by Jessa Russo
When the door closed though, I knew I was wrong: there would be absolutely no luck tonight. Toby’s hand tightened around mine as our eyes simultaneously took in the other person in attendance. Off to the side of the room, previously blocked by the open front door, stood—
“What in God’s name is she doing here?” Jessie practically spat the words into my ear.
Ariadne was in my living room. Inside my house.
“Oh, honey, are you surprised? Come in. Come in! Hey, Jessie! How was your day? Did you kids have a nice time? What did you go on … ?” My mom rambled on and on, more animated than I’d seen her in a long time. Either she had really taken recovery to a whole new level, or she’d completely lost her mind. I didn’t know what to say.
Yes. I am definitely very surprised.
I just stared at Ariadne, our eyes locked in a battle that would make even the best staring contest champions jealous.
All four of us stood in the open doorway. I didn’t know if they were all as tense as I was, but I was completely shocked, and my body was rigid.
What the hell is Ariadne doing in my house?
“… and this is … well, Toby, you already know her, obviously, but, Ever … Ev? Honey? Come in! Why are you still standing by the door?”
My mom walked over, ushering us inside so she could close the front door behind us.
“Did you hear me, honey? This is Toby’s—what did you say you were? Cousins, right?—Aree—I’m sorry sweetheart, how do you pronounce your name again?”
“Air-ee-add-knee,” she said, pronouncing each syllable clearly for my Mom but never taking her eyes off me. Her grin was wicked at best.
Mom went to stand next to her, and the uncanny resemblance between the two of them struck me. Something wasn’t right.
“Oh, yes, that’s right; I’ll get it. Did I tell you what a beautiful name that is? Ever? Why don’t you sit down? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” She giggled then, realizing the irony of her statement.
I wasn’t laughing.
Toby snapped out of his shock before I did and managed to pull me over to the couch. I plopped down, and he sat down beside me, never letting go of his death grip on my hand.
Jessie and Greg sat down on the loveseat across from us, and though Greg looked tense—again making me question if there was any coincidence I was missing here—Jessie looked downright evil. She was not pleased to see Ariadne in my house, and man oh man, if looks could kill.
“Jessie? Want to help me with the cake?” Jessie tore her eyes from Ariadne and reluctantly followed my mom, Sharon, and Bonnie to the kitchen, shooting an accusatory glance at Toby on her way.
I looked over at him and whispered, “What the hell is going on here?”
He shook his head, his eyes dark with anger. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.” He looked at Ariadne, disdain in his eyes.
“What the hell is this, Ariadne?”
Ariadne hadn’t moved from her spot in the corner yet, but when Toby addressed her, she smiled a sly, sultry smile, and slowly walked toward us. She had on a black mini dress—if you could call it a dress—with an overlay of black sheer fabric hanging to the floor. She didn’t have to get dressed up on my account. The sheer fabric caressed every curve of her body as she walked, and she took her time, deliberately giving Toby and Greg a show. As she approached, I saw the tip of a tattoo sticking out above her low-cut dress, thick black lines that were strangely familiar. I tensed up even more, reaching into the back of my mind for the bit of information I was having trouble grasping. Toby put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to him in response to her approach. There was something about her tattoo… .
Before Ariadne could answer Toby’s earlier question, or I could demand to see if her tattoo was what I thought it was, a loud crash came from the kitchen, accompanied by a scream from my Mom. I ran into the kitchen with Toby right behind me, vaguely registering Ariadne’s words behind us.
“Ooh!” she squealed with delight, “I think your mother just found your birthday present.”
I took in the scene in the kitchen with a quick sweep of my eyes, before I realized the cause of my mother’s scream.
Sharon and Bonnie were standing by the sink with matching looks of confusion on their faces, startled by my mom’s scream more than anything else. My mom stood by the dining table, her hands covering her mouth as if holding in the rest of her screaming. Jessie stood next to her, gripping the back of one of the wooden chairs. Her knuckles were white, and her mouth was open in shock. My birthday cake and my mom’s favorite cake plate lay in a shattered mess on the floor.
