We Are the Ghosts

by Vicky Skinner

  I know he wants to say more, but I’m exhausted, so I turn for the stairs again and go up to my room. Inside, I shut the door and take a deep breath. I missed the smell of my own room. It’s late, so I don’t feel bad about turning out the light and immediately crawling into bed. I missed my bed.

  I’m drifting off, somewhere between reality and Dexter, Michigan, when I think about the day Luke brought the map home, how excited he was, how he promised we were going to go, how he became so obsessed, so one-track-minded about it. That’s what he did, become obsessed with things. Everything was his favorite thing until it wasn’t anymore: his favorite restaurant, his favorite video game, his favorite outfit … his favorite person.

  That’s when something starts to claw at my throat. His favorite person. Sometimes it was Wes, or Gwen, or that teacher that let him get away with something, or someone on the track team, or the new kid. But underneath it all, I always thought it was me. I was his favorite person, his real favorite.

  Maybe I was wrong.

  I reach into my back pocket for the map. But there’s nothing there. I check my other pocket. Also empty. I sit up in bed and feel around in my sheets, hoping maybe it just fell out while I was drifting off.

  But it’s not here. I flip on my bedside light and scan the floor, but it’s nowhere. The house is completely silent, and when I go out into the hallway, it’s totally dark, too. I retrace all of my steps, all the way down the stairs and out to my father’s car. I check the front seat, the back seat, the entire driveway. Nothing.

  Which means it’s gone. It could have fallen out of my pocket anywhere, Sal’s, the police station, the airport. I can’t believe I’ve been so distracted that I didn’t notice it was gone earlier, and now there’s no way I’m ever getting it back.

  I go back upstairs and curl up in my bed, but my whole body is trembling. That was the only real thing of Luke’s I had left. Chloe gave it to me because she trusted me. And I lost it.

  I cry until my eyes are crusty, memories flashing through my mind so fast I can’t catch hold of them.

  Luke, bent over the map, a grin on his face and a marker in his hand. Luke, stuffing the map into his bag when one of our parents came into the room. Luke, taking the map with him when he left that night. When he moved on. When he found a new favorite.

  FIFTEEN

  When I wake up, the sun is shining bright, and there’s someone standing in my doorway. I rub my eyes, stinging from the sunshine—I didn’t close my curtains last night—and then realize it’s my mother in the doorway.

  Her hair is down, like it almost never is, her arms crossed, leaning against the doorjamb. She looks different, but I can’t explain how, and I wonder if maybe I’m making her up. Maybe she’s not even really here, and this is just the way I remember her from before. But before what, I don’t know. Before she turned into our mother who hovered over us, held the puppet strings, or at least tried to, until Luke had enough. There had to be a time before, right? Has she always been like this? Why can’t I remember?

  “I thought you were at Aunt Linda’s.”

  She presses into the carpet with the toe of her shoe. Tennis shoes. I didn’t even know she had tennis shoes.

  “I wanted to come see you. Make sure you’re okay. Your father says he told you everything.”

  Not everything, I think. There’s still a detail that’s missing. I think I have a pretty good idea of the truth, but I want to hear her say it. “What did you do to him?”

  She sighs. “I didn’t want him to lose any time. I figured he would go through his phase, take his time off, whatever, and then he would go to Tate, and then he’d be happy that I applied for him. He always talked about leaving, but I thought he meant a year off. Maybe a semester. Not this.”

  I pull my legs up against me, tucking my knees under my chin. “You wrote his application essay and everything?”

  “No. He had to write one for one of his classes. I just did a little editing before I sent it.”

  It was ballsy, that’s for sure. Applying for your son to a school you want him to go to without his permission, knowing that there was a fifty percent shot it might all go up in flames.

  But I can see it from Luke’s point of view. My mother, exerting her control in any way that she could.

  There’s a long silence, and then she says, “I just wanted him to choose us.”

