Haunted

by Susan Oloier

  “And his middle name was fucking?” I ask lightly.

  Eli smiles. “I’m not so sure about that. I lost my cool. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I confess. “I kind of pushed your buttons a little.”

  Eli grows serious, and the intensity between the two of us immediately grows. “You push certain buttons a lot,” he murmurs.

  My heart races, then thumps madly as he closes the gap between us.

  It’s beyond nippy outside, but I feel like I’m burning up. His hand moves to the side of my face. “God, you’re beautiful,” he says, and I know he’s going to kiss me, and I do absolutely nothing to stop him. I want it. I really do.

  As he leans in, it seems the rest of the street should disappear around us, but I hear a voice calling my name. “Hailey? Is that you?” I pull away from Eli.

  “Cal.” My hand moves to my face, the place where Eli’s fingers caressed my cheek; I shift uncomfortably. “Hi. This is…”

  “Eli.” Eli extends his hand to Cal who takes it then glances back and forth between us.

  “What are you doing here?” Cal asks me in a just-wanting-to-know tone of voice. But I wonder if he’s secretly scrutinizing me for what he just witnessed. Wondering what his best friend’s girlfriend is doing on the main drag ready to kiss another guy after only several short months of grieving.

  “English Lit,” Eli saves me. “We’re in town grabbing a bite to eat, working on our project.”

  Cal searches for the book bags, the notebooks, for any evidence of schoolwork. Of course, there’s none.

  As if Eli recognizes the question mark on Cal’s face, he answers. “We left our notes in the trunk. We were so hungry. If you’ll grab them,” he says to me, “I’ll just wait inside.” Then Eli rushes along the sidewalk and detours into the restaurant entrance as Cal and I watch in silence.

  I dread being alone with Cal, so I attempt to make a quick get away. “I need to grab our stuff,” I head for the car. “Good to see you, Cal.”

  “So who’s that?”

  I freeze. Before looking at him, I take in a deep breath. My hands shake, but not because of the cold. I turn. “Just a classmate.”

  Cal nods. Swallows. “I suppose it was inevitable, huh?”

  “What do you mean?” I feign ignorance because I know good and well what he means—that I would move on when everyone wants me to stay in one place, remain etched in the past where I’m forever Jeremy’s girlfriend and no one else’s.

  People swish by, completely unknowing of how badly our world has been shaken. They keep moving from place to place, living their lives, eating, sleeping, driving, laughing, going forward. And here Cal and I are standing still, our feet firmly planted in the past.

  “That you’d meet someone else.”

  “We’re just friends,” I lie. I dip my hands into my pants pockets so they keep from fidgeting and giving me away.

  “He was going to kiss you, Hailey.” Before I can say anything, Cal waves his hand and shakes it off. “I don’t care. It just drives it all home, you know? That he’s not coming back.”

  I shake my head. No one is ready for this. For change. We’re all stuck in the past in a time before the accident, as if pretending it didn’t happen will make it somehow true.

  “It’s not what you think,” I say to Cal. But my words are weak. It was exactly what he was thinking and so much more.

  “I should let you get back to work.” He glances over at the rather upscale restaurant—not a typical place for two teenagers who are simply working on an English Lit project to grab a bite. “We should hang out again sometime,” he continues. “It was a lot of fun to have you back.”

  I nod.

  “See ya,” he says. He hesitates a moment before looping his arms around me in a hug.

  “Bye.” I watch him amble away. My eyes fix on the restaurant where I know Eli’s inside, waiting for me. But my conversation with Cal called me out as the betrayer I am. While part of me wants to head inside and finish what I started with Eli, the other part screams I’m a cheater and a backstabber. That half wins out. Every time. I turn in the opposite direction of the restaurant to find my way home.

  ***

  I sit at the bus window and watch the last of the autumn leaves slip from the branches to the ground in little suicides. The traffic on the other side of the highway kicks up what appears to be a snow globe of fall confetti on the road. The remaining leaves trail the taillights until they grow still as road kill. A few snowflakes dance in the air.

