by Jill Patten
“You’re quite. What are you thinking about?” Aaron’s smooth voice startled me. I’d been so lost in my thoughts I couldn’t even remember whether or not I had stopped at the stoplight.
I found it funny the telepath asking me what my inner thoughts were. A smile touched my lips.
“Ah-ha. It must be good if you’re smiling,” he said teasingly.
I shook my head. “No. I find it amusing that you would ask me such a ridiculous question. But, I also find it satisfying to know you’re not invading my privacy, or at least I hope you’re not. I hope you’re being honest with me,” I said, glancing over at him. He was watching me closely. Almost to the point of making me uncomfortable. It was the way one stared at a person when they were attracted to them. Did Aaron see me that way? Aside from the dreams, I’d never felt that vibe from him before, but I was feeling it now. Feeling shy, I looked away and concentrated on the road before me.
Although the interior of my car was darkening, I could see Aaron from the corner of my eye still watching me. “I wouldn’t want someone in my head when they’ve not been invited, so I think staying out of yours would only be the right thing to do,” he said finally looking away. He stared out of his passenger side window at absolute darkness. The sun had completely settled behind the trees and dusk had now turned to night. Silence once again joined us in the car. It was now my turn to stare at him. My eyes shifted between the road and him. His brows were knitted as if he were in deep thoughts. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking.
“Are you happy?” I probed. “You always seem to be so calm and relaxed; that’s why I ask.”
He smiled. It was genuine. “Right now? Yes.”
“What about earlier, or yesterday?”
His smile didn’t waver, and it made me feel good inside.
“Yes and yes. For the most part, I’m happy. You make me happy. Before you stumbled into my existence, I wasn’t always happy.” He answered honestly, his tone turning solemn. “Living in my world hasn’t exactly been the easiest thing,” he paused, “but, I’ve learned to accept and adapt and work toward finding a way to cross over.” I glanced over at him and his eyes held mine far too long.
I felt horrible for bringing up a part of his life that had been a struggle. “I’m sorry,” I apologized. What else did I have to offer?
He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder which I found odd. I should be the one consoling him. “Lennox, there’s nothing to be sorry about. You haven’t done anything.”
I was thankful for the dark, clouded sky and the limited amount of cars on the road. To face him during an awkward conversation would be too hard. “I know, but I just feel terrible for bringing up something that is apparently painful for you.”
He shrugged as if it were no big deal. “I’m okay with it. It’s been so long now. I’ve learned to deal with it and move on.”
Another question sat on the edge of my tongue, and I chewed on the tip in hopes of it disappearing. It wasn’t my place to pry into his business. If he wanted to tell me he would.
“Chomping at the bit over there?” he asked with a snicker.
I whipped my head toward his direction. “Reading my mind, are we?” I accused.
He laughed and I liked the sound of it. He didn’t do it often enough. Of course, neither did I. “No, I’m just good at reading body language. I can tell you have something on your mind. Maybe you have something you want to ask me, but you’re too scared to?” He’s good. He’s damn good.
“Pfftt!” I rolled my eyes in disguise. “Puh-lease. It’s not always about you.”
A hearty laugh filled the interior of the car. “Says the diva driving,” he added. “Now spill it,” he commanded, his laughter quickly extinguished.
He turned serious, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was playing me.
I blew out a deep breath. “Okay, you asked for it,” I replied as I turned into the driveway. “Who was Aaron Nichols before you died? I know you were beaten to death, but what led up to it?” I kept my eyes front and center. He was staring at me; I could feel it.
The garage door opened when I pushed the button, and I pulled into the garage. I turned off the motor but neither one of us made an attempt to get out of the car.
“Until recently, I couldn’t have answered this for you. In the past few weeks, my past life has slowly been coming back to me.” He hesitated a moment before continuing, as if he suddenly didn’t want to talk about himself. He looked down to the floorboard. The anticipation was killing me. “Just answer me already” was what I wanted to scream. Maybe he could hear me. Maybe he was a murderer like I thought he was when I first brought him home. Maybe— “I was homeless.” I gasped and I’d hoped he didn’t hear it. “My life before death wasn’t much different from what it is now. Only difference now is people don’t look at me with disgust.” He turned his head up to penetrate me with his deep, green eyes.
From the way he stared at me, I felt as if he was directing that statement toward me. The strange feeling of guilt slathered itself over my skin. He looked every bit of a homeless man that day when he helped me with my tire, but he was no longer that person. He was respectful, grateful, beautiful, and he had treated me with more kindness than I’d ever deserved.
“Say something,” he whispered.
“I— I’m sorry. I mean, I’m not apologizing. Well, I am…dammit, you know what I mean.” Heat immediately rose from my neck to my face. A smile formed on his lips and he nodded. All it took was the subtle gesture from him and I knew things were okay between us.
His demeanor became serious again. “So you’re okay with that?”
“With what?”
He smirked. “With my lifestyle? I’m still homeless, I’m just lucky enough to have your assistance for the time being,” he said solemnly.
