See Me

by Michelle Lee

  It has been five days since I heard from Winnie. If I hadn’t felt her energy a couple of times, I would have thought I made the whole thing up. Or dreamed it, or something. I’m not sure my imagination is good enough to have come up with that whole scene that happened. Besides the whole part where I could now feel Winnie’s emotions. I’m not sure how that happened, but it’s a good argument against having made the whole thing up.

  I shook myself and tried to focus back on work. It’s been a struggle these past five days. My brain keeps wandering off leash, and I keep trying to put these puzzle pieces together in hopes that an answer will present itself. All I end up with is more questions. I feel like I am missing important information, and if I had it, maybe I could research it and have options. I’d already resolved myself to agreeing to help her, I just didn’t know how to do it.

  Staring back at my computer screen I noticed I had completely screwed up the report that I was working on. I sighed, tired of looking at spreadsheets with data that didn’t match the train of thought in my head. I deleted my work and started over again, deciding to turn on music to try and lull my brain into a cadence.

  Music usually centered me and allowed my brain to focus on the beat of the music while some other distant part was able to go on autopilot and work the reports that I needed to do. Sounds like opposite for most people because it appears my attention is divided, but it’s not. I sat there for a few moments listening to the song that was on and following the beat of the music.

  Then I lost myself in my reports a while, the music playing in the background and my fingers flying over the keyboard, cranking these things out. I had a good pace going until a voice near my ear said, “The music you listen to is telling.”

  I jumped, swiveling my chair around but didn’t see anyone. “Shit! Winnie? Is that you?” I whispered, even though I was alone in the office.

  I heard her chuckle. “Yes, it’s me. I don’t have to appear for you to hear me. It’s easier and less of a drain on me if I don’t appear. Though if disembodied voices bother you, helping me really won’t work out well. But I admit, that was funny.”

  Willing my heart rate to slow back down I raised an eyebrow assuming she could see me and plastered a not amused look on my face. “I’m happy to be able to make you laugh,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “Is there a reason you are here? You know, this place actually pays me to help them. You, not so much.”

  I heard her draw in a breath, then softly, “You are going to help me?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, resigned. “I hate the thought of people suffering unnecessarily. It does something to me, especially if there is something I can do to help it. To be honest, I have no idea what I can do in the situation, but I am willing to try.”

  “Airy,” Winnie said breathlessly, “thank you so much. I can’t even tell you how much this means to me.”

  “Well whatever I pulled from you last time did a number on me. Even thinking about someone else feeling that didn’t settle right with me. You say this guy has the same feelings? And you are sure he’s alive?” I asked cautiously.

  “Yes, he’s alive, if you can call it that. He’s buried himself under so much guilt and anger, that the sadness can’t run its normal course. And everything he feels leeches out into me where it collects and for lack of better words, weighs me down. It’s become my burden,” she said, her tone melancholy.

  “What makes you think he is going to accept help from me?” I asked, curious as to what her ghostly plans contain.

  “I don’t think he will. But his friends will. They’ve noticed the darkness that’s eating at him, changing him into someone else,” she said, her voice warring between utter sadness and anger, and a strong mix of emotions slamming into me as I tried to feel out what she was saying.

  “Winnie, I can’t…” I started.

  “Someone is coming,” she said quickly, cutting me off.

  I turned back around to face my computer, my brain once again roaming around free range style up in my head. I knew I had no chance of reining it in now, not with Winnie close by and the information she keeps hand feeding me bouncing around up there. I startled as the heavy office door swung open making a lot of noise. I looked over to see a delivery driver dropping off packages before the door slammed behind him on his way out.

  Winnie giggled, “Imagine him walking in to see you talking to yourself.”

  I grimaced, knowing that it was all too possible as my brain tends to focus on the issue on hand when it comes to the “other” stuff. I was going to have to walk around with my ear buds in to make it look like I was talking on the phone if she was going to keep doing this. I smiled at picturing my phone ringing as I was talking to her in a public place with people assuming I was on the phone. Pretty sure that scenario was entirely too plausible.