  The tears threaten to take over again, and I push them down. I can’t take any more of that. I cried until I felt sick to my stomach, and now my eyes are crusty, my cheeks, too. “What happens now?”

  For once, I’m okay with my mother being in control here. I want her to tell me what to do. I want her to plan out the next five years of my life. I want her to leave things on my desk for me to do because moving forward on my own seems impossible, making decisions, figuring out what I want. Wouldn’t it just be easier if she did it all for me?

  “I don’t know if I can ever forgive your father. Or myself. I’m going to stay with your aunt for a little while. Just until…” She never finishes the sentence. “Your father will be here with you.”

  I don’t know if she means for that to be comforting, or if she’s just looking for something else to say. Either way, she doesn’t seem to know how to follow up. She stands in the doorway for a long time, and then finally, she says, “I should go. I’m glad you’re home.”

  “Mom.” I don’t even know what I want to say, why I called her back. I just don’t want her to leave yet. She turns and looks at me, her hands clutching the doorjamb giving away the tension she won’t let show in her face. “Please don’t go.”

  She sighs. “I can stay for a little while, but—”

  “Don’t go to Aunt Linda’s.” I think I shock us both when I say the words. I’ve never known how to feel about my mother. I still don’t. But she’s my mother. That has to count for something.

  She bites her lip, but her eyes still turn red, watery, her nose going pink. “I don’t think I can stay, Ellie. It hurts.”

  “What about me?” I don’t know if I can bear to watch someone else walk out of my life, even my mother, who I’ve always wanted to get away from, always hated having hovering around. My dad said we were still a family, but will we still be a family if she gives up on us now?

  Her chin puckers, and a tear finally escapes, sliding down her skin. “I can’t fix it.”

  Nobody can fix it. We’re broken, and there’s no going back. “You don’t have to fix anything. Just—just stay.” I’m choking my words out now, pleading. “Please, please don’t go.”

  She presses her forehead to the doorway and squeezes her eyes shut. “Okay,” she finally says, and then gasps for a breath. “Okay. I’ll stay.” She lets go of the doorjamb and takes a deep breath. “Are you hungry?”

  She doesn’t wait for me to answer. She turns and disappears into the hallway, and I feel a strange contentment. It doesn’t make things better, but at least it doesn’t make them worse.

  * * *

  The next time something wakes me up, it’s voices and the scent of cinnamon. I turn over and see Gwen and Wes in the light coming in through the window, quietly arguing about something as they hover in the corner of the room. Gwen glances over at me, and her eyes go wide when she sees that I’m awake.

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you up.” She holds up something, and I realize it’s my bag. “We just wanted to bring this to you. It has your phone in it. Your mom let us in.”

  I rush over and take it from her, collapsing back on my bed as I rifle through the pockets. “Is the map in here?”

  Gwen comes to sit on the bed beside me, her hands pressed into my blanket. “I thought you had the map with you.”

  I sigh and shove my bag to the floor. “I did, but it must have fallen out of my pocket somewhere.” I feel the tears threatening again, and I clamp them down. “Sorry we had to abandon you guys in Michigan.”

  Gwen waves me off. “It wasn’t your fault.”

>   I send her a disbelieving look. “It was literally all my fault. Well, and my dad’s, I guess.”

  Wes, leaning against my desk with his arms crossed, makes a tired noise. “Yeah, he told us everything. And your mom is, like, cooking enough food for twenty people. I feel a little upside down right now.”

  Gwen nods, agreeing. “Yeah. I can’t believe all that stuff was going on behind your back, Ellie. I’m so sorry.”

  “What about what was going on behind your back?” I ask her. I think about all the girls Luke was with over the years, the way he kept them around for a few weeks and then discarded them. I never thought he would do that with Gwen, but isn’t that exactly what happened?

  Gwen looks down at her hands in her lap. “Don’t worry about me, Ellie. I can handle my own stuff.”

  “Do you think Luke used people?”

  Wes comes to stand beside me, towering over me. “What are you talking about?”

