Haunted

by Susan Oloier

  “They’re my old friends,” I continue as if she asked. It’s hard to dredge up all the old thoughts and feelings, but something compels me to move forward and keep talking. “We were all really close. Once.”

  She directs her attention to me. I hate shouting my history over the music and wish we were somewhere more private. But if I step outside the club or take the time to walk into the quieter space of the women’s bathroom, I may lose my nerve.

  “Last year there was an accident. I was with my boyfriend, the one from the picture. I drove because he had too much to drink. It was raining. A lot. And it was late. The roads were terrible.” I feel the tears making their way to my eyes, but I continue anyway.

  Stella reaches out and touches my arm. She knows what’s coming.

  “I fell asleep and veered into oncoming traffic.” I look her in the eyes. “He died at the scene.”

  “God,” she says with total sympathy. “That’s horrible.”

  I brush the tears off my cheeks and away from my eyes.

  “I killed him,” I confess. “And I miss him so much.”

  I fall into Stella’s arms like it’s the most natural thing in the world to do in the middle of such a loud and celebratory crowd. And Stella lets me. She holds me tight. I imagine it’s the kind of hug I would receive from Layla if I let her get close enough to give it.

  “Let’s get out of here, okay?” she suggests.

  “Okay,” I agree.

  Eli

  One minute she’s there. The next she’s gone. I know she dislikes me. I’m fooling myself to think otherwise. I don’t know what I’m hoping for. It’s not like I’m looking to start anything with anyone. But I like her. Even though she has this sadness thing going on, it actually cheers me up to see her. Plus, she doesn’t know my history, doesn’t have any preconceived notions about me like the other girls at Bloomfield do. Sure, some of them don’t care. But they all know. They know way more than they need to about Madeline and me. And despite the lies Madeline told, many of them are still on her side. I’ll catch them glaring at me for what they believe I’ve done. For how much they think I’ve wronged Madeline when it’s really the other way around.

  I down a glass of water during the break. Sweat stains my shirt and beads on my forehead. I push my hair back, making it stick up in a crazed mess.

  “Maybe she’ll be back,” Nate slaps me on the back, then returns to the stage.

  I take one more look at the door in the hopes she’ll walk back in with Stella—that they’ve only gone outside for some fresh air—but it’s all wishful thinking.

  As I get ready to head back, a pretty girl with long, dark hair and a low-cut red dress sidles up beside me. “Nice set,” she says, which in the world of bands and music could translate to anything.

  “Thanks.”

  Rick is back on stage polishing his drums and testing them out. The other guys give me the signal to get back up there.

  “Gotta go,” I motion to the band.

  “See you after the show?” she asks as she touches my arm.

  All the guys in the band will call me crazy for giving the red dress the full-on rejection, but the band scenario with the groupies and the easy sex just isn’t my scene. Normally, I’m a one-girl type of guy. And now I’m just a guy. Why did Hailey have to come along and screw everything up? I was doing fine by myself. On the right track to becoming someone. Quitting the library was supposed to be the first real step toward getting closer to my dream of having a serious musical career. Hailey was not part of the plan.

  As hard as I try to concentrate on the song, I keep looking toward the door. Worse still, I can’t stop thinking about her. In so many ways, this is not good.

  Jeremy

  The brunette and the little boy have become fast friends. She tosses the ball to him; he misses and retrieves it. They chase butterflies, launch balloons into the air, and even sit side-by-side in silence. It seems she’ll do anything for him. Except go there.

  My eyes move to the forested area just outside the far end of the cemetery. The little boy tries to show her life on the outskirts of this place. Still, her wary eyes are the only things to wander into the trees. There’s something out there that neither she nor I want to explore. It’s like there’s a veil over it, lying on the cusp of the forest like a sheet of muslin. If I let my eyes linger, it casts the landscape in a hazy shroud. And though a small part of me is curious to find out what lies behind it, I don’t go any nearer than my imagination will take me.