It was my turn to lay a hand over his. “Aaron, that life was long ago. This is just temporary until you figure out how to move on to the next chapter in your life.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t think my next chapter is moving on. I think I’m moving backwards.”
Chapter 16
Eyeing him curiously, I asked, “What exactly does that mean?”
He inhaled deeply, and exhaled through his nose. It was a sound of exasperation. “I’m not sure how to explain this,” he said, rubbing his thumb and forefinger over his eyebrows. “Since you saved me, I’ve started to notice I’m gaining back my human abilities.”
What the what? “L…like how?”
“For starters, I’m more responsive to sensation…feelings. Before, when I touched something, it took a lot of concentration in order for me to make contact because I was never able to feel it. But now, there’s a slight sensitivity when I either touch something or am touched by it,” he explained. “Like when I touch you for instance,” he said, leaning over to place his hand over mine, “my fingertips tingle. It’s as if a slight electric current vibrated through my skin. It makes me feel alive.” A smile beamed on his face and I found it contagious. To share a special moment like this with him was exuberant.
I squeezed his hand in a friendly gesture, but the strange thing about it was I felt the same zing of electricity make its way up my arm as he had just explained.
“Is this normal, Aaron? Does this normally happen to spirits?” Our hands remained together; neither of us made any attempt to separate them. It was pretty crazy for us to take baby steps by holding hands when we’d already became acquainted in my dreams with every inch of each other’s body.
He shrugged, “I don’t know. This has all been so new for me. I’ve sort of been going with the flow and embracing every new finding.” He wiggled his fingers and laced them between mine. From my peripheral vision, I could see him watching me, but I wasn’t brave enough to return his gaze. He was waiting for some sort of sign from me. Holding his hand should be enough indication that I liked what was happening between us.
“I wonder what it all means. Could you somehow
be turning back into a human? Is it actually possible? Are there any reports out on the web somewhere saying this has happened before?” I asked, more to myself than to him. “Scientists do studies on everything else, why not this too, you know?”
He laughed lightly. “It could be possible, I guess. But I would never believe it if I wasn’t experiencing it first-hand. And I sure as hell don’t want to be poked and prodded on for them to find out.”
We both continued sitting in my car. The only sound around was the occasional gust of wind gushing against the garage door. The feeling I was undergoing was so strange. In all my twenty four years, I’d never felt at ease with anyone except my father. But sitting in the car with Aaron, I felt satisfied, happy…a real genuine happiness. Not the happiness I found when I dropped a couple of grand on clothes or shoes. This was a happy I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt in my life.
With the fear of him reading my thoughts, I snuck a glance at him from the corner of my eye. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring down at our hands intertwined. At that moment I wished I was able to read his thoughts. To have the ability to get inside of his brain would be fascinating. Aside from his current situation, I envied him.
After spending weeks together, I realized there was still so much I didn’t know about him. For starters, his age. He’d told me early on he was twenty nine, but I couldn’t help to think he’d lied. I wasn’t buying it. If I had to guess, I would put him at around my age. When he had the Grizzly Adams look going on in the beginning, I would’ve probably placed him in his forties. Now that he kept himself neatly groomed, he looked fifteen to twenty years younger. It was time to break the silence.
“Aaron.”
“Hmm,” he replied. The dim light inside the garage gave off enough glow to define the outline of his strong jawline and buxom lips.
“How old were you when you died?” Suddenly I was nervous of my question. What would I do if he died forty decades ago? He could be older than my dead grandparents. I could be developing feelings for an old man. And if he was turning back into a human like he’d thought, would he quickly age once he became one hundred percent human? I needed to stop freaking out and wait for him to answer.
With haste, he retracted his hand. It caught me off guard, and caused me to think the worst. My thoughts about his age must’ve been true. If not, he wouldn’t have withdrawn from my hand as if it were lethal.
“I’ve told you this already. I’m twenty nine.” He huffed, then pulled his lips in between his teeth. He seemed irritated.
I guess maybe he did tell me the truth. My calculations were nearly spot on, and that part relieved me. Fooling around with someone in their forties would be pretty damn creepy.
Now came the big question. “And how many years have you been dead?” This was the answer that was going to tell it all.
He dropped his head. “Twenty two years,” he whispered.
I quickly did the math in my head. Fifty one years. Damn, that would put him older than my father. I rolled his age and circumstances around in my head for a few minutes.
Aaron kept his head down. Was he ashamed? He shouldn’t be ashamed of anything. He shouldn’t worry about me thinking any less of him either, because I didn’t. Somehow, knowing this new piece of information didn’t change the way I felt about him at all.
What was happening to me? All these new feels were foreign to my body. Should I embrace it or should I fight it? How crazy did it sound to say I was attracted to a dead man…or a dead man was becoming my best friend…or a dead old man who was twenty seven years my senior? There was no doubt about it; I was fucked up.
I closed my eyes, once again hoping Aaron wasn’t listening in on my inner conversations. He already seemed to be struggling with what had been happening to him, he didn’t need my negative comments to make it worse.
