by Sky Winters
“What about the dating profile?”
“That’s a different matter. He’s obviously looking, but maybe it isn’t that bad. Maybe he just has cold feet. Let him look around and chat with the usual lot of liars and freaks that exist behind their computer screens, and he’ll see that he got lucky with a very real girl who loves him.”
“I don’t get why he would even look. He seemed so happy with me. I’m not the one that was pushing for more, not ever.”
“Perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe he thought you weren’t as into him as he was you? He could have been frightened by that.”
“No. I don’t buy that. It doesn’t make sense. He could have just talked to me if that was the case.”
“Yes, he could have, and he should have, but not all men are able to relate on that sort of level. You have to ask yourself that if he can’t even discuss a concern with you, if his answer is just to reach out to other women instead, is that really someone you want to be with?”
“I suppose you’re right, but it’s hard to reconcile what I’m learning with what I’m feeling,” she said, almost in tears again.
“Okay. Okay. Just breathe. You’ve got a long day ahead of you. Try to just focus on work and we’ll meet for lunch and talk through some of this. Maybe he will call in the meantime.”
“He’s supposed to be back today I think. He said a few days, so I assumed three. Do you think he’ll come to see me?”
“I don’t know, honey. If he’s being so evasive, I think that you might have to at least steel yourself for the possibility that he won’t. Just keep your chin up and I’ll see you in a few hours. Okay?”
Mandy nodded sullenly, getting up and following Kellye down the hallway toward her office, but parting ways to go into the women’s restroom to try to gather herself up a bit again. She felt like she could barely move or breath. There was this huge weight that sat squarely on her chest and compressed everything. She walked on legs of jello, pushed forward by the momentum of her racing heart. The anxiety was unbearable. The looming depression insufferable. Combined, they were akin to being in hell.
Chapter Five
Two weeks passed with no word from Cameron. At first, Mandy looked at his social media, trying to find answers, but there were none there for her. The only thing she found online was more pain. While she was devastated, he seemed to be moving forward with life as if she had never existed.
“I was talking to someone about what happened to me and she said I’d been ‘ghosted’,” she told Kellye over their usual work salads.
“Ghosted?” Kellye said, an eyebrow raised.
“Yes. Apparently, it’s become pretty common these days. People just disappear. There’s no formal split or decision to not see one another. One just decides to be done with it and goes away.”
“That’s awful!”
“You’re telling me?” She stabbed a piece of lettuce with her fork. “It’s maddening. I went through days of worrying about him and then of beating myself up about anything I could think of that I might have done to make him do something so drastic. Turns out, it’s not that uncommon for men to do that these days. I don’t understand it. It’s so hurtful and disrespectful to just treat someone like they never mattered.”
“Do you think he was lying the whole time?”
“I don’t know, Kellye. I honestly don’t know. The way he was with me, the way he looked at me, even the way he touched me… I felt like he loved me. I never doubted it for a moment. If he was lying, he’s very good at it. Do you think he’s some sort of sociopath?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only ever heard you talk about him and you always talked about him in a positive way. I never met him.”
“See, that’s the thing too. I was so blind to some things. Even though we were together all the time, he kept me separate from other portions of his life. We never went out with his friends or with mine. The only people I ever met from his life were people we just happened to run into while we were out and then that one trip to his parents’ place. He stayed at my place a lot, but he always brought a bag and took it back out with him. The only things he ever left were small things of no consequence. You know, disposable razors, shampoo…things like that.”
“Do you think he was planning to do this all along?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it. How someone could be so loving one day and then so cold and callous the next is beyond me. I just wish I knew what was going on in his mind. I don’t do well without closure.”
Kellye nodded, taking a drink from her water before responding, “None of us do, especially not when it’s such a bizarre situation. Common or not, it just seems weird to me.”
“Weird doesn’t begin to cover it. He might as well have just yanked my heart out and stomped on it.”
“He’s a coward, Mandy. You deserve better.” She smiled suddenly. “I know what you need. Fun! You need to just get out and enjoy yourself for a while. How about you come to my sister’s costume party next weekend? It’s Halloween. You can get all dressed up and be someone else for a night.”
“I don’t know. The last thing I feel like being right now is social.”
“That’s exactly why you should go. You’re never going to get back out there unless you force yourself to do it. No sense moping around the house when you can be out having fun, no strings attached. Just friends, food, and lots of good booze!”
“I’ll think about it.”
“No. Say you will go.”
“Fine. I will go. Okay?”
“Mean it?”
“Yes. I’ll go.”
“Good girl. I’ll send you the address and all that later. You can go with me tomorrow after work to find a costume. A Halloween party is just the thing for you since you’ve just been ghosted,” Kellye said with a half grimace/half laugh.
“Not really funny yet,” Mandy said, laughing despite herself.
“I know, honey. I know. It got at least a little chuckle from you though, so that’s improvement.”
“I’ve got to get back to the office.”
“Yeah, me too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Yep. See you then, Kellye.”