  They’ve tried to include me, leaving pinwheels at my gravesite while I’m away, letting a renegade ball find the soles of my feet. But I don’t want to be a part of their antics. I have more important things to do. There’s my mom, Zoe, and Hailey. I need to reconnect with them before…before it’s too late.

  I watch the gates, waiting for them to arrive. But so often, they don’t. There are times when I know I’ve missed them—flowers left in the holder or a matted-down spot on the grass. I work hard to reinsert myself into my old life, but it’s changed. My sister’s moved back home, and Hailey’s no longer at Wheaton. When I try to catch Hailey at home, my timing is always wrong. I want to be with her in our old places, whisper messages in her sleeping ear like the breath of a butterfly, then I’ll know everything will be all right. I’ll know I’m not stuck in this world of nothingness. But when there’s no Hailey, the temptation to walk to the forest and inspect it becomes overwhelming. Without Hailey, there’s nothing to keep me tethered to this reality.

  My eyes turn back to the brunette and the boy. She stoops down to hand a pinwheel to him, then stands up and strolls toward me. Unease erupts inside of me. I’ve been comfortable maintaining a safe distance from both of them. I don’t want her to come over. But she does. And as she moves closer, a chill breeze dances along the seams of her skirt. Soon, she’s in front of me.

  “I’m Rae,” she says, holding her hand out to me.

  I stare at it, not wanting to know what it’s like to touch a dead person. Even though I’m dead. I’d be crossing a line I don’t want to cross because there may be no turning back.

  “I know you’ve been avoiding me.” She finally lets her hand fall. “Are you sure you don’t want to hang out with us?”

  She and I both glance over at the boy for a moment. He has put the stem of the pinwheel in an empty flower container.

  “It seems lonely over here.”

  “No. Thanks,” I say.

  I notice her youthful and creamy skin, vital with life. So ironic, really. She’s definitely no older than I am.

  “If you change your mind…” she says.

  I nod.

  As she trails her way back, I call out. “Hey!”

  Rae turns.

  “What’s out there?” I gesture with my head to the mystery of the forest.

  Her attention loiters on the trees for a little too long, and I wonder if she sees it, too—the veil.

  “I don’t know,” she finally says. “Don’t want to.”

  Jeremy

  Things are shifting. The way I can tell is in the change of the trees and the grasses. The yellow summer dandelions went to seed, becoming heads of fluff dispersed by the wind. Instead of the verdant greens of July and August, the leaves begin to transform into the golds, burnt umbers, and the ruby wines of fall. They flutter downward little by little, blanketing life in a patchwork of ground cover.

  A summer tanager with his brilliantly orange-red feathers and multi-hued wings often perches in the oak tree shading my grave. It is well beyond its season, yet it remains.

  I’ve always loved birds. Hailey and I often visited the migratory bird refuge by the river together. It was a place of solitude where we’d take turns watching through shared binoculars, listening and identifying the various calls, and stealing kisses. The tanager was always one of my favorites.

  Then I realize: This is my thing. The feather. The bird. They are my signs. Maybe the strength of my will has conjured it up. But
Hailey’s never around to see it. It’s like she’s forgotten me.

  I sit down alongside my marker, face buried in my knees, wallowing in self-pity. When I lift my head she’s here, as if invented from my mind. Seeing her, all my misery folds away. She carries a fistful of fair-haired sunflowers and daisies and lays them in front of my headstone. I reach a hesitant hand to her hair and caress it. “Hailey,” I whisper.

  Suddenly, the tanager sings its pi-tuck, startling me. Hailey looks up at the oak branches. I’m sure she sees it this time.

  “Jeremy?” She weeps then says it again. “Is that you?”

  “Yes!” I plead.

  But, of course, she doesn’t hear me. My voice is forever lost to her. But it doesn’t mean I have to be.