He broke the silence. “Say something. I’m fighting the urge to listen in with everything I’ve got.”
“Do you want the truth or do you want me to sugar coat it?”
He cut his eyes over at me, nearly speaking with a dissatisfied stare.
I smiled at his honesty. “Okay, I hear you.” I replied with a soft laugh. “I’m freaked out. There. I said it. But, I’m also okay with it if that makes any sense. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you or how I look at you. In my eyes you’re twenty nine.”
His shoulders relaxed and I noticed his chest slightly fell as he tried to gingerly release a large breath of air. I couldn’t believe he was that worried about my reaction. It seemed he valued me more than I’d thought. His friendship was genuine. Maybe there was something more between us than friendly flirting and amazing sexual dreams.
To put him more at ease, I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. It was intended to be a friendly gesture. He took it as more. Taking me by surprise, he responded by reaching over and cupping my face in his hand. He gently, and ever so slowly, rubbed his thumb across my lips. His stunning green eyes bored into mine leaving me breathless. Heat flushed my core, and the inside of my car all of a sudden began to close in on me. It was too intense. I was suddenly suffocating.
“We should head inside,” I whispered. Loudly and forcefully, I swallowed the urge to devour him. “We have another long day ahead of us tomorrow.” I looked down and realized I apparently had randomly slid my hand back into his again. I hoped it was enough for him to know I was okay with us. Whatever we were becoming was Lennox approved.
He nodded in agreement before hesitantly releasing my hand…and my sexual desire to cave in and consume him.
~~~
We’d spent two weeks looking for my mother. We would start off every day at the location of her death, cover every part of downtown by foot, then meet back at our starting location at dusk. Every evening, I came closer and closer to giving up. Maybe she had crossed over already. Maybe her time between worlds ended years ago. Maybe she didn’t want to stay to watch over me as I grew into a woman. Aaron had already warned me of this and that was why I’d never seen her.
We’d walked back to my car in silence after another disappointing day came to an end. Tears pricked the back of my eyes, and I blinked rapidly to fight them away. I hadn’t blatantly cried since I was a teenager and the only reason I had then was because I had missed her. I mourned for her every day during my adolescent years while Pam made my life a living hell. Watching all the other girls in school go shopping with their mothers, getting Mani’s and Pedi’s or, just the simplicity of being there during my firsts — period, boyfriend, kiss, sex…the list could go on forever. Pam pretended to be involved whenever there was a social event or when she thought my dad was watching. The truth was, I had never wanted her around at all. The void in my heart was as fresh today as it had been then.
Aaron was either reading my mind or he sensed my gloom. “Hey,” he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me up against him. His body wasn’t as cold as it normally was. Or maybe I was colder than I’d thought. “We’re going to find her.” His arm dropped down from my shoulder to my waist, resting easily over my hip. Over the past couple of weeks, our friendship had been slowly blossoming. It was obvious we both were attracted to each other. The idea of him being a ghost no longer haunted me. (No pun intended). He was as real to me as my father, if not, more. We’d spent every waking hour together. And the more our relationship grew, the more I wanted him to stay with me. “I promise,” he finished saying softly, leaning his head against mine. His words sounded so believable, but I couldn’t allow myself to accept them in case it was to never happen. He was a ghost after all, not a fortune teller.
The tears stung my eyes with a vengeful force. I blinked them away as quickly as possible. “Don’t say that.” My voice quivered and I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” I loosened myself from his hold when we reached the car and quickly turned my back to him to get in. Gently but forcefully, Aaron spun me around before I could make my escape.
His
face exhibited pity. I didn’t want pity. My father always pitied me where my mother was concerned and I hated it. I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see him anymore.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
A feather-like touch dusted over my cheek. My eyelids fluttered opened, and I saw Aaron standing before me with a single tear drop resting on his finger. He was holding it at eye level, examining it with keen judgment. “This,” he said nodding to the tear, “makes me feel. I remember this emotion; it’s one of grief…sadness. You’re hurting and I’m failing you.” His shadowed green eyes were now focused on me. “I’m sorry, Lennox. If I’m not able to find her, I promise you I’ll find out what happened to her.” He lifted the tear drop to his mouth and absorbed it with his tongue. “Your sweet sorrow is something I never want to taste again.” With a quick tug, he pulled me into him and engulfed his arms around me into an all-loving and comforting embrace.
The cool wetness I felt on my cheeks was years of yearning for my mom. I’d thought I had moved on from the emptiness she’d left behind, but my tears told me otherwise. No one had ever witnessed me crying, not even my father. I didn’t like to appear weak. I didn’t like looking like I didn’t have control of my heart. Sadly, I’d been lying to myself for years.
It didn’t bother me to know Aaron saw me at my weakest point. He was the only person…or ghost I had ever allowed to become this close to me. To be a complete stranger only a month ago, a homeless stranger I’d thought was scum from the earth, to now being my best friend and hopefully more. Sometimes life was so ironic.
“You think you’re okay to drive home alone?”
I wiped my tear-soaked cheeks. “Why? Where are you going?”