The following afternoon, the two of them stood in a small shop trying on different Halloween costumes. Mandy laughed as Kellye walked out of a stall wearing a latex Catwoman suit that was so tight she could barely move her legs. By all accounts, she should be jealous of Kellye’s perfect figure. She was model thin with long blonde hair and big blue eyes. Heads turned wherever she went, but the truth was that she was so down to earth and sweet that you couldn’t hold her good looks against her. She really didn’t even seem to realize how she looked.
“How in the hell do people do those stunts in the movies wearing this thing?”
“I have no idea. It looks amazing on you though.”
“I’m glad, because I’m not sure that I am going to be able to peel it back off without taking half my skin with it.”
Mandy laughed. “Surely it isn’t that bad.”
“No? Just wait. I may not even need a costume when I get this thing back off. I’m going to have huge patches of missing skin and look ghastly enough to just go out as myself!”
“I doubt that.”
“I swear it’s true. I can’t wear this to the party. If I get sweaty dancing, it will get trapped in here with me and I’ll drown in my own perspiration. Help me get this bastard back off.”
Mandy laughed as she followed her back to the dressing room and helped her peel the costume off. Kellye wasn’t kidding when she said it was tight. Mandy marveled that she had been able to get it on in the first place.
“Let’s go as Laurel and Hardy,” Mandy suggested.
“What? No way. We have to go sexy. I mean, I need a man like I need a hole in my head. I’ve got way too much going on to deal with idiots like everyone I know is finding out there, but you need to look devastating. I want every man in that party looking at you.”
“No. I don’t think so. Even if I could pull off getting that kind of attention, I’m just not interested in meeting anyone.”
“Good. That’s when the unexpected happens,” Kellye said, slipping back into her clothes. “Now, let’s go get you something hot.”
An hour later, they walked out with two costumes in hand. Kellye had opted to go for gruesome, selecting the makeup and tattered clothing to go as a zombie stripper. Mandy had gone more historical, yet risqué, with a dark colored medieval executioner’s outfit. The bustier revealed more of her breasts than she would like, but Kellye had insisted she buy it and she did have to admit that the hourglass shape it gave her looked fantastic.
“You’re going to blow them away in that,” Kellye laughed as they checked out and made their way down the street, stopping in a nearby pub for a couple glasses of wine.
“We’ll see about that,” Mandy said, laughing in spite of herself. She had to admit that she was beginning to feel better. Cameron had left his mark on her, a scar that wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. She didn’t know when she would be able to trust a man again, but she had accepted that he was gone and that there was no rhyme or reason to it that she would ever know. She had to either accept it and move on with her life or continue wallowing in the self-pity he had left in his wake.
***
On the night of the party, she took her time getting dressed. Her long dark hair hung in a single braid down her back. It was interwoven with strips of ribbon bearing the likeness of the grim reaper and his signature sickle. Soft sprigs of loose hair hung breezily around the edges of her faces, softening it a bit from the severe braid in back. She applied her makeup in a gothic style, with heavy eyeliner that brought out her bright green eyes and dark red lipstick that enhanced her full lips.
“You look alright, Mandy,” she said to her reflection in the mirror. Kellye had been right about this being the perfect costume. It did look fantastic on her. She felt good about herself for the first time in weeks as she walked out of her apartment and made her way down to the subway, garnering several catcalls along the way. By the time she arrived at the party, she felt almost human again, but it would be short lived.
“Oh, wow! Look at you! You look fantastic!” Kellye squealed as she walked through the door. “You’re going to have these boys eating out of your hands.”
“Or I’ll have their heads!” Mandy said playfully.
“Yikes! Come on and I’ll introduce you to some folks. There are some other people here from the office, but it’s mostly my sister’s crowd.”
They roamed around the room meeting people even as more poured in the door. At some point, Mandy became engrossed in conversation with a writer for a different newspaper. He wasn’t someone she would be interested in, but he was nice enough and she was enjoying their discussion of common interests when she happened to glance up and see a familiar face. She stopped speaking mid-sentence.
There, in the middle of the makeshift dance floor, was Cameron. He was wearing a sheep’s costume, but the head was only a hoodie style, revealing him in his wolf form beneath it. It took a moment for it to sink in due to her initial shock at seeing him but then it did. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Just the idea of that angered her, as it was too close to the truth for her taste. With him was a woman, also in her wolf form, but wearing a Little Bo Peep costume. Mandy’s stare was broken as the two of them became entangled in a hot kiss, practically dry humping one another in the middle of the dance floor.
“Mandy? Are you okay?” the man asked.
“What? Oh. Yes. It’s just maybe a bit hot in here. I need to get some air,” she told him, hurrying away toward the sprawling deck beyond the double doors in the large den. Without waiting for a response, she made a beeline for the outdoors and didn’t stop until she was in a quiet corner of the backyard. She stood there trying to catch her breath, feeling as if she had been punched in the stomach and might be sick at any moment.
“Are you okay?” she heard a male voice ask from behind her.
Mandy turned to find a man completely covered by a sheet with holes cuts for his eyes, nose and mouth. She could see a pair of nice Italian loafers jutting out from beneath the bottom edges of it.
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
“You don’t seem like you’re fine. Want to talk to someone?”
