We Are the Ghosts

by Vicky Skinner

  “Here you are!” he shouts. “We couldn’t find you.”

  Instinctively, I look over his shoulder to find the other half of his we, but he’s not with Wes. My eyes travel over the room, searching, and then I see Cade. He comes into the room from somewhere beyond the kitchen with a girl attached to his side like a barnacle. She’s smiling up at him, and when they stop in the living room doorway, he leans down to say something in her ear.

  I’ve never felt anything like jealousy over a guy before in my life, but when I see him lean down to her, see the way she tilts her face up toward his just enough for the movement to be intimate, it feels like having something ripped out of my hands. Which is utterly ridiculous. We went on one date a year ago, and now because he’s here with me, that means we’re soul mates?

  Beside me, Wes and Gwen are chatting, but the music is loud enough that I can’t hear what they’re talking about. I sneak a glance at them and am immediately struck by the way they seem to curve around each other, their bodies slanted like parentheses, their cups the comments between them. Gwen smiles, and I see the anxiety melt away from her, but just as soon as her easy demeanor appears, it vanishes because the music changes and Nova blasts out over the speakers. My skin burns, and I wish I could do something to change the song, to make it stop, but short of tackling the radio in the living room, there’s not much I can do.

  I watch as Gwen’s eyes change, see her straighten away from Wes and tug at her shirt like it’s too tight. “I’m going to go outside,” she says loudly, loud enough for me to hear and loud enough for Wes to look disappointed. She turns and heads for the front door while Wes watches her go.

  “This is lame,” he says after a moment. “I’m going to get some air, too.”

  I don’t think the party is lame, but I let Wes leave anyway, pressing my back to the wall behind me so I don’t fall over. When I focus my attention back at the kitchen, the girl and Cade are gone, and I’m trying to pretend like I don’t care where they’ve disappeared to. I still hope it’s not one of the bedrooms upstairs.

  And then my eyes meet Kevin’s. He stands in the kitchen, right in the middle of a group of girls, and even though he seems to be pouring drinks for them, his attention is on me. I’m not sure how long he’s been watching me, but I can tell he has been watching, and from the way he smiles at me while he’s setting a cup of beer in front of some loud blond girl, I think maybe he wants me to come over.

  I think about Cade, off with some girl he just met, and I move toward Kevin. The girls seem to scatter when I get there, but Kevin keeps his eyes on me. I wonder if he’ll flirt with anyone, if I’m just one in a long list of girls that he’s looked at this way at a party, like he’s ready to devour them. Does it even matter?

  “Want to dance?” I’m not much of a dancer, more of a swayer, but I know from years of watching girls make their move on Luke that dancing is a good way to get a guy’s attention.

  Kevin puts down the bottle of tequila in his hand and sends me a warm, confident smile before sliding a shot in my direction. I swallow it, and as soon as it makes its way down my throat, burning a path that I almost immediately regret, I start to feel a little woozy.

  And then Kevin is beside me, pulling me into the swarm by the tips of his fingers hooked through mine. The music is loud and pumping, the Nova song having faded away long ago, and Kevin pulls me against him until I can smell the sweat on his neck.

  If I have any doubt about Kevin’s intentions, they go out the window when his hand moves down to settle low on my back, his fingers resting on the curve of my ass.

  “What’s your name?” he asks with his mouth pressed against my ear, and I giggle because it seems hilarious that he’s practically groping me but doesn’t even know my name.

  “Ellie.”

  He reaches down and takes one of my hands in his, bringing it up to loop around his neck. The action makes me a little dizzy, and I clutch at the collar of his shirt to stay steady.

  I grab his hand and am immediately taken by how warm it is, how wonderful it feels in mine, how long it’s been since I let someone touch me without flinching away, really touch me, not the shaken hands at Luke’s funeral or the pats on the back from my mother. Or the seemingly oblivious way Cade pulled me along, our hands entwined, or put his hand on my arm to comfort me. This isn’t a comforting hand on mine. This is something else entirely.

