Haunted

by Susan Oloier

  I roll my eyes, but admit to myself he’s slightly funny.

  “See, you smiled. You know I’m right,” Nate says, elbowing me.

  I say nothing, which only affirms that I agree with him.

  We stop at the lockers where he crams his folder inside and pushes it shut. “The thing is, you’re not going, right?”

  Quiet.

  “Eli, please tell me you’re not going.”

  I turn toward the hallway, determined to make it to my class on time for once. He follows me. “I’m going.”

  “Shit.”

  Nate dodges one of the teachers who happens to overhear him. “Language, Mr. Crawford.”

  Nate nods in her direction, but keeps moving after me. He finally catches up and grabs hold of my arm. I stop. “What the hell are you doing, Carter? I thought you were done with Madeline.”

  “Can we talk about this later?” I ask, my eyes on the clock.

  “No.”

  We stare each other down. I finally relent. “It’ll give me closure…to go.”

  “Closure?” he says with complete distaste. “What? Are you suddenly Dr. Phil? Fuck closure. She wants you, Eli. And this is her way to get you back.”

  “No way.”

  “Way.”

  “Well, that’s not why I’m going.”

  “Then why? To build a relationship with a dead kid?”

  I feel my fists balling.

  “No wait, it must be so you can get back together with Madeline and start all over again.” Nate’s tone is filled with irony. My jaw clenches, but I just listen.

  “Or is it something else?”

  The bell rings, but I stay rooted to the spot.

  “Is it to make Hailey jealous? Since you have zero luck when it comes to women?”

  “Shut up,” I say, then I shove him.

  He immediately pushes back, and I almost lose my balance.

  “Like you’re the model guy for what to do with women,” I say, giving him another shove, which sends him reeling into the middle of the hall. “Look at you and Stella.”

  “This isn’t about Stella and me,” he says, relocating himself in front of me. He manages to keep his hands to himself this time. “It’s about you and your failures.”

  Before I know what I’m doing, I lob a punch and hit Nate squarely in the mouth. His head pivots, but he doesn’t fall. When he turns back to me, all he gives me besides a view of his bloodied lip is a look of pity. He holds his hand up to his mouth to staunch the bleeding.

  A teacher emerges from one of the classrooms. “What’s going on out here?” She spies Nate’s lip. “Mr. Crawford, are you all right?” Her eyes immediately find me.

  Nate ignores her and keeps his attention on me. “Right,” Nate finishes. “It’s for…closure.” He puts a strong and sarcastic tone on the word, and then heads down the hall.

  “Mr. Carter? Principal’s office. Now.”

  Hailey

  “I guess we’re both single again, huh?” Stella says, walking beside me through Bloomfield’s hallways. They’re so familiar now that I’ve nearly forgotten what Wheaton’s like anymore. I immediately think of Layla and Cal, but then brush them from my mind.

  “Guess so.”

  “Maybe we should do something this weekend?” she says with a forced lilt to her voice. “To forget our guy troubles.”

  “Your guy troubles,” I correct her as I turn my head in her direction. “My guy troubles never existed in the first place.”

  We stop at a set of lockers outside History. Stella’s eyes trail past me down the hallway. “Guys are such jerks,” she says.

  I turn and notice her watching Nate chat it up with another girl.

  Stella directs her attention back to me. “I can’t believe Eli was actually kissing Madeline.” Disgust registers on her face. “What an ass!”

  “Yeah. Well, he said it didn’t mean anything, but…”

  “But is right,” she says with a roll of the eyes. “All guys want is one thing.” Stella’s eyes are back on Nate again.

  I watch him lean in close to the new girl, whisper in her ear until she giggles at their private joke. While Eli may have kissed Madeline, I don’t think he has a whole lot in common with his dear friend, Nate, who’s a player and truly after only one thing. Eli’s definitely not that way. He’s sweet and seems…loyal. Maybe I was too quick to judge him. Too jaded by my jealousy. But maybe me seeing him with Madeline was a sign that we’re not supposed to be together. Maybe it’s too soon, not something Jeremy would ever want.