  Through the combination of tears and laughter, I can’t tell if she’s sad or happy. I kiss the top of her head, and her hand moves to it. I brush her bangs aside and spy the scar from the night of the accident. I touch my lips gently to it. Hearing her voice, knowing she hasn’t forgotten me, makes me glad I ignored the veil. It makes me grateful I’m here even though there are many lonely moments.

  “I miss you,” she says.

  I close my eyes to drink in the sound of her words.

  “Me, too,” I breathe, and then wrap my arms around her, hoping she feels my embrace.

  “So much has changed,” she says out loud as if she knows I’m here, holding her in my arms. “I ran into Layla, Cal, and Erik at a nightclub, and I didn’t know what to say to any of them.”

  Layla, her best friend. Cal, mine. God, I miss them, too.

  “Seeing them reminds me of the way things used to be,” she keeps going. “And I can’t stand it.”

  I listen, wishing the old days were still beside instead of behind us.

  “Then there’s this guy.”

  I open my eyes and withdraw my touch.

  “Jesus, I don’t know why I’m telling you this?”

  “Another guy?” I say, physically backing away from her just a bit.

  “His name is Eli. He’s always around. And, shit, you must hate me.”

  Hate her? Why? What has she done? What have they done together? Flirted? Kissed? My heart seizes as I think it. Sex? I feel my face flush with anger, jealousy, and resentment. I want her to say more because, despite what she believes, I cannot read her mind. But, at the same time, I don’t want to know any of this. I want things to stay the same between us. There just can’t be another guy.

  “Anyway, if you’re listening, I’m sorry. Not just for him, but because…” she hesitates. A lot. It makes me nervous. Has she slept with him? Sickness presses down on me at the mere idea of it. “…because it’s my fault you’re here.” Tears. I want to wipe them away, tell her she’s not to blame. It was just an accident. She did nothing wrong. “That night…at the party…I was supposed to be the designated driver. But I fucked up, Jeremy. I really did. I told you I was okay to drive, that I only had soda and water. But I lied. I drank at the beginning of the night. I shouldn’t have driven. If I hadn’t…” Her words trail off as she works to find her voice through the rain of tears. “And now,” she wipes her nose on the back of her sleeve and sucks in the tears, “You’re dead.”

  I sit back against the headstone. She lied to me? She was drinking? It wasn’t because of the slick roads and the rain? Had I known she was drinking, I never would have given her my keys or allowed her to get behind the wheel. The night floods back to me. Slipping into the car out of the rain. Running my hands in her hair before I drifted off. Then waking up to police lights, crime tape, and an out-of-body experience that left me believing I was still alive—a feeling of otherness I still have as I sit here beside her, taking in her confession. The whole accident could have been prevented, I think. I could still be walking around, talking, interacting with people, sleeping in my bed, having a life instead of being here in this most desolate of places.

  I sit stunned, listening to her cry. I don’t know how to feel outside of numb.

  And with that feeling, the summer tanager takes flight, leaving the two of us alone in our little corner of the universe.

  Eli

  I search the library, trying to see if she’s reshelving within the stacks or checking a patron out at the circulation desk. I don’t know whether she works Saturdays or not, but I want to find out what happened to her at the club last night.

  Instead of finding Hailey, I get Penny instead. Her eyes light up at the sight of me. Oh no. Here it comes.

  “Eli!!!” Penny drops the books she has in her hands on the closest free surface and makes her way over to me. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes freely roam from head to toe.

  “Is Hailey working today?”

  “Hailey?” She wrinkles her nose as if the name’s as foreign to her as an alien spacecraft.

  I nod.

  “She’s not here.” Penny pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and, undeterred, throws on her brightest smile. “Want to come help me?”

  “She doesn’t work on Saturdays?” I ask, still glancing around on the slim possibility she’s here and Penny’s keeping her from me.

  “Who?”

  “Hailey,” I gently remind her.

  “I don’t know. I guess she’ll be in later.”

  “Thanks.” I turn to leave, but Penny stops me.

  “What’re you doing later? Besides sleeping.”