  Out of nowhere, the room tilts a little, and I stumble away from Kevin, tripping backward, but warm hands keep me from crashing to the ground.

  “You are so plastered,” a voice says in my ear from behind, but it doesn’t make sense because Kevin is standing in front of me, watching me with wary eyes, his empty hands stretched out toward me. I push away from whoever has me and spin around too fast. Cade is standing in front of me now. He reaches out to steady me, and his hands are startling. They’re hot and burning my skin.

  Behind me, I hear Kevin say, “Oh, hey, man. Can you pass me my date?”

  Is that what Kevin thinks I am? His date? But I get more caught on the fact that he asked Cade to pass me to him like I’m a salt shaker over the dinner table or something. And I realize that Cade is still holding me, his hands wrapped around my upper arms, and I look up at him, and he looks down at me, and I could melt right through the dance floor.

  “Do you want to go?” Cade asks, and I keep myself from asking go where because the only place to go is a hotel room.

  “Don’t go, Ellie. You just got here,” Kevin says. I’ve almost forgotten that he’s there, but he’s immediately in my personal space again, and I have two sets of hands on me now, instead of just one. I am suddenly very aware of how tingly my fingers are, how numb my lips feel.

  “I’m just going to find Wes.” I don’t know why, but this suddenly seems imperative. In my mind, Wes becomes a solid, like home base, the place I always come back to. It was always the three of us, him and me and Luke. Ever since I was little, home was where they were. I turn away from both of them, searching, and I hear Kevin walk away, muttering under his breath. When I turn around he’s gone, and somehow, I’m alone with Cade. Well, alone in a room full of dozens of people. It’s enough to make my cheeks heat up. Or maybe that’s the tequila.

  “If you don’t want to leave, at least go somewhere and lie down for a second,” Cade is saying from behind me. “We’ll find you a safe place. You’re about to fall over.”

  “That’s not true.” I still feel relatively stable on my feet, despite my previous inability to keep them under me. Cade sighs, and I realize too late that the reason I can hear him sighing so quietly is because he’s standing so close to me. He’s holding me up again. Damn it.

  Tired of listening to his disappointed grumbling, I say, “What are you even doing with me? Don’t you have a date? Where is she?”

  He squints at me. “What are you talking about?”

  I wave in the general direction of the kitchen, as if the girl might still be standing there in the doorway. “That girl. She was pretty. Why aren’t you with her?” I want to put a hand over my own mouth to get myself to stop asking stupid questions and making it very obvious how much I actually care about Cade’s romantic life, but I’m too busy trying to get information from him that I care very much about.

  He glances at where I’m pointing and then back at me. “I bumped into her outside the bathroom. Turns out we had a mutual friend. It wasn’t, like, a thing.” There’s amusement in his voice.

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  He rolls his eyes. “God, Ellie, no. I’m not making fun of you. You’re just drunk.”

  I glance over my shoulder and realize I’m a few inches from a wall. I lean back against it, and it’s cold and solid. I close my eyes.

  “Do you ever think about that night at the drive-in?” Of all the stupid things that could have dribbled out of my mouth just then, this is probably the worst. I have definitely lost complete control over my vocal cords. I’ve spent a year trying to forget that
night, but it’s hard to forget with him so close, reminding me what it felt like to mean something to him.

  When I open my eyes, he’s watching me, his face blank. Cade is definitely much better looking than Kevin, and my body is starting to take notice, going tingly under the weight of his gaze. I feel a little like I’ve been going around on a carousel, spinning and dizzy but bursting with excitement nevertheless.

  I look up at Cade and want him. I want how close we were a year ago, I want the way he used to look at me like I was the most important thing to him. I grab on to the fabric of his shirt and lean against him.

  “I think you’re right,” I say, tilting my face up toward his, the way that girl did earlier. “I think I want to lie down. Walk me upstairs?”