  “Did you know this building has a ghost?” she asked me.

  “Not for sure, but I figured something was here. Too many weird things happen for there not to be,” I told her.

  “That doesn’t scare you?” she carefully asked.

  “Ghosts? No, not really. I wasn’t afraid of you when I saw you, nor when I figured out that you were a ghost,” I explained, curious to see where she was going with this.

  “Well, that’s true, I didn’t pick up any fear from you, but I wasn’t sure if that was because you had your walls locked down tight. That’s good to know,” she said with little explanation beyond that.

  “Okay Winnie, we are going to have to have some boundaries here. The first is that you can’t just pop in anywhere you want to at any time you feel like it. Work should be off limits unless there is something drastic happening that needs my immediate attention, which I can’t see happening, since I don’t know any of the people involved in this situation. But if you do pop in, please find a way to announce yourself without scaring the hell out of me. I don’t know,” I thought aloud, “maybe a scent or something that allows me to know you are here.”

  Winnie was quiet enough that I wasn’t sure she was still there until I felt around for her. I felt confusion and frustration, but she still didn’t say anything. So, I pulled up the report I was working on and let her think through it. “No one else can see me or hear me though, so I don’t understand why I can’t be here?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t necessarily banning you from being here, but you can’t scare me, and I can’t just be seen talking to no one. Anyone walking in the building can see me, look at the two windows right there. It’s like a fishbowl,” I replied, vaguely waving my hands toward the windows right as people walked into the building and thought I was waving at them. I smiled, looking foolish. “For example, that.”

  “Alright,” she agreed, giggling. “What else?”

  “Full disclosure,” I added, muttering, “you can’t expect me to help without all of the information. I’m losing sleep over this, trying to puzzle it out.”

  “Part of that is because I don’t know exactly what you are capable of yet. I don’t like this, but I am going to have to turn that one around on you. I need the same from you,” she hedged, her voice almost timid.

  “What? Why do you need to know about me? My life has no bearing on this,” I argued, getting hot.

  “That’s where you are wrong Airy. It does. You might have memories locked up in your head that are directly tied to this, but you aren’t aware of it. I need to see. If I find what I am looking for, I can tie this up better for you, get a clearer plan together that we can work on,” she pleaded with me, desperation in her tone. “I can do it while you are asleep, and you’d never know I was in there. I promise you I won’t dredge things up in conversation if they aren’t relevant. It would also give me a better idea of what your powers are like and possibly what you might be capable of that you don’t know about.”

  I felt my face pale at the thought of her in my head. Some things were better left buried. I assumed my back was to her, that was the direction of her voice anyway. I have major trust i
ssues, and rarely let anyone in to those parts of my life. Even the thought of it made me break out in a cold sweat. Logically, I understood where she was coming from, and even agreed with her, but logic wasn’t ruling on this, fear was. For just a split second, I felt the taint of that darkness that I pulled from her and shuddered at the thought of that getting in those places.

  “Winnie, please let this go for right now. I can’t do this here at work. Please,” I begged her, straining to keep my emotions in check, but scared I wasn’t. I felt my hair ruffle and guessed she was playing with it.

  “I will Airy, as long as you promise me, we can talk about it later,” she said gently.

  “I promise,” I said my voice tight with effort and clamping this shit down.

  “You are so beautiful Airy. Beautiful and amazing. I think you need to hear that more often, I’ll talk with you later,” she told me, a wave of comfort washing over me, and then she was gone.

  I stood up shaking, feeling weak and unsteady, a weird tremor running through my veins, and I walked out of the office headed to the bathroom as fast as I could. I pulled open a stall and sunk down onto the toilet with my elbows on my shaking knees, dropped my head down and clasped my hands behind my neck.