My breath caught in my throat—a quick hiss of sound accompanying the intake.
My birthday present. Ariadne’s words crept through my head.
“Oh my God.”
Toby tried to grab me, but I was quickly out of his reach, making my way to the other side of the room.
Standing in the hallway to the kitchen was Frankie.
But not in ghost form.
He was solid, real, whole. I saw all the definition in his face. I saw my reflection in his black framed glasses once again. His dark hair was shiny, the perfect comb lines visible and defined in his pompadour. Things that had been translucent and fuzzy for so long were suddenly clear and tangible again. His eyes met mine as I approached him slowly, cautiously, like one might approach a wild animal.
“Hey, Dollface.”
“Frankie.” It came out barely a whisper.
Frankie’s eyes quickly darted behind me, and his face tightened. I turned to follow his gaze as Ariadne slowly walked into the room. She sashayed her way past Toby, stepping over the mess of birthday cake on the floor. She stopped next to Frankie, lacing her fingers through his. I heard Jessie gasp behind me.
Why is she touching him?
My thoughts were wild and frantic, trying to make sense of the situation in front of me but unable to believe it—even though I was seeing it with my own eyes.
I looked from Frankie to Ariadne, then down at their entwined hands.
This isn’t happening.
I shook my head and looked back up at Ariadne, who had cocked her head condescendingly and now watched me with bitter amusement on her face.
“Happy Birthday, Ever.”
And then she kissed him. Frankie. My Frankie.
Everything went black.
Two sets of arms reached out to catch me.
Toby’s arms.
And Frankie’s.
Ever! Ever! Wake up!”
I opened my eyes, and Jessie’s face was all I could see. She hovered over me, eyes wide with worry. A cold washcloth was pressed to my forehead, and I was lying on something cold and hard.
“Jess, I’m awake, I’m awake. Stop shaking me.” I took a quick look around to get my bearings. I was still in the kitchen, and the cold, hard thing I was lying on was the kitchen floor.
“Oh, geez. I passed out?”
“Um, yeah, I’d say so! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I guess so … what happened?”
She made a face, her mouth pinched in concentration, trying to figure out what to say. And then, I remembered. Oh, god. Frankie. Real, solid, alive. Ariadne kissing him. My stomach turned over. But wait … maybe I’d been dreaming that part. Maybe my birthday hadn’t even happened yet.
“Jessie, what day is it? Where’s Frankie?”
Jessie shook her head, probably still trying to make sense of the evening. “June fourth, Ev. It’s still your birthday.”
Oh. So much for that idea. It hasn’t been a dream after all.
“Frankie’s in the living room with Toby and Greg … and that bitch Ari—”
Jessie stopped mid-sentence as we heard the voices carry in from the living room. We stared at each other as we listened.
“But I did this for you!” Ariadne shrieked.
“Me? You did this for me? What the hell is wrong with you, Ariadne?”
I held my breath as I listened, the anger in Toby’s voice something I’d never heard. Not even when he was fighting with his dad that day.
“I thought you’d be happy, Tobias. I thought you’d be pleased.” Her voice was meek—not the confident purr she usually carried—and it sounded like she might even be crying. Good. I couldn’t help but feel good about that, even though I knew I should never find pleasure in someone else’s pain. But boy did she have it coming!
“Happy?” Toby spat, disdain lacing his words. “You think I’m happy that you’ve done this? What you’ve done to Ever … to my girlfriend … this makes me far from happy, Ariadne.”
“But, now we can be together.” She sounded timid and unsure, like a scared little girl.
Together? What is she talking about?
Greg was speaking to someone in the background, and I briefly wondered if it was Frankie. “Yeah, you need to get over here right away. Yeah, she’s here. But get here quick—Toby’s about to kill her.”
He said goodbye, and I realized he must have been on his cell phone.
“This is some pretty messed up shit, Ariadne.” Greg spoke with a combination of disgust and anger. “Even for you. The ramifications of this … shit … I don’t even know.”
