I can’t look away from those green hues that steal my breath and keep the skips of my heart steady.
I search the name and a lot of articles come up, but it’s the one with the company’s name and the webpage that I click on. The name is familiar to me too, and I would think that I have heard it somewhere because it’s awarded one of the biggest international businesses in the world with it being placed on the top lists of multiple articles.
It’s an investment company, and it’s owned by Pierre Stanton; the webpage has all the information on the company and how to contact them for business.
Nothing indicates anything about the owner and when I search through multiple articles that specifically talk about him, I only get the same thing.
He’s forty; no one really knows the true birth date because it isn’t announced anywhere. His family history shows a typical rich family background, but every article had said that Pierre made his company from scratch.
He’s a graduate from University of Cambridge, a French descendant through a famous winemaker, and a force to be reckoned with.
That’s all I have, and there is not a single picture of this man that I can definitively say he’s even who he says he is.
There are grainy photos from a security camera, but his back is always turned. They are shabby reporter photos from a distance that show his massive shoulders and black hair.
“He’s either very un-photogenic, or he dodges the cameras like the plague.”
My comment returns with nothing but silence as Eli stares at the photos with such intensity that it makes my knees weak. Those green eyes unnervingly whip a strike of electric shock through my shuddering heart, and the revelation of my love for him swells in my chest.
“Eli?”
He doesn’t look up, but his chest moves to show that he’s breathing; he doesn’t need air like I do, and I forget that he’s not even alive to begin with.
“Is this you?” I ask, hesitant and scared.
Unsure as to why I feel this way, I shove it to the back of my mind as a mechanism of avoidance.
“I don’t know, but I feel it.”
“It?” I echo back.
There is no explanation when he looks at me, and in his eyes, he’s asking me to not pursue this any longer. I want to ask him why, but I know that he will tell me what he’s thinking when he’s ready. I would never betray what we have by demanding to know because he told me that he would tell me if I ask.
“I’m home!” Danni’s voice calls from the front door and I erase the articles from my phone; that sudden guilt of anxiety washes over me, and it adds to the cluelessness of me as to what to do in this situation.
“I made dinner,” I call back as she shuts the door.
She yells back, “I’ll shower first!”
I steal a glance up at Eli; the closed-off expression beneath that handsome façade contests to the fear of abandonment in me. I shouldn’t confuse what I feel for Eli with what I felt for all the other men in my life, but they do end up leaving at one point of my life and never comes back.
He’s emotionally shutting me out, and it’s that déjà vu feeling again where my former boy
friends begin to distance themselves from me. It’s almost as if it’s a script now; I know what happens next.
“Jackie,” he murmurs my name.
I don’t have the courage to look at him as I turn to watch Jackie walk in with her blue scrubs and her shoulder bag filled with her notes.
“If you will, please indulge my selfish request.”
My throat tightens, and my shoulders shake at the mysteriousness in his tone. It feels as if he is asking me to finish his last request before he moves on. I know I’m probably just magnifying my fear with half the information, and I should stop when I still have the time.
“Is it bad?” I swallow thickly.
“You will know by tomorrow morning.”
That cryptic answer doesn’t settle the queasiness that rumbles in my tummy and my appetite for that delicious parmesan chicken is lost.
“Just promise it’s nothing bad,” I plead with him and a voice whispers in the back of my head that I should make a comment to diffuse this tense conversation.
That’d be insensitive on so many levels, and I don’t want him to ever think that I don’t take his feelings as my top priority of importance. He is precious to me. I cherish him, and he knows that because I tell him how much I value our friendship.
“I can’t do that, but I can promise that I am doing this with your safety in my mind.”
“My safety?” I question with my phone heavy in my palm.
“I will never put you in risk.”
Chapter Eight
Eli
I watch as the cover rises up and down with every breath Jackie takes; it’s slow and calm as I count to determine when she has fallen asleep. A lot of practice has come in when I don’t need sleep and when nighttime comes, I would stay in her room and watch her without her knowing.
She has a habit of kicking her blankets off, but she needs them because she would wake up by the cold to gather them back into her bed.
The night bleeds into the peak of midnight where she is in her deep sleep. Her regulated breathing and the movements behind her eyes suggest she is in the REM stage.