  Breathing slow and deep I tried to calm myself, but it wasn’t working. Things were shifting inside me and it didn’t feel good. I braced for the defensive pain that my body seemed to use to break me down, but it didn’t arrive. I sat there for a few minutes until my knees stopped shaking at least and walked out of the stall to the sink. I leaned over and turned the faucet on cold and dampened some paper towels to rub on my face.

  I looked at my reflection, trying to see what Winnie saw. I didn’t see anything amazing, and I’ve never been beautiful. I shook my head, just needing to move on and get through this day so I could go home. Home was safe.

  Chapter Five

  Ronnie sat back in his room and leaned his head against the back of his chair and kicked his bare feet up on his disorganized desk, knocking a stack of papers to the floor. He didn’t care now. He was emotionally wrung out. The meeting with Jax and the guys took everything he had.

  He could feel the call in his blood wanting to revert to his old ways and drink to numb the pain or take something that would make him forget. He knew there was some sort of chemical out there to just wash it all away, even if it was temporary. And he felt the pull to give in strong. It always hit him the hardest when he had to talk about Winnie. That shit was in the past though.

  When he made that promise to take care of Jax in that hospital room, he also made the choice to be sober. He owed her that much, and it was a debt he intended to repay even if it drove him insane. His skin felt like icicles were crawling all over it the need was so powerful. Growling, he pushed the chair back and stomped his feet on the ground, standing up. He needed to move. To do something.

  He paced his room, itching absently at his arms, desperately seeking something to occupy his attention, without causing a commotion in the house he shared with Jax. He knew he needed some energy, so he headed to the kitchen to grab a protein bar and a Coke to wash it down with. The caffeine and sugar might help.

  He headed for the garage they had converted into a gym thinking about using the punching bag. Right now, he wanted to picture his own face on it and beat the hell out of it. He was so pissed at himself for revealing that he believed he saw Winnie in that hospital room. Twelve damn years he kept that a secret, he fumed at himself as he wrapped his hands in tape.

  Twelve years! He punched over and over, picturing his face under his fists as each blow landed. He didn’t even know if Jax had caught that slip during that meeting, but he kept imagining the pain it would inflict on him if he had. Twelve years Jax has been putting himself through hell looking for Winnie. Punch. Twelve years he had been keeping the secret that he felt her, heard her. Punch, punch, punch.

  He felt his skin split over his knuckles with a tear, but he kept going. Hitting, splattering blood all over the bag, his shirt, the coppery scent filling his nose. Tears cascading out of his eyes, his vision blurred, waves of anguish washing through him like a rip tide trying to drown him. Over and over until he collapsed on the floor, giving in to the darkness creeping across his eyes and he let it take him, needing the punishment.

  Jax had called him a sensitive, but Ronnie knew it was more than that. He could see and hear things others couldn’t. He always could, for as long as he remembered. It was one of the things he shared with Winnie, that drew them closer, secrets shared between them that Jax wouldn’t understand. He sat there watching them together and fought back a stab of jealousy. They’d been together since grade school.

  It was always Jax and Winnie, with Ronnie tagging along. At least until high school when Smitty moved to town. Aedan was a year and a half younger than Jax, half-brothers by blood, though they didn’t know that until high school either. But at least then, Ronnie was no longer the third wheel.

  Lately, something had changed with Winnie and Jax though, their bond felt different, but Ronnie hadn’t had a chance with Winnie alone to ask her about it. He wasn’t even sure he should ask. Another stab of jealousy pricked at him and he did his best to tame it down, knowing Winnie would pick up on it sooner or later. He tried to focus on the TV instead of the developing feelings he was working so hard to ignore.

  “Hey Ronnie, can you take Winnie home? Aedan needs me to pick him up,” Jax called from across the room.

  “Sure,” Ronnie grumbled, standing up. He guessed this was his chance to ask Winnie questions.

  “I can walk if you have something to do Ronnie, it’s not that big of a deal,” Winne said.

  “Nope, not a problem. You ready?” Ronnie asked, grabbing his keys off the kitchen table.