  I feel like a complete jerk for leaving Eli alone in the restaurant, waiting for me to come. It’s a creepy thing to do, and I know I’m the lowest of the low. But the fact is, I cannot be with Eli. The feelings I have for him are wrong. It’s better he find out now than later when he’s emotionally invested. Everything between us until now has been a mistake. We’ve been fooling ourselves to think anything can happen between us. Because, the truth is, there can never be an us. I’m Jeremy’s girlfriend. Even Cal still sees me that way. And by falling in love with someone else, I’m totally defiling Jeremy’s memory.

  I brush away tears as they slip down my cheeks. I hate myself for feeling the way I do, for liking the dinner and the almost-kiss. I’m a cheater for those things and for all the thoughts and rushes of excitement I felt while being with Eli.

  I skim over the sweet exchanges between us—him comforting and holding me outside the school; his hand in mine so tenderly; his intimate confession about his complicated relationship with Madeline. I am surprisingly hurt by the fact he had sex with her. I tell myself to forget it all. Instead of replaying those images, I focus on things to help me move away from Eli. I tell myself he deserted Madeline in her time of need. He convinced her to have an abortion, and then left her. At least that scenario makes it possible to dislike him and to convince myself I did the right thing by ditching him tonight.

  The bus drops me off at the stoplight. I cross the road and, before making my way home, take a slight detour. There’s a new dusting of snow on the sidewalks, and I leave ghostly footprints as I wander to the cemetery gates. I need to visit the only one who understands—or who would if he were still around.

  Jeremy

  They had another funeral early this morning. Black clothes. Flowers. Prayers. The tossing of earth onto the coffin. So much weeping carried to me along the breeze that I felt a sense of sadness, too. Not for the deceased—since I don’t know him at all—but for myself. Stuck here pretty much alone. In the shadow of life.

  I see Rae across the way with the little boy. They’ve stopped their playful exchanges to observe the unfolding ceremony. Both appear lost and forlorn, almost blending into the starvation of an oncoming winter. I force myself to look away from the mourning to the scenery instead. The season folds itself around everything now: skeletal remains hidden secretly under blankets of white. The earth makes its case for death, creates room for rebirth.

  My eyes veer to the dead guy as he huddles close to the pit in the earth where his body lays. His arms encircle his knees, and he shivers. He hunkers down more with each clatter from the crows. They never go away. They are both harbingers and sentinels of death.

  He stands up and glances around, spying each of us. The more I watch him, the more I believe he is no different than me: simply waiting for something to make saying goodbye and crossing through the veil easier. But his focus returns to his grieving family. He touches his lips to the face of a girl—a daughter, perhaps—and then a woman. All three of us notice how he lingers. We all must wonder if he will soon join us in whatever it is we’re doing here.

  His eyes cross mine. And then his sights turn quickly to the veil in the forest. Is he curious? Afraid? Just when I think he may stay, he wanders toward the weeping willow and the clump of trees on the boundary without even a final glance back. Then he’s gone.

  The child passes in front of me and blows a puff of air on his pinwheel, then reels away. He’s fun to watch, but not the comp
any I’m seeking. Not at all. Rae meanders over, her eyes fixed on the place where the dead man seemingly dissolved.

  “Should we—?” she begins.

  “No,” I say, cutting her off.

  “Whoever she is,” Rae says, “you can’t hold on to her forever.” She jumps to a lot of conclusions. I’ve told her nothing. She’s never even seen Hailey, as far as I know. Yet she’s not wrong. It touches the open wound in my heart.

  “Then why don’t you go?” I snap.

  “Because…” She looks at the little boy for a moment. “I’m afraid.”

  I soften toward Rae because I’m afraid, too.

  “If I go,” she continues, almost talking to herself, “I’m scared I won’t see my mom and dad again. Or any of my friends.”

  I know exactly how she feels. What if we cross into the woods and there’s a vast nothingness beyond? No more mom or Zoe or Hailey. No more me.