So they do all know each other. I knew it.
Just a few short seconds later, the front door opened and my eyebrows rose, mimicking Jessie’s questioning expression. We shot up off the ground, anxious to see who else was coming into my house, the sudden movement making me dizzy. My head pounded, and I leaned on Jessie for support, still weak from passing out. We stood still for a second while the fogginess cleared from my head. I had to see what was going on with my own eyes. I had to see Toby. I had to see Frankie again.
And I seriously needed to punch Ariadne.
We quickly made our way into the living room, just in time to hear the door slamming shut once again. Only the three guys remained, so punching Ariadne would have to wait. Damn. Greg stood off to the side of the entertainment center, arms crossed, and Frankie sat next to Toby on the couch.
Frankie. Is. Sitting. Next. To. Toby.
I had trouble processing that part. My boyfriend and my biggest secret … sitting next to each other in my living room. It was all too surreal.
“Where did she go?” I demanded, my fists clenched and ready to fire.
At the sound of my voice, Toby and Frankie both leapt up to come toward me. Frankie stopped midway as if only then realizing Toby was my boyfriend, not him, and Toby was responding as such.
“She’s not here, babe. She just left with Ted.”
Toby took me from Jessie and walked me to the couch, sitting down beside me. Jessie sat down across from me on the loveseat she’d been sitting on with Greg earlier. As I watched her stare at Frankie, a mix of horror and wonder on her face, I noticed a thin veil of sweat on her skin. She was pale. I hadn’t noticed it before because I was so out of it after fainting … and too focused on the conversation in the living room. The perspiration, combined with her blank expression, told me that she was clearly as shocked as I was by the situation, possibly even more so. She tucked her legs up underneath her and absently played with a loose thread in one of the decorative throw pillows.
“Frankie?” I had to talk to Frankie. I’d worry about Jessie in a minute.
Frankie still stood halfway between the couch and the kitchen, but when I said his name, he came forward, stopping directly in front of me.
“Hey, Doll.” He was calm. The understanding I saw in his eyes alarmed me. He didn’t seem shocked by any of this.
I stood and reached out to him, tentatively at first. I touched his face. He closed his eyes and sighed softly as I traced the lines of his cheek and jaw with my fingertips. He’s real. Frankie is real again. It was … it was just too much to believe. Suddenly our arms were around each other, holding tightly. I was scared to let him go, scared to find out it was all a dream. My Frankie was finally real again. Without hesitation, he pulled me even closer, ignoring the people around us—and the fact my boyfriend was among them. With his face in my hair, Frankie breathed me in, inhaling the scent of me as if he had to use all of his senses to greet me. I knew the feeling.
“What’s happened?”
Frankie pulled away and glanced to Toby. They both said nothing, instantly irritating me. This was no time for them to be tongue-tied.
“Toby? One of you has to explain. I don’t know what’s going on here,” I tried to muster a stern, demanding tone, “but we have a right to know. So I don’t care which one of you it is, but someone is going to tell us what the hell is going on.”
Frankie looked at Toby again, his repeated looks for approval telling me Toby was at the bottom of this. I turned to him as well, searching his eyes for any indication that he would tell me the truth. I knew he had to know what was going on. The question was: would he tell me?
It was a shock when it wasn’t Toby or Frankie who spoke, but Greg.
“Where to start. Okay, well, Jess, I know you’re going to be mad, but—”
“Greg?” Jessie’s voice was small, timid, and her eyes were closed. “Please, don’t. It’s obviously bad, so just … just don’t say it.” She shook her head, and I saw that she’d decided she didn’t want to know.
I watched Jessie fall apart before my eyes, and it angered me.
Greg walked over to us and stood at the end of the coffee table. He threw his arms up in surrender. “Look, this is not how any of this was supposed to happen, Jess, but we’re here now, so let’s all agree to be open-minded, okay?”
“Open-minded!” I shot up to my feet, angered by the relaxed way Greg acted, angered by the detached look in Jessie’s eyes and the silence coming from Toby and Frankie, when we clearly deserved answers.
