by Jill Patten
I sat quiet; patiently waiting for him to tell his story before I jumped up and punched him in the throat.
He exhaled deeply before continuing. “First, you have to understand that I didn’t know exactly what was happening when I came to after you found me. Everything was still a blur, and not only has your world been flipped upside down, mine has too.”
Okay, maybe I wasn’t going to wait for him to finish. Waiting for him to get to the meat of the story was like watching a sloth move a foot up a tree. “Can we speed this up?” I interrupted rudely.
“Look, if you don’t want to hear my explanation, I can leave and never come back. It doesn’t really matter to me either way. I’m trying to fix this but you’re making it difficult by acting like an unreasonable ass about it.”
Ballsy. I had to give him props.
Connecting my thumb and forefinger, I slid them across my thinned lips, made a twisting motion at the end, then tossed the imaginary key over my shoulder.
He paced back and forth as he picked up where he left off. “When you rescued me, that wasn’t the first time those guys had attacked me. I’m still trying to recover all my memory to remember why they were ever after me. You see, several years ago, five guys, powered with insurmountable strength chased me down to the exact spot where you found me, and beat me to death,” he paused, watching me with a blank expression. He was no longer pacing to and fro like a caged lion.
I patiently waited for him to continue with his story. “I’m not interrupting. You can continue.”
“Did you just hear what I said?”
“Yes.” Duh, did he think I was in lala land or something?
“No, I mean, did you really hear what I just said?” he paused, watching me carefully for a response. “Think about it.”
I thought back to his words and tossed them around in my mind, looking for a clue. Finally it hit me like a punch to my heart. My breathing hitched and cold chills broke out all over my skin. …beat me to death. It couldn’t be. No. It wasn’t possible. My hands shook uncontrollably. Every nerve in my body buzzed as fear seeped in.
“Are yo—,” my mouth was suddenly dry and my throat started to contract, “are you saying you’re…dead?” I could barely get the last word out. It got stuck somewhere around my uvula thingy.
Aaron nodded slowly, eyes wide like he was waiting.
There’s a fucking dead man in my house. The words played on repeat in my brain. The contents of my breakfast were quickly making a returned trip back up my esophagus. I jetted in a mad dash for the nearest bathroom. Flashes of that night came to mind as I heaved into the toilet. More flashbacks flickered through my mind like an old flip book.
Like I had so many times before, I felt Aaron standing behind me. His presence was ghostly. How ironic.
“Lennox, I’m sorry. Please understand,” he said, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder.
“What’s there to understand? I’m alive. You’re dead. For some crazy reason I can hear you, see you, and touch you. Can you explain that to me? Because I sure can’t wrap my head around it. If people hear about this, they’ll send me to the fucking insane asylum, because apparently I’m a fucking freak!” I shrieked. My head began beating to the drum of my heartbeat. And the ache only intensified with every purge.
As my head was hovered over the toilet again, I felt Aaron gather my hair from my neck and face, then hold it away from my regurgitated breakfast. I closed my eyes at his subtle gesture. It was calming. “I’m truly sorry, Lennox,” he apologized with a soothing voice. “I wasn’t planning on staying here this long. If only I’d left sooner…,” he trailed off. “I never meant for this to happen. Once I know you’re okay, I’ll leave and you can pretend all of this never happened,” he said, handing me a hand towel.
Feeling as if my stomach had finally settled, I wiped the sweat from my face then immediately rinsed the horrible ordeal from my mouth. I walked out to the living room and wedge myself into the corner of the couch. My body shivered, and Aaron draped an afghan blanket over me. “The problem isn’t you, well, it is, but the problem is… I can see ghosts. That’s not normal, Aaron. I’m not a medium. Shit like this only happens in Hollywood. If you weren’t standing before me right now, I’d call bullshit on your story.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” he paused, “I think you saved my life. Literally.” It looked like he wanted to smile, but his mouth was too sullen to move.
“How?” I asked, perplexed.
“Remember when I said the first time I’d been attacked was several years ago?”
I nodded, not really remembering anything he said other than he was dead.
