We Are the Ghosts

by Vicky Skinner

  “We’ll never make it to the front door before them,” Gwen says as we stand in the hallway, unsure which way to go. “There are two of them.”

  We all look at each other, and then Cade grabs my hand. This time his palm is sweating. “Emergency exit,” he says and takes off down the hallway, pulling me along behind him.

  Unfortunately, emergency exit also means that an alarm goes off as soon as we throw open the door, and next thing I know, we’re all racing out of the building with the screeching of the alarms following us as we run down the street.

  Behind us, I can hear a security guard shouting, but we keep running until we’ve reached a shopping strip nearby, round a corner, and crash into a coffee shop. We’re all trying to catch our breaths, and once we have, Cade navigates us to a booth, where we all slouch down into our seats, waiting for something terrible to happen.

  Nothing happens.

  Except the barista behind the counter sending us strange looks. Cade taps his fingers on the table, and then he starts to snicker. And then we all start to laugh quietly. And then we’re all laughing loudly and the barista is sending us even stranger looks.

  “You know, man,” Wes says, “I never took you as the breaking-and-entering and run-from-security type.”

  Cade smirks and shrugs. “There’s a first time for everything.”

  I sit back in the booth, unsure if we’re actually going to get coffee or if we’re just going to sit here, huffing, and my eyes catch on the three of them. Smiling.

  There’s the twist in my stomach again. It feels like someone just strapped a belt around my chest, pulling it as tight as it’ll go, and I think I’m going to puke. I push out of my seat and rush to the door. Maybe security is still looking for us, but I don’t care. I can’t breathe in here.

  The air outside is better, the sky pink with the sunset, and I gasp, trying to make sense of what just happened. I scrub my hands over my face and try to ground myself.

  “Ellie?” I open my eyes and look at Gwen. She’s standing in front of me, her hands stretched out toward me, and I jolt when they touch my elbows. She looks concerned, but I can’t wipe away the way she looked moments ago or back in the auditorium, smiling and laughing.

  Inside my pocket, my phone vibrates, and I take it out, just to have something to do, just so that I don’t have to look at Gwen and try to decipher my feelings about what just happened inside the coffee shop. But my phone doesn’t make me feel any better.

  I have several missed calls and text messages from my mother, and when I scroll through the messages, they’re all anger or disappointment or worry. I’m supposed to be home by now, especially since I wasn’t really expected to leave the house in the first place, and since my car is still in the driveway, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before my mother loses her shit. And then tomorrow, she’ll understand that I’m not just at work or off somewhere she doesn’t know about. Eventually, she’ll figure out that I’m gone, really gone. How long will it take her to put two and two together?

  I turn my phone off and put it back in my pocket.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Gwen’s fingertips graze my arm, and I fight not to pull away. I don’t want to upset her. She doesn’t wait for me to say yes or no, but she bites her lip like she’s afraid I might reject her anyway. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

  I think about lying, but I know she already knows the truth. My eyes find hers, and her shoulders sag, like she was hoping for a different answer. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  I’m not sure how to answer that. I don’t think I’m qualified to say what’s a good idea or a bad idea anymore, but with my body still feeling like I’ve just run a marathon and my head cloudy, there’s no way I want to see messages from my mother.

  On the quiet street in front of us, a familiar pickup truck comes to a stop, and the passenger-side window rolls down. For a minute, I’m afraid I’ve lost my grasp on reality because I find myself looking at Kevin, the same Kevin who brought us here in the first place.

  “You ladies want to go to a party?”

  SIX

  “You want us to just let you take off with some strange guy so that you can go to a party?”

  Gwen sighs and crosses her arms. “You make it sound so dramatic. Kevin is going to give us a ride, you’re going to pick up the car from the mechanic, and then we’re all going to meet up at the party.”

  I stand behind Gwen and let her talk, but over her shoulder, I glance at Cade. He’s watching me, and I can tell by the look on his face that he’s feeling about as confident in our plan as Wes is. The only reason I’m even agreeing to this is because we’re stuck in Shreveport either way. It’s too late now to try and get to New Orleans, so even though all I can think about is getting back on the road, about how if I had taken my own car I’d be halfway to Michigan by now, I agreed to go with Gwen to this party because what else are we going to do here?