  Winnie nodded, picking up her purse with a little hesitation, which Ronnie noticed right away, but didn’t comment on. Jax walked by, gave her a peck on the cheek and kept on going. Ronnie saw her watch him walk away, and he studied her face for any tells on what she was feeling. He’d gotten good at reading her recently. She looked troubled, but he couldn’t tell why.

  Ronnie held the door open for her as they walked out and her fragrance teased him as it had started doing lately, she smelled like fresh rain. He bit back a groan and followed her feeling like a huge ass for even entertaining these thoughts. God what was he thinking? She was Jax’s! Shit, shit, shit! Jax was his best friend!

  “You okay Ronnie? I mean, I know you aren’t, but do you want to talk about it?” Winnie asked him, grabbing his hand.

  He snatched it back from her, feeling guilty at her hurt look. Pretty sure he couldn’t make this worse at this point. “Sorry Winnie. Just frustrated I guess.”

  She let out a huge sigh as she settled in the car and buckled up. “Me too,” she said cryptically. She gave him a half smile and asked, “Girl trouble?”

  There was no way he could hold back the snort of incredulous laughter that bubbled out of him. Blushing furiously, he started the car, grumbling, “You could say that.”

  “Tell me about it, please, I could use the distraction,” she said, looking out her window, but he didn’t think she was seeing anything by her tone.

  “Is everything okay with you and Jax?” Ronnie asked, changing the subject.

  She flinched, and he knew then that it wasn’t. “Just between us, right?” she looked at Ronnie.

  “Of course,” he answered immediately, guilt swamping him.

  “Don’t Ronnie, no guilt. You are allowed to have relationships with others. Jax knows we are friends,” she said, stuttering on the word friends.

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t know we have secrets between us, I don’t think he would be okay with that,” Ronnie said glumly, and turned down Winnie’s street.

  “Pull over at the park,” she demanded.

  Too startled to argue with the turn right there, he just pulled into the parking lot. He sat there gaping at her, and she was out of the car in a flash slamming the door behind
her. Not quite sure what to do, he slowly got out of the car and followed her as she sat on a swing.

  He took a quick look around and noticed that they were alone in the park, but in plain view of anyone walking or driving by. Why that mattered to him, he didn’t understand, but it was something he noticed. He kept quiet as she pushed herself back and forth slowly on the swing, and he decided to sit in the swing on her other side. He watched as her red hair floated around her face, then swung out behind her, catching the sunlight so it glowed like a fiery sunset.

  Caught up in the mesmerizing spell of color he didn’t notice her watching him. “Ronnie, I had some visions that will change everything as we know it,” she said softly, paying attention to the expression on his face and the wary confusion emanating from him.

  He stilled on the swing, focusing on her blue eyes, “Bad ones?”

  “For me, yes,” she whispered. Her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Well that was kind of selfish, but bad in more than one way,” she tried to explain.

  He reached out for her hand, very aware of the public area surrounding them, even though it was still empty. “Want to tell me?” he asked, stroking his thumb along her skin.

  “I do, but I’m scared,” she admitted in a weak voice that was trembling.

  He had never known her to be scared a day in her life. He gulped back fear, his entire body going rigid as thoughts assaulted his mind. Visions of them together shattering, death, a darkness he was too naïve yet to understand. “Who?” he choked out.

  “Mine. I saw my death,” she gasped out as the dam of tears broke. “Not only that, I saw who Jax is supposed to be with. There are bad times coming Ronnie,” she stammered out through her tears.

  “Fuck!” Ronnie shouted, dropping to his knees in front of her as he pulled her off the swing and onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her, rocking them both back and forth.

  She shifted on his lap, wrapping her legs and arms around him in a death grip as she shook with the force of the cries coming from her. He held her, not knowing what else to do. He fought back his own emotions, knowing it wasn’t the time. He just held her sitting on the ground in front of the swings until her cries eased up, his shirt wet.