“Well, I was brutally attacked and left for dead. No one found me until it was too late.” A gasp fled from my mouth. “For the last several years, I’ve been stuck between worlds. I’ve traveled all over this country trying to figure out how to pass over. On the anniversary date of my death, no matter where I am, I always come back to the exact place, reliving the beating all over again. Only difference is this time, you saved me. After the day of my death ends, I’m right back to where I started. When you saved me, you were able to see me, talk to me, touch me. Nobody has been able to do that. So, the next day when I awoke and found myself here, I knew something changed. My dead life wasn’t playing on repeat anymore.” Invading my personal space, he sat down on the edge of the couch by my feet.
Cocking my head, I asked, “So, what does all of this mean?”
“That I don’t know yet. I’ve been trying to figure it out. Every day my body changes. My wounds healed quickly, but it was strange how I even had them in the first place. This time, after the twenty-four hours from my actual death, all my injuries disappeared.”
Puzzlement etched above my eyes. “What? What exactly are you trying to figure out?”
He drew in a deep breath and it had me wondering if he even needed to breathe. Was it something he did out of habit to look human or was it a part of this absurd new person he was becoming. “I’m going to be revealing some shocking information to you, so please, whatever you do, hear me out before you act on your emotions.”
“You mean there’s more? Being dead isn’t enough?”
He shook his head and laughed, but it wasn’t one filled with humor. It was those kind you give when you’re so nervous you’re afraid your tongue will tie up in a knot and your lips will twist into a figure eight.
“In all fairness, I knew you had a gift. I’ve known since the day your tire blew out during that ugly storm. I had heard from the other spirits who have already crossed over that some people have the ability to see the dead, but I never believed them…until you,” he nodded to me. “Years. It’s took me years to find you.”
It creeped me out knowing he’d been spending years looking for me. And what creeped me out more was he knew who I was that day in the rain. He tried warming up to me. He was trying to get into my good graces by helping me. He’d had an agenda. I brought him back to my house and nourished him because not only had I feared him, I’d felt guilty too. He made me feel guilty. He did this purposely, and I fell right into his trap. What a fool I am. I didn’t know who to be pissed at more, him or myself. I wanted to kick him so damn bad.
“I know it’s a lot to take in…,” he trailed off. “Are you mad?”
“Am I mad? Am I fucking mad?” I asked, poking myself in the chest, and raising my voice with each question. “Damn right I’m mad. I’m fucking livid,” I said simmering. “You manipulated me. And for all I know, you’ve been fucking with my brain all this time.” I was so furious, my vision turned red.
He held his palms up as if to block me from attacking him. “It’s not like that, Lennox. You have to understand where I’m coming from… what I’ve been through. Finding you has been a godsend. You’re like my own personal angel.”
“I’m nobody’s angel. I’m far from being an angel. I walk along the line of the devil most days,” I gritted through clenched teeth. Jerking th
e blanket off of me, I got up off the couch and threw it in his face. “Don’t confuse me. My mind hasn’t functioned normal since you’ve been here and something tells me you’ve had a hand in that too.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“Yes…no…I don’t know what I want you to do, maybe you should pull your strings and have me answer you accordingly,” I replied brazenly.
Aaron remained calm, obviously avoiding my smart ass remarks and it only fueled my anger.
“You know what? This is too much. My head can’t take anymore,” I said with my hands over my ears. “I don’t want to hear any more crazy talk today. I’m going to my room and I don’t want to be bothered by you or anyone else the rest of the day,” I hissed, as I walked upstairs.
My emotions were being pulled in a million different directions. My life used to be normal, and since Aaron arrived, it had been a mess, one event right after another. How was I just seeing dead people? What changed in the universe to bring me closer to those deceased? As all those questions flashed through my mind, the most important person popped in unannounced — my mother. Did she have something to do with it? Was she trying to reconnect with me via Aaron?
Before I turned the corner, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had to know. There could be a benefit from caring for him after all. Turning around, I ran downstairs.