“What exactly do we need to be open-minded about, huh, Greg? Or should I call you Gregor?”
It was a shot in the dark, sort of, but when Greg’s face paled, I knew I’d hit the nail on the head with my assumption. There was some sort of correlation between this Greg—the Greg who dated my best friend—and the Gregor who I overheard Toby and Ted talking about.
Toby stood then, taking my hand and turning to face me. He looked at me sweetly … almost condescendingly.
”Babe? Why don’t we go to your room? You should probably get some rest. It’s been a long day. We can talk about all of this tomorrow.”
I scoffed. He can’t be serious.
“Don’t patronize me, Toby. You can’t just shoo-shoo me off to bed when you don’t want to talk about something! I’m not eight-years old! I want to know what the hell is going on!” I paused, turning toward Frankie. “Frankie?”
“I’m sorry, Doll.”
I gaped at them, my mouth open in shock. Had they lost their minds? There was so much to be discussed! Not only did my boyfriend and Jessie’s boyfriend know each other—and had never even told us they did—but they both also knew about my ghost, and on that note, he wasn’t even a ghost anymore! They thought sending me to bed was the answer? I felt like I’d woken up in a mental hospital!
Oh shit. Maybe I have.
“Jess?” I pleaded.
Jessie just sat there, eyes closed and her head barely shaking from side to side, as she tried to wrestle the events of the night into a neat little explanation. Like that was going to happen. I couldn’t believe I was watching Jessie struggle with this so badly. She was the one person who had always argued on the side of accepting the possibilities of the existence of otherworldly beings. But turn one ghost back into a human and all hell breaks loose.
What am I saying?
Greg placed a hand on Jessie’s shoulder. “I’ll take Jessie home. Toby, we’ll be back in the morning.”
I was speechless. But only for a second.
“Oh, hell no. You’re not taking her anywhere.” I felt like I was the only one capable of making sense anymore, and then I realized my mom wasn’t there. She’ll know what to do!
“
Wait a minute … where’s my mom?”
At the mention of my mom’s name, Jessie let out a little squeak of a whimper.
My stomach turned. I didn’t want any more shocks tonight.
“Toby? Frankie? What’s going on? Where’s my mom? Where are Bonnie and Sharon?”
“They left after you … well, after you passed out, Doll.” Geez, how long had I been out? “And your mom, well—” Frankie paused, clearly searching for the easiest way to say whatever he was about to say. I had a funny feeling it wasn’t good, and his long pause proved me right.
Toby picked up where Frankie left off, direct and to the point as usual. “Your mom is in her room, Ev. She’s having a hard time … coping.”
Coping? Crap.
As I tried to process whatever the heck that meant, Greg helped Jessie off the loveseat and I watched them walk out the door, shaking my head in disbelief. Jessie was clearly in shock, and my mom was in her bedroom, hiding from the world again. Having trouble coping.
How was I the only one keeping it together?
Well, aside from the whole fainting thing, but I was past that.
Frankie mumbled something about going outside for a smoke, leaving Toby and me alone in the living room. I let go of Toby’s hand and started heading down the hallway. When he followed me, I put a hand out to stop him and spoke without turning around to face him.
“No. I’m going to check on my mom.”
“Okay, babe. I’ll be here when you get back,” he said, and I heard the couch squeak when he sat back down. I had the strongest urge to tell him not to be there when I returned, but I bit my tongue. I continued down the hall to my mom’s room, wondering what I would find.
The lights were off, but the soft glow of the hall light illuminated enough of the room that I could see a lump in her bedding. She was completely covered up, hiding from the situation just as I had imagined. I’d seen the behavior before. Just recently, in fact. We were right back to the dark, gloomy solitude of the past month, her momentary desire to survive gone in a flash. I sat down on the edge of the bed and realized she looked like she was probably in the fetal position. She’d slept like that often in the days since my dad had been gone—clutching tightly to his pillow or one of his favorite flannel shirts. I wondered briefly if that stuff even still smelled like him, and my heart pinched.