Mandy looked him up and down. “I don’t even know you.”
“No, but you could, in a matter of minutes even. I’m not that complicated. I mean, look at my costume. I went all out on it and everything. This is my best sheet!”
Mandy laughed, despite herself, but she still wasn’t about to tell her problems to a complete stranger. She nodded woefully and began to walk away.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t,” she said, her voice trailing off as she made a hasty retreat toward a nearby bar manned by Kellye’s brother-in-law, Mickey.
“Well, look at you,” he said cheerfully as she approached. “If I weren’t a happily married man, I’d confess to anything just for a few minutes in your noose.”
“Been mixing a few of those drinks for yourself, Mickey?” she laughed.
“Meh. Perhaps, but you do look lovely. What can I get for you?”
“Something potent. Poison Hemlock, maybe.”
He grimaced. “Oooh. Rough night?”
“More than just one night. Things have gone to complete shit lately.”
“Oh, I see. You can yak it up with the bartender, but not a ghost. How do you know that I’m not the ghost of someone you executed? You might owe it to me,” came the voice of the guy in the sheet as he walked up beside her.
“Weston? That you under there,” Mickey interjected.
“Yeah, man. What’s up?”
“Not much. Just having a good time. You enjoying yourself, buddy?”
“Mostly. I was trying to get this beauty beside me to give me the time of day, but she is apparently afraid of ghosts. I knew I should have come as a superhero, damn it.”
Mandy laughed as Mickey shook his head woefully at the ghost.
“Man, you’re just trying too hard. You can’t pick up chicks in a ghost costume. I don’t care who you are. Now, if you had come to the party in your natural state, your animal magnetism would have won her over. Seems now that you are out a bed sheet and out of luck.”
“Story of my life, my man. Story of my life…and death, apparently.”
“I tell you what. I like you, so I’m going to help you out,” Mickey told him, handing Mandy the drink he had been mixing. She had no idea what was in it, but if it numbed the pain she felt at this moment, she’d probably have another when this one was gone. “Mandy, this is Weston Parker. He’s a partner at my law firm. Weston, this is Mandy Caldwell. She’s an editor for the Daily Sun. Take your drinks and go get to know one another better,” he finished, handing the ghost a beer.
“I knew I liked you best. I’ll add this to my ‘reasons to make you a partner’ list,” Weston told him.
“I do what I can,” Mickey said with a wide smile before turning to take a drink order from a couple dressed as Bonnie and Clyde…after they had been shot more than fifty times. They were gruesome to look at, even if it was a hilarious idea.
“Jesus Christ,” Weston said as she got a glimpse of them standing there, guts and gore dripping off their bloody costumes. They were eerily realistic looking. So much so that they only added to Mandy’s emotional nausea. She turned to walk away and Weston followed, still chuckling to himself a bit.
“They were hideous,” she said, stopping by a bird bath in the backyard to glance back toward the bar.
“She speaks to me!” Weston said enthusiastically.
Mandy looked at him sheepishly. “I’m sorry if I was rude before. I’m just having a really bad day today. I thought coming to this party would help me out of a funk I’ve been in lately, but it only made things worse.”
“Let me guess. Man troubles?”
“More like little bo
y troubles from the way he has acted,” she said dismissively.
“Well, you know, the best revenge is living well. That’s what they say anyway. Why not let me take you out and show you what a great time you can have without him?”
Mandy smiled at him. “Thanks, but I’m just really not in the right frame of mind to date right now. It’s not you or anything, I’m just not interested in seeing anyone.”
“He must have done some number on you,” he replied, his voice sympathetic.
“Yeah. Anyway. It was nice meeting you, but I think I really need to get out of here before this night gets any worse. I hope you have a great evening.”
“Very well, Mandy. It was a pleasure to meet you. I’ll let you be on your way.”
“Goodnight, Weston.”
“Goodnight,” he told her, watching as she sat her glass on a nearby table and walked away.
Mandy wove her way carefully through the party. It was packed in both the yard and the house. She caught a glimpse of Cameron and his date, both of whom had now reverted to their human forms. He was still in the sheep costume, but she was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Mandy couldn’t help but notice that the girl looked very much like herself. That just made everything seem more confusing to Mandy. Why would he choose someone who looked so much like her when he hadn’t wanted her?
Walking home in a daze, Mandy made her way up to her apartment, shedding the costume and washing off the heavy makeup. She looked at herself in the mirror for a few moments and then climbed into bed, crying herself to sleep, something that seemed to have become a very unfortunate habit of late. It was getting old, but the pain was still so fresh to her. She didn’t know how to get past it. It only hurt more to know that he’d had no problem moving on. Although, since he was able to cut her off so easily, she probably never really meant anything to him in the first place.
Chapter Six
By the following Monday morning, she had decided not to let herself spiral downward any farther into the depression she’d been falling into for weeks. If she had meant so little to Cameron, why was she wasting her emotions on him? Hadn’t she cried enough over a man who was an asshole at best and a sociopath at worst? What sort of person promises you the world and then just suddenly disappears without a word? The more she considered what he had done to her, the more her disappointment turned to disdain for him.