  “Let’s skip class and get a sundae,” I say. I really am so over this discussion of guys. There’s more to life than romance and love.

  “I thought you didn’t eat dairy?”

  “Yeah, well maybe it’s time to start making exceptions.”

  My eyes linger on Nate again, but my thoughts drift toward Eli.

  Eli

  I’ve been here before. Ridden my bike past the cemetery many times, only stopping once: when I saw Hailey stooped over the grave of her dead boyfriend. Who knew? Who knew my own kid was inside there, too. The idea of it makes my stomach feel hangover-nauseous. If I allowed myself to, I could easily puke. But I hold back, trying to at least put on some sort of show for Madeline—not that I care what she thinks of me anymore anyway. The only reason I came is to finally put an end to everything Madeline and me. Closure. Yeah, that’s it, despite Nate’s sarcasm running through my head liked a looped tape.

  “Are you coming?” Madeline asks.

  Our ride over was virtually a silent one. She picked me up since I can’t exactly ride my bike through a foot of freshly-fallen snow. At least not easily. Though it probably would have been preferable to her attempt at discussion:

  “So…” she’d start and let the word hang in the air for me to catch.

  “So what?” I’d ask on edge. Then she’d let it go for maybe a minute.

  “Feeling okay?” she asks, pulling me back to the here and now.

  I answer with only a glare in her direction. How the hell does she expect me to feel? I thought the abortion was the end of it all with us. Then she had to go and spring this gravesite number on me.

  “I don’t know,” I hesitate. Maybe Nate was right. Maybe this is a bad idea after all.

  “It’s just inside the gate,” Madeline says, waiting.

  Icicles hang from the arched entrance sign, making it look like I’m entering the jaws of an enormous carnivore, never to return.

  “Please,” she says.

  I inhale for courage, not really sure what exactly I’m afraid of. It’s not as though some zombie baby is going to spring out of the ground and chase me around the cemetery. Maybe that would be better than the fear I’m feeling right now—that of the unknown, coming face-to-face with a reality I’d prefer to forget.

  Madeline lingers ahead, stopping to wait for hesitant me. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Eli,” she tells me as if reading my thoughts.

  “I know.” I find myself at her side, staring down at a snow-covered garden. I can tell by the stuffed toys, the cherubs on the markers, that this is where all the children are buried or remembered. I notice a pinwheel spinning gently in the breeze, easing to a stop when the wind dies down.

  “This is it.”

  I hear myself swallow. I think Madeline does, too, because she reaches over and takes my hand. I don’t stop her. Not yet.

  I read the marker: Charlie Elias Wiest. My heart jumps and tries to knock its way out of my chest. My palm sweats so I let go of Madeline’s hand. I kneel down to get a closer look at things. It takes me a moment, but then I finally run my fingers over the placard, tracing the letters in his name.

  “I’m so sorry, Eli,” Madeline says, standing over me. She’s crying, but I don’t look her way. All I hear is the shake in her voice and the sniffle of tears.

  I pluck the pinwheel from the ground where it’s been placed and spin it, watching until it stills. Then it turns again as if on its own
, as if blown softly by some unseen ghost. I look around, but no one is here except me and Madeline.

  She crouches down beside me. “I don’t know what I was thinking to not tell you. To blame you. I’m such an idiot.”

  “It’s all in the past, Madeline,” I say, my eyes level with hers. “One thing we can’t do is change the past.”

  “But we can create a new future,” she says a little too optimistically.

  “You can. I can,” I tell her. “But we…” I say, gesturing between the two of us, “…can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Is this why you brought me here?” I ask. “To win me back?”

  “I do want you back, but it’s not why I brought you here.” She touches my wrist and the infinity tattoo almost sears, but then she thinks better of leaving her hand against my skin and removes it.

  I nod and turn my attention back to the place where whatever is physically left of the person who would have been my son rests.

