Haunted

by Susan Oloier

  “I’m sorry, Jeremy,” I mumble through my tightening throat. I know the tears will come next. “I love you. I really, really do.”

  I go to the mirror to look in it. I push my bangs aside, and there it is: the bright pink and red scar over my eyebrow where the new skin works hard to mask it. I touch the spot lightly as if it links me to Jeremy somehow. Besides his clear absence, it’s a physical reminder of him; a way to keep me connected to the last moments we shared together. While so much of me doesn’t want it to disappear or fade over time, it serves as a constant and painful reminder of what happened, of what I did to make him not be here anymore. I was driving. It was my fault no matter how many times Dr. Wheeler tells me it wasn’t. But what does he know from the cushiness of his therapy chair? He hadn’t been the one navigating the watery roads, completely and totally responsible for someone else’s life—a someone whom he deeply loved. He didn’t have to hear the words spoken in the hospital: I’m sorry. He’s dead. What does Dr. Wheeler know outside the borders of his textbooks? I’m certain, not much.

  “Knock, knock,” my mom says, and I turn from the mirror and sit back down on my bed. She steps in and sits down beside me, pulling my hair back like she did when I was a little girl. “Want to come down and eat?”

  I shrug.

  “Not hungry?” she asks, a tinge of concern in her voice.

  “Not really.”

  She traces the tattoo on the back of my neck, the one I keep hidden from most people, the one I got just before Jeremy died.

  The tattoo instantly has my mind flashing to Eli, but I push the thought away. There’s no connection.

  I gently slip my hair from my mom’s grip and cover the back of my neck.

  “When’s your next appointment with Dr. Wheeler?”

  Another shrug. It’s all I can muster.

  My mom pushes a sigh from her lungs. It’s as though my sadness climbs over the bedspread and invades her, too. Sorrow seems pervasive lately, permeating the walls of our house and infiltrating everyone’s moods.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she finally asks.

  “No.”

  “Want me to braid your hair?” she asks as she runs it through her hands again.

  “Whatever you want.”

  She twists the strands into a French braid. I know it well from the way her fingers work my hair like a tapestry. It calms her down in a way. Or so it seems.

  “I was thinking, maybe you should visit the dance studio. You’ve always loved dancing.”

  I fold a pile of socks that have lain unattended on my bed for days. “Loved being the operative word,” I say.

  She pauses. “You still love it.” It’s said more to convince her than me.

  “I loved it when I danced with him, mom. But he’s gone. I can’t do it without Jeremy. Can’t do it with my injuries,” I say. But I know this is just an excuse.

  “Hailey.” It’s a reprimand. She tries to get me to look at her. When I finally do, it’s with tears in my eyes. “Oh Hailey,” she softens, draping her arms around me. I hold her back. “I know you miss Jeremy…”

  “It’s more than that.” I pull away. “He’s never coming back, mom. Never.”

  She swallows hard. “But you didn’t die, Hailey. You’re still alive. You need to find a way to move on.”

  I turn away from her. “I can’t.”

  She remains speechless.

  “I want to be alone,” I finally say.

  A weighted pause. “All right.” Then my mom stands and eases her way out of my bedroom.

  When I hear the door latch, I put my head in my pillow and cry myself to sleep.

  Jeremy

  I simply can’t be here anymore. It feels like I spend the majority of my time on these grounds. I know I’m dead, but there’s no reason I have to dwell within the boundaries of a cemetery. Isn’t that one of the perks of being out of body: being able to travel wherever you want, being the proverbial fly on the wall?

  As much as I want to see Hailey first, I need to go home. Check on my mom, my sister. I take my time getting there, knowing the toll my hitchhiking efforts took on me.

  When I get there, I slide along the walkway and make my way up the stairs to our ranch-style house with its olive roof. The geraniums and marigolds my mother once religiously watered and treated like Stations of the Cross, have crisped from dehydration and neglect. The grass begins to brown.

  I slip inside the house, afraid a squeak of the floorboards will startle my family. But there’s no sound. The air is void of the music that once filled the tiny rooms with life and vibrancy.

  I glance around the living room, never noticing before how wedding-cake white the walls are, held in such sharp contrast to the sheer mauve-flowered curtains that shower down and dust the floor.

  Something in my chest squeezes with emotion when I spy the well-worn fabric sofa, the mantel with its cracked ruby bricks, and the photos with a light coating of dust just as I had left them. Before.

  I step up to the frames and see myself mirrored back to me in a younger form: A kid on the beach with a bright, naïve smile; my arm draped carelessly around my sister, Zoe, in front of the elephant entrapments at the zoo; a formal dance photo where I’m posed artificially beside Hailey, a cheesy—yet genuine—smile pasted on my face.

  “Where is everyone?” I say lightly to myself. I know no one can hear me.

  I creep through the house as if I no longer belong here. As though I was kicked out instead of dead and buried.

  In the kitchen, I run my hands over the white tiled countertops; touch the refrigerator magnet of the apple from one of my mom’s favorite students who, well after leaving the fifth grade, eventually died of leukemia. I wonder how often my mom looks at it now and thinks of that girl, thinks of me.

