Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 52976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
I squint at her. “Was that … really all just a joke earlier …? About the … the death I’ll cause …?”
Mrs. Shaheen studies me uncertainly for a long, long time, as if still waiting for me to grow horns and attack her. But she slowly lowers her cane at last, mutters a defeated, “I can’t help you,” then turns away and walks past a curtain into a back room.
That’s all we get.
I guess I’ll have to live with that.
Neither myself nor West can make any sense of it as we make our way back up the street to our apartment. Everything feels strange and faraway, like a dream. I might have just destroyed every last bit of trust Mrs. Shaheen had in me. She thinks I’m some kind of dark, troubled child now who tampers with the unknowable powers of the dead.
“Is she right?” I ask as I stroll along.
What do you mean?
“About it being dangerous, whatever we’re doing? I never thought it had a consequence.”
She’s just trying to scare us.
“But what if we are tampering with something we don’t know? Some kind of … creepy, scary thing …?”
Dude, you know as much about this as I do. There’s nothing weird happening other than I feel your urge to scratch your balls. Go ahead, scratch them.
“Remember a year ago, around Halloween?” I ask him. “You felt some kind of strange sensation …? Like being sucked down a waterslide while standing still?”
Of course I remember that.
“What if there’s something happening to us we can’t see? What if that sensation you had is a part of it?”
We can play the what-if game until we’re blue in the balls. I don’t care. Madame Sea Salt doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
I roll my eyes. “It’s ‘blue in the face’, not—”
Don’t take anything she said seriously. We’re fine.
I let out a sigh of frustration. “You’re so damned careless sometimes, West, you know that? Nothing at all seems to matter to you except your needs. Who cares that you might be using my life like a power strip? Big deal. Who cares if Griffin is damning his soul to Hell.”
You don’t believe in Hell.
“I meant it figuratively. Maybe Mrs. Shaheen was right. Maybe ghosts are just inherently selfish parasites who don’t give a damn about anything but themselves.”
You don’t mean that. I can feel it.
“The only thing you can feel is an itch I refuse to scratch in my pants.”
We’re just a block and a half away from home. I’m gonna need a fucking nap before greeting Byron’s dads this afternoon. It won’t be much longer before I have no privacy at all, when my parents and friends swarm in on me for the big day.
I reach into my pocket. That’s when I remember all over again that I’m still waiting on a replacement phone to arrive. A flash of the bus rushing past my face. The very real, very icy fear in my heart. My life could have ended in that moment. Byron and my family could be attending a funeral on Halloween instead of a wedding.
Fine. Let’s try it.
I stop at the corner to wait on the light. “Try what?” Then I feel his thoughts at once. “Wait, no, no.”
I don’t want to be a selfish parasite or whatever. If living within you is, like, eating your mortal soul like a meatball sub or something—
“There’s no telling where your spirit might end up if we separate out here in the open, West.” I feel the very real and inescapable fear he’s experiencing right now. I’m a thousand times more influenced by all of his emotions while he’s inside of me, as if they’re my own. “We can’t be reckless about this.”
I know. It’s a risk we’ll have to take. I can’t leave the apartment without you. So what happens when you let go of me outside of it? Will I just reappear there in the middle of your living room? Will I end up wedged between buns in a hotdog stand across the street?
“Exactly. We don’t know. And—”
And we won’t know unless we try.
I clench shut my eyes, frustrated. There is so much we still don’t know, even after two years. The last thing I want to do is hurt West.
I don’t want to hurt you either, bro.
“But what if you shatter into a million pieces?” I ask. “I can’t risk that. You mean too much to me.”
Aw, your sweet words are giving me a ghost boner.
“I’m being serious.”
Just let me out and see what happens. Do it before I change my mind. I’m … I’m tired of being afraid of it.
“I said I’m not doing it!” A lady nearby peers at me with concern. I point at my ear apologetically. “Stressful phone call. Sorry. Not yelling at myself.”
You don’t even have one of those Bluetooth thingies in your ear, dummy.