  I shrug. I can’t look at either of them. I almost feel ashamed that I’ve let my father get to me like this, but I can’t help but think that maybe he’s right. Maybe Luke used people. Maybe he got what he needed from them and then pushed them away, and I just didn’t notice because he’d never done it to me, because I thought he never would.

  Gwen glances up at Wes, and I see them have a silent conversation the way they do sometimes. Finally, Gwen reaches over and takes my hand. She laces our fingers together, and I look down at them before meeting her eye. “I think it doesn’t matter anymore,” she says. “It’s okay if you need to be mad at him, but I think it’s okay if you just want to miss him, too. You can love people even if they’re not perfect.”

  I think of my mother, hovering in my doorway, of my father, watching them fight in the living room that day and saying nothing. Of my own faults, the way I’ve hurt people.

  I set my head on Gwen’s shoulder and try not to cry. Part of me wishes for the numbness I felt before. Now, everything hurts, an ache that travels along my veins, sinking into my bloodstream. Feeling nothing has to be better than feeling this.

  Gwen runs a hand down my arm. “Want to come hang out with us tomorrow night at Wes’s? Video games? Pizza? Maybe a horror movie or two?”

  I nod. That sounds so good. My chest feels lighter knowing that they’re not just going to leave again. We’re not all just going to go our separate ways like we did before. “Okay, but I swear if the only thing Wes gives us to drink is diet root beer, I’m leaving.”

  Wes’s mouth falls open, but Gwen presses her face against my shoulder and laughs.

  “Diet root beer is delicious!” Wes says, but then he sighs and reaches a hand out for Gwen. “Hey, I gotta get home. My mom is kind of freaking out about all this. My neighbor sent her that stupid missing-kid thing, and she had a cow. Fucking Eaton. But call us if you need anything.”

  Gwen takes his hand and follows him over to the door, turning to send me a sad smile over her shoulder before she leaves.

  * * *

  I go back to work at Books and Things on Monday. It’s the last week before the end of summer break, so I need to get as many hours in as I can. The shop is busy, thanks to people coming in last minute for their school books. Mine are stashed under the register so I can make sure to get them before we sell out.

  “Doing okay?” Laurie asks, and I just roll my eyes at her. She’s asked me this about twenty times since I came in. But I guess I should be grateful that she let me come back in at all, seeing as how I just disappeared and didn’t tell her I was going to be gone. But according to her, everyone in Eaton was pretty freaked out when my face showed up on flyers with HAVE YOU SEEN ME? written above it, so she forgave me when I showed up for my shift this morning.

  “I’m fine,” I tell her. “I’m just a little tired.” I’ve been back in Eaton for a few days now, but I still feel that bone-deep exhaustion every day. At least now it’s not accompanied by the brain fog and the tears.

  She reaches out and tugs on a strand of my hair. “Okay. Well, in that case, get back to work. What are you just standing around for?” She winks at me and goes to help a girl look for a copy of Frankenstein.

  I ring up copies of Romeo and Juliet and The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, one person after another without ever really making eye contact with anyone.

  And then someone sets a package of Oreos down on the counter. The thin kind. When I look up and see Cade’s eyes, shining down at me, it feels like the whole world lights up. He smiles and pushes the cookies across the counter to me.

  “I couldn’t bring myself to buy the peanut butter ones. It felt a little like heresy.”

  I’m halfway around the counter before I have the good sense to stop myself. Over by the Required Reading display, Laurie is watching me, even as she hands a slim book to a customer.

  “Laurie, could I go on break?”

  She doesn’t even say anything, just waves me in the direction of the door, a grin on her face. I grab Cade’s hand and pull us both out into the parking lot. As soon as we’re out of eyesight of any of the customers in the shop, I throw my arms around Cade.

  He presses his face into my neck, breathes in, and then lets me go.

  “You should have told me you were on your way back.”

  He smiles and shrugs his shoulders, and there’s something about the way he does it, his eyes on the ground, his face spread in a grin, the heel of one foot pressing nervously into the toe of the other, that makes him look so unbelievably adorable.