  “You love her, don’t you?” Madeline has shaken the tears, but her voice is pained.

  I think about where I’ve been, where I am now. All the ups and downs with relationships and if they’re really worth it. I think of the promise I made to myself: to never let a girl determine my future again, to make sure I pursue my dreams and put myself first. But then I met Hailey, and all of that went to hell.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I love her.” But what I don’t tell Madeline is that I don’t necessarily choose to be with her. After all, there’s Berklee, music, and the small detail of Hailey making a choice of her own—whether she wants to live her life in the past with Jeremy or whether she wants to be a part of the present and future with me. And I simply don’t know if I can wait around to find out what she decides.

  Jeremy

  I arrive back from spending time at my old house, lingering around Zoe and my mom who somehow seem more at peace than they did before. It’s getting close—the time to leave this place and cross into the veil. But Rae and I have continued to wait on Charlie. Plus, I need to say some final goodbyes. To Hailey. It’s just too hard to consider right now.

  When I approach, I’m shocked to see a guy and a girl kneeling down at Charlie’s marker. Charlie is there with them, a look of love plastered to his face, which is something I’ve never seen from him before. As if that’s not shocking enough, I immediately know the dad. He’s the guy who’s been chasing Hailey—the one for whom she has feelings. For the briefest of moments, a stab of jealousy shoots through me. But then I spy Rae across the way. She’s like the doting surrogate; finally thrilled to see Charlie receive the one wish he’s wanted since we both arrived here. She glances over at me, lifts her hand in a wave, and smiles. I really love her smile.

  My feelings for Rae drive home what I’m missing with Hailey. How maybe it’s not just Charlie holding us back. Maybe it’s me, too. I want to commit myself to passing through the veil, to doing it with Rae. But how can I let go of everything else? As I watch Rae, I feel so torn. Maybe love is more universal than simply loving one person. Perhaps it isn’t static, but more dynamic, more all encompassing.

  As I watch Charlie with his parents—Rae standing watchful and off to the side—I realize in this bleak cemetery where no life seems to live, she brings color and beauty to it—something that was absent when I first arrived. She’s springtime in this winter. But I’m not sure it’s enough.

  Rae wanders over and is soon at my side. She gestures with her head to Charlie and his parents. “We can go now,” she says optimistically. “We don’t have to stay anymore.” Rae is eager to cross over, certain it holds much more promise than what’s in the perimeter of this life. I’m not so sure.

  I feel her eyes on me; I try to avoid her gaze.

  “You want to go, don’t you?”

  I say nothing.

  “Jeremy?”

  I finally meet her look. “I…”

  The sinking of her heart—all her optimism—is chronicled on her face. “I thought…” she says.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  We watch Charlie’s parents leave, hand-in-hand, for the gates. Seeing the two of them together gives me renewed hope that everything with Eli and Hailey is now over. But the thought is fleeting. Because if he deserted Hailey, then that means she’s utterly alone. And sad. I suddenly have the urge to see her and be near to her again.

  “I have to go,” I say to Rae.

  “You just got back here.”

  I whistle toward the branches of the anorexic trees, desperately hoping the tanager is there.

  “What are you doing?” she insists. When I ignore her and continue to whistle, Rae grabs hold of my wrist to capture my attention. “Jeremy!”

  The tanager lands nearby, almost leery to approach during our confrontation.

  “I have to see her, Rae. I have to.”

  “What about us? Doesn’t this…” she gestures between the two of us, “…mean anything to you?”

  “Let me go, okay?” My tone is angrier than I intend for it to be.

  “We’re leaving, Jeremy.”

  My eyes reach hers. I know she means it.

  “Midnight. If you’re not here by then, you’ll be all alone.”

  My mind registers what Rae says, but my heart leads me out of the cemetery gates with a summer tanager feather in my hand.

  Hailey

  Dr. Wheeler and I approach the end of another session. I can always tell it’s time to go when he glances at the clock on the wall over my head.