  Wes sends Kevin a lethal look, but Kevin just smiles back politely.

  “I’ll make sure they’re safe,” he says, pressing his back to his truck, parked against the curb in front of the coffee shop. “It’s just a party with some college friends. A bunch of them are renting this huge house, so they throw a lot of parties.”

  None of us really asked Kevin anything about himself, so I don’t know if this means he’s in college or if he just likes to hang out with people in college. Either way, the decision has been made, and Gwen and Wes kiss goodbye as I climb into the truck next to Kevin. There’s just one seat in the front, so I’m sitting between him and Gwen, squished up against her to avoid Kevin’s hand as he shifts gears.

  “So, you’re in college?”

  Kevin smiles over at Gwen when she asks the question, and I feel like maybe I’m supposed to be attracted to him, maybe he thinks I am, because he’s supermodel attractive, and when I look at him, he looks a little two-dimensional, like he can’t possibly exist in the real world.

  “Yep. Louisiana State.” He says it with so much pride that I’m almost jealous. Will I be able to answer with that much pride when I tell people I go to Tate? I remember Luke telling me that he got his acceptance letter, how defeated he looked. My chest starts to tighten, the same way it did back in the café, and I try to subtly gasp for breath so that Gwen won’t notice and try to comfort me.

  Gwen glances over at me, oblivious, a little smile on her face, and I think maybe it’s because of the way he said Louisiana. Loos-ee-anna, instead of Lou-ee-see-anna. Gwen smiles at me and then asks another question. She’s much braver than I am. I’m still having trouble making my mouth move.

  “And this party is a Louisiana State party?”

  Kevin pulls up in front of a house, not more than a few miles from the coffee shop where we were, and the three of us climb out. I’m thankful for the fresh air, even if it’s so humid that it’s like trying to take water into my lungs.

  I had my first drink when I was fourteen. One of Luke’s friends had “cool parents” who provided beer and then went out for the night. We sat in the basement with Wes and Luke’s friends, and even though I didn’t want to taste it, I took a sip of Luke’s beer because everyone said I should. It tasted like dog piss and smelled worse.

  This is just one of a million reasons I never enjoyed parties, not the way Luke and Gwen and Wes did. They liked going to parties and drinking and playing games and kissing people because what else is there to do in Eaton anyway? I always tried to play along, but by midnight or so, the party is always a little less fun for the only sober one in the room.

  But when we’re standing in the living room of a huge house, with bodies writhing around us and the music thumping so loud, for once, I don’t want to be the person in the corner, observing, pretending to have fun. That was the old Ellie, and I left her back in Eaton. I shove down the girl who just freaked out in the café and the girl who freaked out in the truck. I want to be different now; I want to be as brave as Luke, as fearless as Gwen, as tough a
s Wes.

  “Where can I get a drink?” I say to Kevin, who’s standing beside me, his hands in the pockets of his tight jeans. I see him exchange a glance with Gwen, and I have no idea what it means or why they’ve decided to be coconspirators in this moment, but it has the immediate effect of pissing me off. “I thought we came here to party!” I shout up at him. In the truck, it was almost too easy to forget how he towers over me, but now I have to crane my neck to look up at him.

  “Yeah, okay,” he says, and then he takes my hand, and I think of Cade, pulling me along through the concert hall, holding my hand at the drive-in. I’m about to pull away, I don’t even really know why, when Gwen takes my other hand. When I glance back at her, her eyes are darting around the room, like any second someone is going to jump out at her wearing a Halloween mask. It was her idea to come to the party. “To get the most out of our experience,” she said, like random college parties are crucial to life. But other than that moment as she huddled over the trunk of Wes’s car, deciding whether to smile at me, this is the first time I’ve seen her look like this, hesitant and unsure.

  My mind travels back to Luke’s funeral, to her in the corner, crying.

