Haunt Me

by Liz Kessler

  The memories of the past swirl around in my mind, merging with my determination about the future.

  I grab a pen, snuggle up in my window seat, and start writing.

  Am on the floor,

  two girls with my notebook

  laughing,

  my face hot with tears, head

  down against the heavy rain

  of my words.

  Am in the bathroom,

  tap running,

  watching myself cry

  in the mirror,

  red and puffy and

  worthless.

  Am opening a can

  of chopped tomatoes

  and slicing my finger

  and not knowing

  which red is mine.

  Am hearing, It’s not your fault, Erin,

  staring at the gray carpet

  until it blurs,

  worthless, numb,

  a bottle of pills in my hand.

  Am starting again

  it’s not the same

  it isn’t, it never will be

  I won’t let it

  they won’t beat me.

  They’ve been here two weeks now. Here’s how I know.

  After I woke up and saw her here that first time, things started to change for me. I don’t know if it’s because there’s someone in my room and that’s enough to keep me alert, or because I slept the sleep of the dead for months and I don’t need any more sleep for now, or what. All I know is that I’ve seen the sun go down each night and come back up again in the morning fourteen times since she arrived. And I no longer sleep.

  I think I’m getting stronger.

  I don’t know what that means, either. I’m trying not to hope that it means I’m going to keep on getting stronger and stronger until I come back to life. I couldn’t take the crushing disappointment of being wrong if I let that hope in.

  But I had a thought the other day. What if I’m in a coma or something? What if I do come back? What if I’m not actually dead? Like, say I’m in a kind of halfway house and I have to stay here till, I don’t know, I pass a test or something, and if I do, then I get to come back to my life.

  I mean, I know it’s impossible. But before I died, I’d have said that what’s happening now was impossible, too, so who’s to say I’m wrong?

  No one.

  Mainly because there’s no one to say anything. Because no one can hear me or see me.

  Because I’m dead.

  So yeah, I know it’s a pipe dream. But it’s all I’ve got, and telling myself stories with happy endings is the only way to get through the days without losing it completely. I guess that’s one advantage of having no one to talk to: there’s no one to tell me to get a life.

  Ha. Get a life. If only.

  I’ve been counting each sunrise, forcing myself to remember the numbers as I add one each morning. My brain is slowly getting used to the task. Each day, I force the fog out of my mind, run through everything I know — which isn’t much — and try to add at least one thing.

  Usually, it’s tiny things like Today is Sunday. I learned that yesterday. Her mum stood in the door and said, “Erin, I know it’s Sunday, but that doesn’t mean you need to sleep for the entire day.”

  I spent the rest of the day trying to recall what all the other days are called. I got there in the end. Today is Monday. It’s the start of the week. I remember what that means. It means school; it means work.

  It means everyone leaves the house.

  It will be the first day they’ve all been out of the house. I thought that was what I wanted. To get my room back. But I didn’t. Not really.

  It was too cold in this room without her.

  She’s here, now. Sitting in my seat. I don’t mind anymore. I like it. I like that she understands what a special place it is. I like that she writes there. I want to tell her it’s what I did, too. I wish I could tell her that. I know I can’t.

  I can watch her, though. Pausing and chewing her pen every now and then. I remember doing that, too.

  I want to see what she’s writing. I edge forward.

  I shouldn’t. It feels wrong. I’m not a spy. I’m not a creep. It’s her private world. I remember that feeling; I won’t invade it.

  But then I see something that changes my mind. A drip, falling out of her eyes and onto the page. She’s crying. It melts me.

  Why’s she crying?

  I want to know. I argue with myself for a few minutes. In the end, the nosy side wins out. I mean, it’s not as if she’ll ever know, is it? Not as if I can tell anyone.

  I tiptoe toward her and glance at the page.

  staring at the gray carpet

  until it blurs,

  worthless, numb

  I pull my eyes away from the words. I feel like a thief, an intruder.

  Another drop falls onto the page, and I want to reach out so badly. I want to stroke her hair, console her. She won’t feel me, so I know I can’t bring her any comfort. But her pain mingles with mine; her tears are like a bridge between us, and I want to cross it more than I have ever wanted anything.

  Before I can stop myself, I reach my hand out toward her, even if it’s pointless.

  I know it’s going to freak me out when my hand goes right through her like last time. And I know she won’t feel anything, and I’ll never be able to make contact with her, however much I might want to.

  Which is why I almost faint when I feel the softness of her hair against my palm.

  The only reason I don’t is because, as far as I know, dead people can’t faint.

  “Yaaarrrrgggghhhh!” I leap off the window seat, dragging my fingers through my hair and yanking my shirt off.

  Mum’s up the stairs and in my room in a flash. “What’s the matter?” she asks, her face flushed, her eyes dark with concern.

  I’m bent double, shaking my hair like some old-fashioned headbanger and holding my shirt in my hand. “Spider,” I explain. “Huge one, I think.”

  Mum lets out a breath. “I thought something awful had happened,” she says.

  “Something awful has happened! I felt it in my hair; it was as big as a hand, Mum. Help me get it.”