“Aaron, have you seen my mother?” I asked desperately. I needed to know. What if I was finally able to have her again? We could catch up on all the years we missed being mother and daughter.
He shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, Lennox but I wouldn’t even know her if I had saw her. There are so many random people floating about on the other side. I try to stay away from most. The only time I interacted with them was while I was trying to figure out how to cross over. I haven’t even seen any of my own deceased family.”
“What if I showed you a picture? Do you think you could hunt for her then?” I didn’t know it before but now it was all coming clear to me; he was placed here to help me. God brought him to me so I could find my mother.
Without saying a word, I rushed upstairs to my bedroom and grabbed the picture of her I kept in the top drawer of my nightstand. Running back down, I shoved the picture in his face. “Look at her. Does she look familiar?” Her hair was fiery red with soft curls that ran just past her shoulders. In the picture, she didn’t wear the pale porcelain skin most redheads had. Her skin was a light shade of brown, blushed by the brightness of the sun. She was in our backyard sitting on a patchwork quilt I still have to this day. I was under a year old, crawling off the blanket onto the grass. The picture captured her in the midst of laughing. She had an incredible smile. My father had always said when I was happy he could see her beautiful features in me. It always warmed my heart knowing she was still alive through me.
Aaron shook his head, “I’m sorry, Lennox, but I can’t place her. There are just too many people wandering around out there. Some are even faceless. I think those are the ones who’ve been stuck here the longest,” he said, referring to his world. Oh god, what if she’s one of them? What if she’s no longer recognizable?
“Can you try, though? Can you please help me find her?” I pleaded. “I don’t remember her. I’ve gone twenty two years without a mother and I just want to see her, touch her, tell her how much I love her and miss her. I never got the chance to tell her those things.” My chest hurt. There was an unfamiliar ache deep within. I hadn’t felt this type of pain for so long, and I didn’t want it slivering back into my life. Turn the feels off, Lennox. Push it back into the black hole residing in your mind.
He gently took the photo out from my grasp. “I can’t make you any promises, but I’ll see what I can do.” He watched me intently a few seconds before walking back to his bedroom. He glanced at me once more as he shut me off from the world he’d just introduced me to.
Chapter 14
I didn’t want any crazy sex dreams tonight or a maniacal killer threatening my life. All I wanted was my mother. To see her face to face. To hear her voice in person. To tell her how much I loved her and missed her. All my life, I had more than all the girls in town, but the one thing I wanted most, I didn’t have — my mom. My father did everything possible to make up for my loss, including marrying a bitch, and I loved him for all his efforts, but it never filled that void in my heart.
Tired of tossing and turning, I got out of bed, opened the bottom cabinet to my TV stand, and plucked out a random DVD from my “Mom” stash. I sat back on my bed with my back resting against the headboard and watched my mother as she gave me my first bath. The only memories I have of her are from the videos my father made. It was strange how even though my mother wasn’t here, her presence surrounded me when I watched her on TV. A feeling of contentment always came over me.
I watched a variety of home videos before falling asleep. There were no dreams about my mom or of anything else. I’d preferred my mother to join me in my sleep, but I shouldn’t expect it. She’d never visited me in my dreams before. It was nice waking up from a dreamless night. It seemed like anymore, those were few and far in between.
After placing all the DVDs back in their righteous place, I meandered downstairs in search of Aaron. I had an agenda for the day, and he was my number one partner in crime. When I didn’t find him in the kitchen like I usually did every morning, I opened the door to his bedroom.
He was lying on the bed with his eyes closed. “You don’t have to feign sleep anymore now that I know you’re dead.” Well, that came out a little harsher than I’d intended.
His eyes flashed open and I was met with a deep pool of green. “I’m not pretending, I’m just thinking. Besides, if I laid here with my eyes wide open without moving it would freak you out. Then I really would look dead.” He sat up and spun around so his legs hung off the side of the bed.
I huffed. “Yeah, please, never do that.”
Aaron wasn’t acting his usual self this morning. He was still in bed past eight o’clock. Our morning routine I’d started to enjoy was off-kilter, and I wasn’t sure what had Aaron in an odd mood. The knowledge of me knowing his secrets should relieve him, not make him uptight.