  We push through the room. It’s still early, barely after eight, so the party hasn’t gotten particularly rowdy. Perhaps the worst thing is a few couples grinding on the dance floor to a remixed version of “Summertime Sadness.”

  Other than the intense smell of pot, the house in itself is much tidier than I imagined in my head. With the exception of party debris, the furniture is nice and the kitchen counters clear of rotting food or other oddities. When I hear that a bunch of college boys are renting a house together, I imagine the worst.

  Inside the kitchen, coolers are spread across the floor, plus a keg, which I recognize from TV shows, having never actually seen one in real life. People are pushed up against counters, laughing as they do shots or drink beer out of plastic cups.

  “Pick your poison,” Kevin says, gesturing at the coolers that are halfway closed at our feet. I open a few of them and see only cans of beer and wine coolers. Kevin and Gwen watch me until I stand and cross my arms. I motion at the bottles of liquor lined along the cabinet beside us, conjuring every ounce of courage I can.

  “You got anything harder than beer?”

  Gwen glances at me warily but doesn’t say anything.

  Kevin grins and steps over to the counter. “Tequila and rum, if you’re that kind of girl.” Gwen sends him a blank look. She’s constantly scanning the space around me like I’m the president and she’s the head of my security detail.

  “I’ll have a shot of tequila.”

  He nods and smiles like he’s been waiting all night to hear me say this. “Mixed with…?”

  “Mixed with oxygen.”

  His smile falters a little. “You sure?”

  His words grate on my nerves, especially since Gwen is still standing so close to me, like she might have to take a bullet for me at any moment. What is it about me that makes people feel like they need to treat me like I’m twelve, like I need to be protected? “Give me the damn shot.”

  His eyebrows shoot up, and he tips some tequila into a plastic shot glass. I throw it back. Luke taught me how to do shots. He taught me to tip my head back fast so that as little liquid as possible touches my tongue on the way down. Luke was good at drinking. He could down more shots than anyone and not show any signs of being wasted. Once, at a party someone on the track team threw, I caught Luke throwing up in the bathroom and asked him if he wanted to go home. But he just rinsed his mouth out, rejoined the party, and went right back to drinking. Wes had to drag him home that night.

  “Want some?” Kevin asks Gwen.

  “No, thanks,” she says and then bends over to grab a can of beer from one of the open coolers. She immediately pops it open and takes a few gulps while we watch her.

  I take the shot Kevin’s already poured. I knock it back and squeeze my eyes tight as the liquid burns a path down my throat. I shudder. It’s awful for a second, but then my body goes warm, the music starts to sound better, the conversation becomes a little more interesting.

  “I gotta say hi to some people,” Kevin says in my ear. “I’ll catch up with you ladies later.” I get a chill when he does this, but I can’t tell if it’s a good thing or not. Mostly, I just feel a little unsteady, a little overheated.

  As soon as Kevin’s gone, I reach for the tequila bottle he set on the counter and pour myself another shot that I grip in my fist for later. “Let’s find somewhere to go,” I say to Gwen, and we press back through the party. The lights are dim and mostly everyone is starting to slip closer to slightly hammered, judging by the sloppy way they move. Some people are dancing to the loud music while others are just making out in corners.

  We see some people heading for what looks like a door to the basement, and we follow them down. The basement is just a collection of recliners and a couch surrounding a TV, where Call of Duty is flashing on the screen. The people watching the game are passing a joint from person to person, their eyelids heavy.

  “God, I thought Wes’s dad’s Cowboys obsession was bad.”

  I hesitate, reminded again that all this time, Gwen and Wes have been hanging out together while I tried to move on alone, but I can’t let myself dwell on it. My eyes catch on a framed jersey on the wall, and the room starts to explode in black and gold, Saints memorabilia covering shelves high above our heads and scattered across multiple display cases. My eyes are so distracted by the sight when I finally start moving again that I trip on the last step going down into the basement, and some of the clear liquid in my shot glass splashes out onto my hand as Gwen reaches out to steady me.