  I purse my lips together as if doing it will help me come up with a viable excuse. I’ve put Penny off more times than I can count. “Well, I have to get my car fixed.” Not a lie. “And then I have a date.” Lie.

  Penny deflates. Then, out of the blue, “Is she driving?”

  I mumble a quick no as I turn to leave.

  “See you later, Eli.”

  I can feel Penny watching my back—most likely my ass as I’ve caught her on more than one occasion scoping it out.

  As I’m ready to push the entrance doors open and take off, I stop. Something pulls me back like I’m magnetically drawn to the library, unable to sever ties with it. But then I realize it’s not the library I can’t stay away from. It’s her.

  The Hamlet project isn’t enough for me. I want more. I can’t get enough of Hailey, and I don’t know why. She’s often cold and shows no signs of liking me even in a platonic way. I should quit while I’m ahead. But I don’t. Instead, I pull the doors back open and go back inside.

  “You’re back,” Penny smiles as if I’ve reconsidered taking her out, or on the off chance I’ve decided to ask her to marry me.

  “Sharon here?”

  “Now you want Sharon?” Penny asks. “Eli Carter, are you ever going to want me?” She lays a hand on her hip and juts it out.

  I stare for a moment, rendered completely speechless. Then I leave without a word. I mean, what does one say to an out-and-out proposition like that?

  I step to the back where Sharon’s sitting at a desk, running through book purchase orders on the computer.

  “Hey, Eli,” she says over her glasses. “Your last paycheck is sitting in your inbox. I was going to call you.” She turns back to the screen.

  “I’m not here about the check.”

  She swivels in her chair and gives me her full attention. “Something wrong?”

  “Can I have my job back?” I ask.

  Hailey

  “Are you dating?” I can feel Dr. Wheeler assessing me.

  Barely listening, I look out his huge, picture window and count the leaves as they fall from the trees. A gust of wind comes along and sweeps so many from the branches that I lose track at 47.

  “Do you believe in signs?” I ask him.

  “Signs?” he asks, raising a finger to his chin.

  I think of the feather I found outside the hospital and the red bird in the cemetery tree—Jeremy would know its name—and wonder if they’re signs from him.

  “From the dead?” I finally look at him.

  His finger paints brushstrokes along his lower lip as
he considers the question. “Did something happen you want to talk about?”

  I continue as if he didn’t try out his psychoanalytic jabbering on me. “You know, like butterflies and feathers and other tangible things. You think the dead can manipulate them?”

  “I think it’s all what you see in it.”

  I roll my eyes. “Such a therapist answer.”

  “Are you asking me to confirm or deny something as a sign from Jeremy, Hailey?”

  I shrug.

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  I slump down in my seat and close down. This guy is useless.

  “Have you read the Kübler Ross book I lent you?” he asks.

  “No. I’m too busy with Hamlet.” I know I’m pouting like a child, but I honestly don’t care.

  “I’d like you to read it.” Wheeler’s demeanor is steady and unshakable. “What about the letters?”

  I say nothing. They’re on my to-do list. At the bottom.

  “Have you written them yet?”

  “I’m working on them,” I lie.

  “How about getting out? Have you ventured out with friends?”

  “I’ve gone out,” I say, my arms are crossed tightly over my chest.

  He nods. “Tell me about it.”

  I think back to Hoppers, my confession to Stella, and my disloyalty and momentary lapse of judgment. There’s no way I’m telling Wheeler about any of it.

  “It was fine.”

  His head rocks slowly forward and back, processing my small sentence. “Well,” he finally says, “you’re not very communicative today.”

  I shrug; twist my mouth in an answer.

  The palpable silence between us feels like a ghost in the room. I want it to go away.

  “So,” I finally say, “Have you ever received a sign from a loved one?” I refuse to let the subject go.

  We lock eyes. “If you’ve received a sign, Hailey, and you think it’s a sign, it’s a sign.”

  “Right.”