  My eyes move from the forest to the little boy who flits around, zigzagging through a maze of graves.

  “He wants to go, you know?” Rae says, gesturing toward him.

  “So why didn’t he go with the dead guy?” I ask, suddenly edgy. I don’t want to be the one to lead him across, if that’s what she’s implying.

  “He’s waiting…for his dad to come. To say goodbye.”

  I study the kid who has been mute the entire time I’ve been here. What Rae says seems impossible. The kid doesn’t speak.

  “He told you this?” I ask as skepticism etches my tone and face.

  “Not in words.”

  My audible breath gives my doubt away.

  “Can’t you feel it?” she asks. “His energy? His need to see his dad?”

  “No.”

  “I can feel yours,” Rae continues. “It’s how I know you’re waiting for someone, too.”

  I don’t want to talk about Hailey with a virtual stranger. So I redirect my attention to the boy. “Then he should go,” I say. “See him. Nothing’s keeping him here. He can come and go as he pleases.”

  Rae shakes her head. “Wouldn’t you rather have her say goodbye to you—tell you it’s okay to move on—than the other way around?”

  Of course I would. But she hasn’t. Hailey still needs me. I need her.

  I look to the boy. What kind of dad refuses to visit his child’s grave? Then I think of my own dad, absent from my life. The boys’ father must be as heartless as my own. I nod my understanding to Rae, and something in me softens toward the kid. He’s not much different than I am.

  Jeremy

  The call of the summer tanager grabs my attention. Clearly, the bird was supposed to have migrated with his brothers and sisters already, but he hangs around for me. I’m not sure how much longer he can survive in temperatures that dip toward freezing. His feathers have molted and he looks all puffed up now, he pecks the ground constantly to maintain his energy stores, and he often suns himself on the gaunt branches of the oak tree to keep warm. He wants to move on. I don’t. Not yet. He chatters again.

  I look toward the entrance, and my reason for staying here walks through the cemetery gates. Hailey. She holds a small bouquet of white daisies, yellow roses, and some green button spray chrysanthemums. They add almost as much color as she does to such a gray and forlorn place.

  She moves toward my marker, and I instantly think to give her a sign. I whistle to the tanager perched in the branches and hold out my hand for him to land in it. He doesn’t. Instead, he flies down to the ground and taps for potential berries while leaving tiny three-toed footprints along his path. Just when I’m on the edge of panic because of the bird’s failure to cooperate, he hops on top of my headstone and whistles as Hailey takes her final steps under the oak. She stands frozen, staring at him. She looks left, then glances right for any signs of a practical joke. I hear her breathe out her deep sense of disbelief. Tears wells in her eyes and her lips quiver.

  “Jeremy,” she says with what sounds to me like relief.

  Hailey drops to her knees on the wet ground and lets the flowers fall from her hands any which way. The tanager takes flight, startled by her sudden movements. She watches him go, then drops her head and sobs, tears falling into the soil where my human form lies. And, in some strange way, this gives me comfort, makes me think we’re still somehow physically connected.

  “Please forgive me,” she says.

  My heart falls. What has happened? I feel so in the dark about everything. Despite what I believed about death before, it’s not possible for me to be everywhere at once. As a matter of fact, it takes a lot of energy to find my way to other places and even into her dreams. But I do it to be with her. It’s the reason for my existence here.

  “I think I love him,” she cries.

  Eli. The Long John Silver’s guy. I remember him. Somehow. And thinking of him and Hailey’s declaration, I want to be sick. This can’t be happening. After everything I’ve done to let her know I’m around and still love her, she finds a way to love someone else.

  “I don’t want to love him, but I just don’t know. I mean,” she glances up at the trees and toward the clouds, “I need you to tell me what to do.”

  “What do you want me to say, Hailey? I want you to be with me.” My words sound like hiccups in my ears.

  Hailey picks up one of the daisies with the green middles and plucks the petals one by one, littering the ground with their white translucence. “Tell me!” she yells into the wind. “Because I don’t know what to do,” she says more quietly.