  “Are you okay?” Gwen asks, but I don’t answer. I know she’s asking because I almost just faceplanted in some stranger’s basement, but all I can hear is the question over and over in my head from everyone: my boss, the cashier at the gas station, the guy stocking produce at J-Mart.

  My head spins, and I think the shots are starting to kick in, but I toss back what’s left of the one in my hand anyway because I don’t want to waste it.

  In the corner of the room, two boys argue over a foosball table, and when I’ve gotten my footing, I realize that one of them is looking right at us. He starts to twist the handles on the table, and I can hear the little plastic ball roll from one side of the table to the other. He smiles up at me. “Want to play?”

  I hand Gwen my empty shot glass, walk over to the foosball table, and grip the handles of the side opposite the guy. Wes’s dad has a foosball table. Or at least he used to. Now I can’t remember seeing it when I was down there last week. I stood at that table so many times, beating Luke until he was a bad sport and didn’t want to play anymore, playing with Wes until he became a different kind of bad sport and started rubbing it in my face that I would never be as good as him, strategically rolling the ball back and forth with one set of players while he and Luke played video games or watched horror movies.

  “Okay, but I should warn you that I’m pretty freaking good.”

  The boy’s smile gets bigger, his eyes scrunching up in the corners. “Put your money where your mouth is,” he says and drops the ball into the table, among our little plastic men.

  I plan to dominate, but when the little ball moves toward my row, a perfect shot for me to take, I spin the handle, slip off it, and stumble right into Gwen.

  “That wasn’t how that was supposed to go,” I mumble as the room tips back in the other direction, righting itself. The boy’s face swims in my field of vision, but Gwen is already pulling me in the other direction, away from the foosball table.

  “Let’s just have a seat,” she says. “You went through those shots a little too fast, I think.” We turn in a circle, looking for a place to sit, but all the seats are taken, so Gwen deposits me on the floor between the two recliners, sitting down across from me, with her back to the other chair.

  I watch the game play out on t
he screen, but it starts to make me dizzy, so I look away, at Gwen. Her eyes are on the TV, her beer grasped in her half-open hand. She doesn’t look like she’s having fun, even though she’s the one that wanted to come.

  “I don’t really get games like this,” she says. “Wes likes them, but it all just seems a little sad.”

  I shrug, stretching my leg out and then moving it back in when I accidentally kick Gwen. “Sorry,” I mutter and then close my eyes, leaning my head against the vinyl behind me, feeling a little more stable even as the chair shakes with the enthusiasm of the guy sitting in it.

  “It’s mindless,” I say. “Comforting.” When Luke left, I spent hours playing Call of Duty in the living room when my parents weren’t home. My mother hated the game, didn’t really like that Luke played it and wouldn’t openly allow me to play at all, but I liked the way it kept me from thinking, kept me focused on what was on the screen, kept my hands busy.

  “I can think of about a million things in the world more comforting than this,” Gwen says. She shifts, and her leg presses against mine, warm through our clothes, and I agree with her. There are more comforting things.

  “Hey,” Gwen says, nudging me lightly until I open my eyes to look at her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I’m not really sure if she’s referring to the fact that I just tossed back three shots of tequila or the fact that my brother just died, but either way, I feel sick to my stomach. The tequila is in charge of my mouth now, and I can’t seem to stay quiet.

  “No,” I say honestly. “Are you?”

  This seems to catch her off guard. She watches me, and when I glance down at the beer can in her hand, I see that she’s shaking, just the tips of her fingers, just slightly.

  She presses her head back against the seat behind her. “The guys should be here already,” she says, instead of answering. Apparently I’m not the only one trying to pretend I’m fine. “Let’s go back upstairs.”

  I want to protest since sitting right here on the cold linoleum feels just right, but she’s already hauling me to my feet and guiding me in the direction of the stairs, which might as well be Mount Everest. She wraps an arm around my waist, and we stumble up the stairs and back into the throng of people. There are almost twice as many as there were before, but I still catch sight of Wes in the crowd, coming toward us with a relieved smile on his face.