  I creak my way upstairs past the too-familiar Renoir poster in the hallway that my mom had framed because it was as close as she could get to the real thing. I feel the smooth of the banister and stop when I reach the third bedroom, a makeshift office that collects all the miscellanea from the house. But there’s something different about it. I wander in and notice a suitcase, duffle bags, and clothes draped across the bed. My sister’s. Why would her things be here? She rents a house across town with her friends—even in the summer when college classes are out. Did she move back in? Is she temporarily visiting? But then I know.

  I walk over to the nightstand, cluttered with jewelry, a novel, a half-filled water glass, and a framed photo of the two of us at her high school graduation. My arm draped over her shoulder. We were always so close. She’s living here now. Because of me. Because I’m gone.

  Hailey

  “All right. So I have a hummus, mixed greens, and cucumber wrap. Totally vegan. It sounds absolutely atrocious and vomit-worthy to me, but I figure you’ll probably love it,” Stella says.

  I pluck a dandelion that’s gone to seed from the ground and blow the fluff into the air. The spores float like wisps of smoke, soon departed.

  Stella hovers over me, blocking out the sun. She holds out the sandwich. “You can’t say no. This was a lot of work to come by.” Then she sits beside me on the patch of grass, uninvited. “Listening to actual music this time?” she asks.

  As I removed my ear buds, she sets the sandwich down beside me, apparently happy to be rid of it.

  “Thanks,” I say, closing my book.

  “So—Hailey,” she emphasizes my name. “What’s your deal?” Stella blurts. “Wait, let me guess.” She combs her mind for ideas as though this is a game. “Parents got a job in town.”

  I don’t want to play. It can only lead to one place, a place I don’t want to go.

  When I refuse to answer, Stella continues. “Not the parents. Hmmm, then kicked out? Were you expelled from your old school?” I gather my books when she settles down.

  “Seriously, I’m just having fun. You don’t have to tell me.”

  I hadn’t realized my heart had been racing until relief sweeps over
me, knowing the pressure to tell her my story is gone. I bite a corner of the wrap, and Stella smiles at me. I stall for conversation until I see Eli saunter down the walkway toward the school.

  “What’s his story?” I ask.

  Stella follows my gaze. “Who? Eli?” She gives me the once over. “He’s cute, huh?”

  I don’t answer that one either, so she goes on. Well,” she swallows a chunk of her ham and cheese, “He’s gotten a bad deal, if you ask me.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, watching him chat it up with some rocker guy.

  “It’s complicated. Plus, I don’t like to be the wildfire that spreads the rumors.”

  “Is it bad?” I turn to Stella, for some reason, worried.

  “Bad is relative. Let’s just say, things didn’t end well between him and Madeline.”

  Eli smiles his crooked smile at something the guy says, and I can’t peel my eyes away. He runs a hand through his hair, and his messy mane sticks up in all these crazy ways. He’s a distraction.

  “Who’s Madeline?”

  Stella’s view is trained on the guys. Maybe she has a thing for Eli.

  “His ex-girlfriend. They were quite the couple last year until—until they weren’t.”

  Stella makes Eli’s story sound so mysterious that now, more than ever, I want to know what it is.

  Had it been Layla sitting beside me on the grass, she would have dished the dirt for me, no problem. We didn’t keep things from each other.

  Layla. I know I need to call her. I’m just not ready yet. But with Stella—well, she and I just met. She doesn’t know me from a stranger on the street, so why would she tell me anything about Eli?

  “Speaking of Eli,” Stella segues, “he and his friend Nate—the guy he’s with—have a band.” She digs a piece of paper out of her bag and hands it to me: the flyer Eli had given to me. “Want to go?”

  I stare at it, dredging up our time together at the library. “Eli invited me to this.”

  Her eyes are instantly on me. Stunned.

  “We worked together at the library and he just kind of asked,” I explain.

  “Eli doesn’t invite girls to do anything.”

  “Okay?” I say, nibbling the sandwich.

  “Wow! I mean…wow!”

  “Am I missing something?” I ask. “I mean, if you like him you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

  Stella chuckles. “Oh, I don’t like him. Don’t get me wrong, Eli’s hot and all, but I kind of like someone else.”

  My eyes follow hers directly to the rocker guy.

  Eli and his friend choose that very moment to look over at us. Eli smiles and waves. Stella wiggles her fingers back at him—though it seems mostly for the friend’s benefit.

  “Anyway,” I continue, “it’s not like I’m going or anything.”

  “Why not?” Stella presses.

  I twist my hair around my fingers. “I don’t want to.”

  “Seriously?” Her look tries to puzzle me out. “Is it because you have a boyfriend or something?”

  “Something,” I say.

  “Well, if you can swing it, you should really go.” She playfully grabs a fistful of my top. “Please go.”

  I swallow hard. I need a good excuse, but don’t have one. What can I say? Sorry, I’m busy this Friday pining away for my dead boyfriend in the privacy of my bedroom? Oh, and by the way, I killed him. That’s the reason I came to Bloomfield High. To get away from all of that. To not have to explain it or talk about it or rehash that night.