  He looks skeptical but then he nods. “Okay. Slowly.” He puts an arm around my shoulders and tucks one of my arms around his waist. I feel the hardness of his side under my fingertips and shiver. He anchors me to him as we move into the hallway and upstairs.

  Most of the bedroom doors are closed, but there’s one at the end of the hall that’s open, and we move straight for it. Cade pushes the door open all the way and flips on the light, showcasing a mostly bare room with white walls and minimal decoration. The only indication of who might live here is a picture on the nightstand, a framed photo of a polo-clad boy with his arm around a pretty girl.

  “Lie down,” he says, depositing me on the navy blue bedspread. It has little white anchors on it. They’re dancing in my vision. “I’m going to get you some water. I’ll be right back.” He moves toward the door and then turns back to me. “Don’t move, okay? Please.”

  He doesn’t wait for me to make the promise, but the room is spinning, and there’s no way I’m going anywhere.

  It seems like only half a second before Cade is back, carrying a red Solo cup. Cold, wonderful water slips down my throat, cooling my skin and clearing my head a little. I feel like I can breathe again.

  When the cup is full of nothing but melting ice, I set it aside and stand up, feeling more stable than I did downstairs but not by much. Cade watches me with a wary eye, his arms half stretched toward me just in case I lose my footing. He’s close enough to the bed that it only takes two very unsteady steps to get to him, and when I do, I fist my hands into his shirt.

  “Ellie,” he begins, but I cut him off with a kiss, just barely managing to line our lips up in my shakiness, in my urgency.

  A part of me is prepared for Cade to push me away, but those ideas go up in smoke when he kisses me back, sliding his fingers up the back of my neck and moving his mouth on mine so superbly that it feels like downing another shot of tequila. The alcohol hasn’t made my lips and tongue nearly as numb as I thought, and for just a second, I forget everything. I forget where we are, why we’re here, what happened to my brother two weeks ago. I let myself revel in the fact that Cade actually wants me. Still wants me.

  My hands move from his shirt to his hair, grabbing and tugging, and then they move to his buttons. His fingers collide with mine, and he grips me for a second more before taking a step back. He sighs. “That’s not what this is about.”

  “You wanted to kiss me that night at the drive-in,” I say, shocking myself. “I know you did.” It’s something I’ve thought about over and over for the past year, but I never thought I would say it to him. I try to get back to where I was, pressed against him, letting him make me feel more alive than I have in a year, but he keeps his distance.

  “Ellie, don’t. You’re drunk.”

  His words are pinpricks in my skin. I know I rejected Cade, I know that the distance between us is completely my fault, but knowing that doesn’t quell the hurt. “You want me, don’t you? I mean you—”

  “Of course I do. But not like this. Not when you’re…” He trails off, and I can think of a thousand ways he could finish that sentence. Drunk. Sad. Confused. Lost. Messed up. They all work right now.

  I can’t be here with him like this, when it feels like he can see everything. I try to go around him, but he steps in my way. “Ellie, come on, let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about anything.”

  I don’t want to talk. I just want to get out of this room. Cade is my ever-constant reminder. In the halls at Eaton High, at the garage right outside the shop’s window, in the aisles at J-Mart, always, always reminding me of how my life should have been. But instead, it fell apart, and I just need him out of the way right now, need to put some space between us.

  I try to shove him out of the way, but it has the opposite effect, causing me to ricochet off him and stumble backward. He steps forward to catch me, and his kindness is even more infuriating. Why couldn’t he have just been an asshole?

  “I want to go.” I can’t even look at him anymore, as we stand here, his hands still holding onto me, my eyes on the door. I want this night to be over. I want it all to be over. What did I really think was going to happen? That Cade was going take my virginity, right here in this stranger’s room, and that I would somehow feel better afterward?

  Finally, he says, “Let me help you.”