  I sigh and press my back to the side of the building, a furniture shop that sits between Books and Things and Cade’s garage. The air between us feels different. We haven’t seen each other since he left me at the police station in Dexter, and between him dealing with his family in Indiana and me dealing with my family here, we haven’t spoken, haven’t sent so much as a text message. So, where does that leave us now?

  “How was Indiana?”

  Cade’s chin wrinkles in a thoughtful expression. “It was good. There was, uh, a lot to talk through. It’s weird, hearing so much about my own past that I didn’t know.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  He doesn’t look sad necessarily, but his eyebrows curve in, and his mouth is pulled into a line. He looks so serious, the complete opposite of the person he was just seconds ago. I don’t know if he wants me to, but I reach out and take his hand, run my thumb along his palm, press my fingers between his.

  “Are you okay?” I ask him. A lot happened in Michigan, in Indiana, on that trip. Sometimes, it feels like I was dreaming, and that the next time I wake up, the next time I try to think about all the things that happened, they won’t have been real. They’ll be a faded memory.

  But Cade, he’s here. He’s real and concrete, and he remembers. He went through it all, too. He went to Indiana and faced his fears.

  “Are you?” he asks back.

  “Maybe,” I say because I don’t have a clear enough answer. More okay than I was when I got home. Less okay than I was before Luke left. Maybe I’m a new kind of okay. This is the new normal, not quite all-the-way okay. “Better now.” I mean now that he’s here, back where he’s supposed to be, and I hope he knows it.

  “I missed you,” I say even though I don’t know if it’s an okay thing to say. I look down at our feet, and I see the space between our shoes, just enough space that if he took one more step forward, his toes would press up against mine.

  “I missed you, too.” I’m still staring down at our shoes. His shoes move closer to mine. I crane my neck to look up at him, and the weird thing I felt in the air just moments ago shifts, becomes nonexistent.

  I meet his eyes, and I’m so surprised, as I always am, by how soft they are, how he looks right at me with nothing but tenderness. I hold his gaze, and when I press my hand against the back of his neck, I get this feeling, something low in my stomach, like I just stumbled onto buried treasure.

  I pull him down to me, and when his mouth is inches from mine, I say, “Be careful
. I might get the impression that you have a crush on me.”

  He smiles, and then he eliminates those inches, and his mouth melts against mine. I let him press me against the building and kiss me, deep and hungry and delicious.

  I guess, all this time, and especially after Luke left, I thought maybe I was just like my mother. I thought maybe I was made of stone, too. Because that’s what it feels like to be empty inside, to be numb, like you’re made of marble.

  But I’m not made of stone anymore. I’m made of this feeling I get when Cade kisses me, when Gwen smiles at me, when Wes calls me his sister, like I have light shooting out of my fingertips, and I want it. I want it all.

  * * *

  When I get home that night, my father is on the couch. The TV is on, and he’s asleep, sprawled across the cushions, snoring. I shut off the TV, but I don’t wake him up. My mother must already be asleep in the guest room, where she’s been living since she decided not to move out completely.

  I go up to my room, ready to go straight to sleep. I worked open to close at the shop, and even though it’s really nice to be back in my old routine, back at work, back to feeling like myself, I’m exhausted.

  I pull the stack of books I bought for English lit out of my bag to put them on my desk and freeze.

  There’s an envelope on my desk. Shock slips through me, like somehow I’ve gone back in time to the day of Luke’s funeral and here’s the envelope that put the whole thing in motion.

  But when I reach out to pick it up, instead of just a return address, this time, there’s a name. Chloe’s name, in the top left-hand corner of the envelope.

  And just like that day, when I first opened the envelope Chloe sent me, when I open this one, there’s a map inside. I pull it out and unfold it, and it’s Luke’s map. I don’t know how Chloe got it, whether I lost it in her house or in the police station, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s here again, in my hands, like it was never gone.