  I catch Eli looking over every once in a while. I know he must think I’m some kind of mutant who has zero social skills. He’s likely telling his friend all about his bizarre encounter with me at the library. That’s precisely what they’re laughing at. I’m sure of it.

  “All right,” I finally agree. Perhaps it’s a chance for me to redeem myself and not seem like a complete ass. “So who’s the friend?” I ask.

  Stella almost swoons. “Nate,” she says as though shot by Cupid’s arrow. “Isn’t he…” she searches for the right word.

  “Dreamy?” I add.

  “Yeah!”

  I look at Nate, then to Eli. Dreamy. The word floats. God, what am I thinking? The voice of the betrayer is back, and I don’t know how to push it down.

  I tear a section of notebook paper and jot my cell phone number down for Stella, then quickly collect my stuff. “I’ve got to go. Thanks again for the sandwich.” I pick up the food and, as I head toward the building before panic sets in, my eyes move to Eli once again. This time he’s in deep conversation with a girl. I wonder for the tiniest hint of a moment who she is, then tell myself I truly don’t care. Jeremy would never have betrayed me in the way I’m betraying him. I feel like the worst girlfriend in the world. Until it hits me: I’m not a girlfriend. Not anymore. On the night of the accident, that part of my identity had been shaken clean like an Etch-A-Sketch. And now it’s just me.

  Jeremy

  The parking lot is full. There’s a funeral in progress where the backhoe dug a hole. A group all dressed in black forms a semi-circle around a white casket trimmed in pink flowers. The coffin is perched over its placeholder in the earth. A breeze gently blows across the cemetery, making the women’s skirts billow and the black veil of an elderly lady pull away from her face. She struggles to keep it in place. A priest presides over the whole affair. I can’t hear his words, only mumblings carried over to me by the wind.

  A brunette stands against the tree, her arms folded defiantly over her chest. She’s the only one not wearing some sort of formal attire. Instead, she’s dressed in a long-sleeved denim shirt and a knee-length black skirt. She may even be wearing flip-flops, but I can’t be sure.

  I sit on the top of my gravestone, watching the service unfold. As the casket gets lowered into the ground, I hear the wails of a few in the crowd. Pink tulips are thrown one-by-one on top of the coffin, and little by little the crowd peels away and heads for the street where cars are parked alongside the road.

  Finally, there are only four people left: a man, a woman, a middle-school boy, and the brunette against the tree. She pushes away from the pine and meanders over to the remaining funeral-goers, lingering alongside them. All four of them stare into the virtual emptiness of the grave.

  The man sets a hand on the boy’s back for a moment, then loops his fingers through the woman’s before leading her away.

  I see the girl in denim move her hand into the boy’s and lean on his shoulder. As if she isn’t even there, he pulls away and follows the others out to the street.

  Car doors slam, and people disappear.

  The only one left is the girl in the denim shirt. Her eyes are glued to the taillights of the final car. She finally turns around and surveys her surroundings. Soon her eyes land on me, and we stare at one another from across the field of graves and headstones and fallen flowers.

  The child and I are no longer alone.

  Eli

  “So the bitch asks me if I think you’ll talk to her.”

  I watch Nate draw an arrow on his wrist with a Magic Marker. It’s the next tattoo in a whole line of ink he has planned for himself.

  “I don’t want to talk to her,” I say. “And please stop calling her a bitch.”

  Nate ceases his coloring and looks me straight in the eye. “How about fucking bitch? Because that’s actually more appropriate.”

  I ignore him, and my vision wanders over to the other side of the quad where Hailey sits in the grass talking to Stella. I wave to Hailey, but Stella’s the one who waves back. It seems impossible to break that icy exterior. All the more reason not to bother with women. Too much work. Too much trouble.

  “I don’t know what you ever saw in her,” he says.

  At first I think he’s talking about Hailey, but when I tear my eyes away, I realize he’s referring to Madeline.

  “Can we not talk about her?” I rub my forehead as if it will erase all memory of Madeline and the past.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

  “Oh fuck me. Speak of the devil!” Nate says. I look up to see Madeline, and she’s heading our way.

  “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I have to get out of here.” I scramble to find a direction to turn to, but I’m too late. She stops right in front of us.

  “I’m out of here,” Nate says before totally abandoning me. Nice. I search around for my own escape route.

  “Eli, will you please listen?” Madeline says, flipping her hair over her shoulder in that uptight and nonchalant fashion I once loved and eventually came to hate.

  “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, all right?” I finally look her in the eyes.

  She lowers her voice. “I’ve been leaving messages for you all summer, and you never return them.”

  “Can you blame me?” I say.

  I notice her voice goes down an octave while mine moves up. “Can’t we just put the whole thing behind us?” She purses her mouth as if spreading lipstick around. I really hate that—now more than ever.

  “You fu—you messed up my life and now you suggest we simply put that behind us?”

  I can’t stand still. My feet move all over the place as I shuffle back and forth, wanting to get as far from Madeline as possible.

  “I just…I handled the whole thing wrong, okay?”

  I hear myself guffaw. “That’s an understatement.”