  Mum comes over and examines my hair, my back, the window, the floor. “There’s nothing there,” she says. “Where were you?”

  “On the window seat.”

  She points at the curtain. “You probably just brushed against this,” she says, wafting it. “There’s no spider, I promise.”

  My breathing has calmed down. “OK. Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” I feel a bit stupid.

  Mum gives me a kiss on my head. “That’s what I’m here for,” she says. Turning to leave, she adds, “Come and join us when you’ve done your homework. Dad says we could all go down to the beach for a walk before dinner.”

  I pull my shirt back over my head. “Mmm,” I say noncommittally.

  Mum leaves me to it without pushing it. She knows better than to do that.

  She softly closes the door behind her. After checking the whole of the window frame and the seat, including under the cushion, I sit back down, pick up my notebook, and read through my poem.

  But I can’t stop thinking about what just happened. How it felt.

  The weird thing is, however much I might have screamed and leaped about and acted as if there was a spider in my hair, a part of me doesn’t actually think it was a spider at all.

  The only trouble is, if I dwell too much on what it really felt like, I won’t only scream and leap about. I’ll go back to the days of wondering if I am in fact going crazy.

  See, what it really felt like — what half of me is convinced it was, if I’m honest — was a hand. A human hand. Touching my hair.

  How sad is that? So desperate for someone to want to reach out to me that I imagine it’s happening when it’s more likely to have been the curtain brushing against me than anything else.

  And you know what’s even sadder? I want it to happen again.

  Ther
e’s a split second when I can’t help myself. I glance at her as she rips her shirt off. Come on. I might be dead, but I’m still a sixteen-year-old boy. Show me any teenage boy who says he wouldn’t do the same thing and I’ll show you a liar.

  Still. It only takes a second for me to feel like some kind of Peeping Tom, so I force myself to turn away. Plus her mum is here too now, and that makes it feel even more wrong to stare at a girl with no shirt on who has no idea I am there.

  They’re talking to each other like I don’t exist, as usual. I’m used to it now. Mostly.

  “Come and join us when you’ve done your homework,” her mum says. “Dad says we could all go down to the beach for a walk before dinner.”

  So calm, so casual, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. Pop down to the beach. Breathe in the salty air. Maybe skim stones at the water’s edge.

  My body actually hurts with how much I long to do those things.

  Her mum’s gone and closed the door behind her. I glance around again. Erin’s put her shirt back on and is sitting down in the window seat again.

  She’s still got her notebook out, but she isn’t writing. She’s running a hand through her hair. Where I touched her.

  It feels like an invitation.

  Holding my breath, I take a step toward her. She closes her eyes.

  I take another step. I’m close enough now that she could probably feel my breath — if I had any.

  Her eyes are still closed. I reach my hand out to touch her now. Do I dare? Does she want me to? Something tells me she does — but that’s almost certainly wishful thinking on my part. Especially considering she leaped halfway across the room the last time I did.

  A moment later, her eyes are open, she’s letting out a heavy breath, and the moment’s passed.

  I sit on the floor, cross my legs, and watch her instead.

  She’s wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt that looks about three sizes too big. All her clothes are too big, in fact. From the brief flash that I just got, her body is nothing to complain about, so I’m not sure why she’s so intent on hiding it under baggy clothes all the time. And hiding her hair under a hat most of the time, too. She’s even come into the room with sunglasses on sometimes.

  It’s as if she’s trying to hide herself from the world; as if she’s living undercover. I’d like to be able to tell her she doesn’t need to do that. I wonder if she’d listen. Maybe you only know how precious it is to be part of the world once your time’s up and you no longer get the choice.

  She’s opened her notebook again.

  I sit and watch her until her mum calls again and she sighs, closes her book, and goes off to join her family.

  A few minutes later, I hear the sound that has become one of my least favorite things. The front door closing and voices on the path.

  I’m alone again.

  But something’s changed. The door slamming behind them does something to me. Flips a switch inside me. Opens a tap. Lets something out that I’ve been trying to contain. Something is itching me from the inside, and I don’t think I can take it any longer. Not alive, but apparently not dead enough to go off and rest in peace, either. What the hell even am I? Will I ever find out? Will I ever make it back?

  How long will I have to stay here in this prison? What do I have to do to get out? Was I so bad in my life that I have to be punished like this? Held in a hellish waiting room? I can’t even remember what I did, who I was — how I died. I can hardly remember any of my life, and the blankness is like being lost in fog. Bits come back to me every now and then. So small. Tiny memories that come in a flash and leave almost as quickly.

  I need to remember more. Need to be part of something. Need somewhere for my feelings to go.

  It’s like a rage, building inside me, threatening to burst out. It’s too big for my body.

  And then, suddenly, among the maelstrom of emotion . . . a memory.

  I’ve felt this way before. This rage. And I remember something else, too. I remember how I’d get it out of me. Songs. Poems. I used to write, just like she does, and somehow the words would carry the emotion out of me. Out onto the page, where it would dissipate.

  I can’t do that now. I can’t even hold a pen in my hand.