  “You’ve made a lot of progress this week,” he tells me after I confess to him my meeting with Zoe and how Tonya has granted me the closure I had been craving.

  I nod, move to the end of the couch, ready to leave.

  “Before you go,” Dr. Wheeler says, “I have something to show you.”

  I remain frozen. Some irrational part of me thinks he’s going to reveal something devastating from the accident or open the closet and show me that Jeremy’s been inside the whole time. My thoughts are completely crazy, but I can’t imagine what Dr. Wheeler would have to share with me outside of therapeutic advice.

  He stands and walks over to his bookcase and beckons me to join him there. I do. He glances at me, and then removes a jar of coins from one of the shelves. I look from it to him and shrug.

  “What do you see?” he asks.

  Is this a trick question? He is testing me on some scientific level to see if I pass, if I’ve made progress through our sessions.

  “Coins.”

  “Look closer,” Wheeler says.

  I do. I notice that there are only pennies in the jar. “Okay,” I say. “Pennies.”

  He studies them as if they hold some sort of value to him. As if it’s a big jar of hundred dollar bills instead of the sum total of, say, sixteen dollars. Things are quiet for a little too long, and I start to feel uncomfortable. But then he speaks. “I found all of these. On the beach, in the washing machine, on the road, even on restaurant chairs.”

  “Yeah, well it’s pretty common for people to lose change.”

  Wheeler shakes his head. “You asked me about signs…” He strokes the jar. “These are signs. At least to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Five years ago, someone I loved—very much—died.”

  I swallow hard, suddenly very interested and affected by what he has to say.

  “We used to make a game of finding pennies and collecting them. They were our good luck charms.” He looks at me and sort of smiles. “Silly, I know. But it was our thing.” Dr. Wheeler returns to the jar, and I can tell he’s picturing the old days in his mind. “We were lucky if we had thirty pennies between us.”

  I stare at the jar, taking glimpses of him. This is the only time he has ever spoken personally about himself, and I wonder why he has chosen now—after all this time—to tell me anything.

  “But since then,” he continues, finishing his sentence by holding up the
jar of pennies. “You asked me about signs…”

  I think about the feather, the red bird, the loud noises in my room…Jeremy. “Maybe if he’d give me one more sign, I’d be ready to let go.”

  “And maybe you’re ready to let go without it.”

  “Maybe.”

  He puts a hand on my shoulder and smiles a knowing smile.

  “Thanks, Dr. Wheeler,” I say.

  “Sure.” He puts the jar back on the bookshelf. “Hailey, I think we can begin to back off our sessions. Don’t you?”

  His question is so hard. Dr. Wheeler has been my safety net from the outside world. I’m not sure I can handle leaving it. But, at the same time, I feel like things are getting easier. Just a little bit at a time.

  “We can try,” I tell him.

  “Let’s try. And about the medication—” he says.

  “Haven’t taken it.”

  He nods.

  I look to the couch where I’ve spent so much agony, but have also learned so much about myself. I know I’m just beginning to forgive myself. Surely if Tonya can do it, so can I. “But if I need to visit the fringe pillow…” I look into Dr. Wheeler’s eyes, “…you’ll understand, right?”

  The edges of his mouth curl upward. “Yes, I’ll understand.”

  Jeremy

  I was there. In Dr. Wheeler’s office. I heard everything about the signs and her need for another—a final one. So I come to Hailey in the middle of the night. A time when there aren’t the distractions of school or her parents or the therapist she sees to get over the guilt of my death.

  I sit beside her on the bed, touching the ends of her fanned-out hair. She hugs a pillow to her, and I close my eyes to listen intently to the metronomic hum of her breathing. It’s like music.

  I want to stay with her like this forever. Just the two of us without the ins and outs of life. But I know I can’t. It’s time to move on. Rae has taught me that. But my heart wrenches at the words I know I have to say. I hold another tanager feather in my hands, barely noticing the texture of the quill and barbs.