  I need to think of a way to let her know I’m still very much here and want her as much as I did when I was alive. I’m just not sure how or if I can muster the energy to do it.

  Hailey

  “How are things going with Dr. Wheeler?” my mom asks over a plateful of ravioli. Hers is almost as untouched as my own. I notice the worry lines across her forehead have grown deeper. She’s concerned about me, but I don’t know what to tell her to make her feel better, especially when I grapple with my own confused feelings: sadness, guilt, jealousy, and hate to name a few. I’m sure Dr. Wheeler would say those are all normal parts of my depression, but I’m not so sure.

  “Fine,” I lie. I push my plate back. “Can I be excused? I’m not very hungry.”

  “You’re going to wither away to nothing,” my dad says. His plate is practically scraped clean already.

  “I just want to go to sleep.”

  He nods. My mom simply watches me push back from the table and leave the room. Before I’m out of earshot, I hear my mom. “I think I’m going to give Dr. Wheeler a call. I’m worried.”

  “Me, too,” my dad adds.

  Upstairs, I close my door and remove a photograph of Jeremy and me that’s tucked inside the mirror. I gaze at it for a while, our smiling faces, his arms looped around me. The mountains form the background. The picture was taken from his parents’ back deck. I study it a while longer, then slip it under my pillow. And for the first time ever, I wish I had something outside myself to ease the pain. I crave the anti-depressants Dr. Wheeler is so reluctant to give me. I want to wipe everything away, swallow down some pills to anesthetize the agony I feel. But I have nothing. Instead, I cry myself to sleep, silent tears staining my pillow.

  I fall into a dream about Jeremy. We stand in the dance studio. The same one we always practiced in, mirrors lining the complete length of one wall. In my mind, I know it’s the same, but it also has a quality that makes it ethereal. The proportions are different; the room is empty except for the piano, the mirror, and us. In the real world, there would be lingering bags, shoes, and even a CD player in the corner. I’m fully aware I’m in a dream, but it also seems so real.

  Jeremy wears black pants, a black untucked shirt, unbuttoned a third of the way down his bare chest. Even from across the room where I stand, I can see his eyes and his dark eyelashes. But his hair is combed in a rigid way I don’t recognize.

  I see myself as if I’m a third person in the room. My dress is a bright, beaded t
urquoise in an Egyptian style. Not at all a match for Jeremy. My hair hangs loosely in wild and untamed waves. It’s as though we should have totally different dance partners.

  Music plays. I tune in closely so I can remember it. Our song. No way to forget. It’s forever fused in my mind. Jeremy and I move to one another from each side of the dance floor, and the motions come so naturally. When we meet, it’s as though we’re supposed to be fused as one. The dance is more perfect than any we ever shared during practice or competition. My body folds into his, swirls around his torso in fluid lines. He lifts me as though I’m as light as a feather. And as soon as I think the word feather, a red one identical to the one I own appears in the middle of the room. As the song ends, Jeremy picks it up and hands it to me. I look deeply into his eyes. He leans in and kisses me imperceptibly on the lips. It, too, is a feather’s touch.

  “Nothing’s changed,” he whispers to me. “I love you as much now as I did then.”

  “I love you, too,” I answer. My heart feels full.

  “No one else will love you like I do,” Jeremy tells me. “Don’t ever forget that.” He touches one of my riotous strands of hair and puzzles over it, not quite recognizing me, maybe. Much like I don’t completely acknowledge him as the same Jeremy I knew outside of dreams.

  “I won’t,” I say.

  He walks backward from me toward his side of the room and fades ever so slowly into nothingness. I drop the feather as I run to meet him. But he’s gone.

  I startle out of sleep and kick the covers off, feeling sweaty despite the night chill. I frantically whip through the blankets in search of the red feather he gave to me. I feel like a complete maniac tearing through covers. By the time they are completely mangled and in a pile on the floor, I come to realize there is no feather. Except for the one I found in my purse. It and the dream are enough to convince me that Jeremy isn’t gone. He’s still around. And he’s given me the answer I need.