  I can’t do anything now.

  The feeling is mounting inside me. It’s like a giant wave out at sea, growing, rising, creeping toward the shore almost in slow motion, until, at last, it picks up the tail end of its energy and crashes against the rocks.

  I look around me. I have to be able to touch something. I want to smash the place up. I need to break something.

  I look around me, hungry now, like a tiger on the prowl.

  What can I throw?

  There’s a glass on her nightstand. Perfect. I want to hear the sound of glass smashing against the wall.

  I stare at the glass, flex my hands, will them to work.

  I reach out for the glass. Using every ounce of strength that I have, I try to pick it up.

  I can’t do it.

  The frustration is almost palpable. I can’t bear it. With it comes the realization that the stronger my feelings are growing, the more I feel capable of making contact with something.

  The more I can’t do it, the more I need to be able to lift this glass.

  I force all my emotion into my hands and reach for the glass again.

  And then . . . I can feel it! I’ve gotten hold of it! I can’t lift it, can’t throw it against the wall, but my hand is around the glass. I’m holding it!

  The glass is shaking in my fingers. The effort is ridiculous, and I have to release my grip.

  The glass topples from my hand, falling onto the floor. It misses the rug and smashes on the wooden floorboards. Water spills all around it. The shards of glass break up my rage into a thousand tiny pieces and I stare at the floor, wondering how I could be such an idiot.

  I kneel down and try to sweep them up, but my hands slide through the glass. I was right! My ability to physically interact with the world definitely seems to be linked to emotion. Now I don’t feel so strongly, I can’t touch the glass.

  Which is great in that I know a bit more than I did before. And not so great in that Erin is likely to cut her feet to shreds next time she comes in here.

  Great move, Joe. Just great.

  Exhausted, I sit down on the window seat.

  Her notebook is still here. If only I could write her a message:

  DEAR ERIN.

  SORRY — I DROPPED YOUR GLASS AND IT

  SHATTERED. PLEASE BE CAREFUL.

  LOTS OF LOVE,

  JOE,

  THE DEAD BOY WHO LIVES IN YOUR BEDROOM

  But I can’t even touch the book. When I try, my fingers slide through it as if it weren’t there. Its pages are like air to me.

  So I just sit there. Useless. Powerless. Weak. Miserable.

  I flop back against the wall. I guess the silver lining is that the amount of energy it’s taken at least means I’m too exhausted to be angry anymore.

  I hurry upstairs after dinner to do some writing. And to get away.

  I’m not saying I don’t like being with my family. I do; of course I do. Just, well, sometimes it’s exhausting having to put on an act all the time. Pretend I’m happy, pretend I’ve forgotten everything that happened over the last five years, pretend I think it could never happen again. Pretend to believe that moving and starting again can really extinguish demons when they’ve set up a permanent camp inside you.

  Phoebe’s in her room, too, probably chatting online with all the new friends she’s made already.

  The floor is wet. How did that happen? I look up to see if there’s a leak in the ceiling. Nope, nothing. Then I notice shattered glass on the floor next to my nightstand. What the hell?

  I pull my door open and stomp out onto the landing. “Phoebe!”

  “What?” she calls from inside her bedroom.

  “What were you doing in my room?” I call across the landing.
r />   “I haven’t been in your room!”

  Mum appears at the bottom of the stairs. “Girls! If you’ve got something to say to each other, can you do it in the same room, please, rather than screaming the house down?”

  Phoebe appears in her doorway. “What d’you want?” she asks.

  “Come and see,” I say.

  She drags herself across the landing, and I point out the broken glass all over the floor. “That,” I say.

  “You knocked your glass over.”

  “Someone did, but it wasn’t me. Phoebe, what were you doing in my bedroom?” I demand. “You are never to come in my room without permission, right?”

  “I haven’t been in your room!” Phoebe insists.

  “You must have been! What else have you been doing? Have you been snooping around in my nightstand? What do you want with my stuff?” I ask, ignoring her protests.

  “Look, I don’t care about your stupid nightstand or what’s in it. I haven’t been in your room, and it’s not fair to yell at me when I haven’t done anything.”

  Phoebe’s face has turned red. Is it because she’s lying or because she’s angry? Either way, she’s not going to admit it, and there’s no point in pushing it. The more I push, the more firmly she’s going to dig her heels in.

  She must have been in my room, though. Who else would it have been? Mum? She hasn’t even been upstairs since we got home. Dad?

  Phoebe must be lying.

  Suddenly I can’t be bothered. I just want to be alone. “Whatever,” I say, waving a hand to dismiss her. I stomp downstairs to fetch a broom and some newspapers. “Just keep out of my room from now on,” I mutter as I pass her room on my way back to clean up the mess.

  “With pleasure!” Phoebe retorts from inside, and I set to work on the glass in my bedroom.

  As I pick up big chunks of glass, sweep up the rest, and dab at the spilled water, I’m hit by an overwhelming heaviness. I’m tired. Tired of everything. Tired of the effort it takes to get through the days. Tired of the effort it takes to be me.