He was leaning over with his elbows propped on his knees and his face resting in the palms of his hands. He rubbed over the daily scruff he hadn’t yet shaved before turning to look at me. “So, what plans do you have for me today?” Okay, that was creepy. How does he know I need his ghostly magic for the day?
Feigning innocence, I replied, “What makes you think I have something planned for you?”
He cocked his head to the side and stared at me from the corner of his eye. “Umm, maybe because I’m dead, and I have telepathic abilities,” he said wincing.
My eyes widened. “Are you shitting me?” From the huge smile on his face he seemed to sense my fear. Or, maybe he knows what I’m thinking as I’m talking to myself now. Shit. Nothing is private around here anymore.
He laughed, clearly amused by my panic. “If you’re worried about me reading your mind since the day I arrived, then rest your soul, because I don’t pick up on the brainwaves all the time. It’s sporadic.” He shrugged as if it were just an ordinary topic we were discussing over morning coffee. He continued explaining before I could bombard him with questions. “If I’m in a relaxed atmosphere, the thoughts come to me clearly. But most of the time I just pick up an occasional word here and there. Sometimes, I hear nothing at all.”
I stood there with my mouth agape. Could he floor me any more than he already had? I swear from the day I found him, nothing in my life seemed real any longer. It was almost as if I’d had some horrific accident, fell into a coma, and existed in a world that really didn’t exist. Perhaps, this was how Alice felt when she fell into that black hole. “Are there any other magical powers of yours I should be aware of?”
He watched me for a few seconds as if he was contemplating on how to answer, and then smiled broadly. “No,” he said, shaking his head, “I think th
at pretty much covers it. It’s enough don’t you think?”
I blew a quick breath through my nose. “Uh… it’s more than enough. I am curious though, if you’re dead, how have you been able to eat? And you don’t need oxygen so why do you breathe?”
He pinched his lips between his thumb and forefinger and paused a moment before replying. “I made you believe I ate. I would hide or toss out the food without you knowing.”
Was it possible? I guess I never really paid attention when we ate together. “But what about the soup I fed you? I watched you eat it. I’ve seen you drink coffee almost every morning.”
He shook his head. “I actually ate the soup because I was in the twenty-four hour period of my death. I’m alive during that time. As for the rest of the times, that’s what I wanted you to think. I made out like I was swallowing but I never really did. You didn’t know to pick up on the minor details so it was easy for me to fool you.” He shrugged. “Just like with breathing. I fake it.”
I inhaled deeply as if I was trying to breathe for us both. This was so unbelievable. There were so many other things I wanted to ask him about, but my mind was so jumbled up with absorbing what I did know, I couldn’t conjure another question.
After a moment of awkward silence, Aaron caused me to slightly jump when he started to speak. “Since I know you have plans for me today, how about you tell me exactly what it is you want me to do.”
My butt hit the hardwood floor a little too hard when I slid down the wall to sit on the floor. “Well, I was sort of hoping we could spend the day shopping in town, and maybe you would spot my mom out somewhere,” I said wincing, anticipating him to shoot my proposal down.
He stared me in the eyes, but I wasn’t sure if he was actually looking at me. He chewed on the inside of his lip, and his glare seemed distant as if he was rolling my idea around in his head. “Yeah. Sure. We can spend the day out,” he said, standing up from the bed. He walked over to the drawer and pulled out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. Still, he refused to wear any of the clothes I’d bought him at JC Penney. He grabbed the back of his white wife beater and pulled it over his head. The taut muscles along his abs flexed with each movement he made. I counted each section of his defined six-pack before my eyes wandered to the light trail of dark brown hair extending from his navel to…something a little more luscious. A round of butterflies swept through my belly as I thought of what hid beneath the basketball shorts he was wearing. Great. I’m getting turned on by a dead guy. Unable to look away, my eyes made a beeline to the minor bump in the front of his shorts. In my dreams, I remembered his bulge being much larger.