  “Leave me alone, Cade. Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I don’t mean to sound defeated. I mean to sound angry, but all the fight is going out of me, leaving that numbness behind. And I want it. I want it to eat up everything I’m feeling, swallow it whole until there’s nothing left. Because being numb is so much easier than the alternative.

  “Because I care about you,” he says, his voice so soft, so full of comfort and sincerity that it makes something inside me ache, something that feels like it’ll swell until it won’t fit inside me anymore. “You can talk to me, Ellie.”

  I stare at him for a minute, something creeping up inside me, something that threatens to come pouring out.

  I hear someone calling my name in the hallway. And then there’s banging on the door before it opens. The door hits Cade in the shoulder, and Wes’s face appears in the crack. His eyes connect with mine, and he shoves the door until Cade moves away from it. I can see Gwen in the hallway behind him.

  “What’s going on?” Wes moves into the room and his eyes fall on Cade. His eyes flash to me. “Are you okay? What happened? I went outside for one second, and you were just gone.” I can see real fear in his eyes.

  Cade grimaces. “I brought her upstairs so she could sleep it off.”

  Wes latches on to my arm. “Sure, you did.” There’s acid in his voice, and I can’t even figure out why he would be talking to Cade like that.

  Gwen comes up behind me and herds me forward. Wes helps me down the stairs, his fingertips digging into my arm and my side. But when we finally emerge outside, the night air the cleanest thing I’ve ever breathed in, Wes turns to me, his face angry. “What is the matter with you? You can’t just disappear like that.”

  I sigh and run my hands over my face. I really need to sit down. “God, can you just leave me alone?”

  “I’m not going to leave you alone!” he shouts, making my head vibrate, making the world seem twice as quiet when the echo finally dies. “You’re at a fucking college party in a town you’ve never been in. You can’t just disappear like that!”

  “Stop treating me like a child!” I scream, louder than I mean to. My entire body quakes with anger.

  “Stop acting like one! You’re drunk and going up into bedrooms at strangers’ houses with strange guys.” I’m about to argue that Cade is not a strange guy, but Wes isn’t done talking. “What do you think Luke would think if he saw what you just did in there?” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, I can tell that he’s sorry he said them. His eyes go wide, and his arms fall by his sides.

  I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. But I won’t let Wes see it. I step up close to him, until it feels like we’re breathing the same air. “Luke didn’t care what I did or who I hung out with. Luke left. He didn’t give a shit about me anymore, just like he didn’t give a shit about you.”

  Wes and I stare at each other, and I see the same hurt i
n his eyes that I feel in my gut, a kind of hurt that can never be made better, a kind of hurt that didn’t start with us.

  I turn, not sure where I’m going, but I see figures silhouetted in the doorway of the house. Cade watches with shock on his face while Gwen steps all the way out of the house, coming toward me. I hear Wes move behind me, and when I turn to look, he’s walking away from me, down the street, probably to the car.

  “Come on,” Gwen says when she reaches me, rubbing my arms gently. There are tears streaming down her face. But I can’t move.

  I double over and vomit beside her shoes.

  * * *

  The boys booked a room at a hotel downtown while Gwen and I were at the party, and we go straight there. Gwen helps me up to the room, but Wes goes the opposite way down the hallway, disappearing around a corner, while Cade mutters something about finding an ice machine before ditching, too.

  Inside the room, the air conditioner is on full blast, and I shiver immediately. I lie down and try to take a deep breath as the room spins around and tilts to the side.

  “Are you okay?” Gwen whispers, and I try to make out her face in the darkness of the room, the only light coming from the window, where the glow of Shreveport floods in. Every time she asks the question, it gets harder to lie.

  I shake my head. I can’t believe any of that just happened. I close my eyes and then feel the mattress dip beneath me, and when I open them again, Gwen’s face is inches from mine. She blinks at me, still wearing her glasses.

  “Are you going to puke again?” she asks, and I’m surprised by the lack of urgency in her question.