Caspers Ghosts

by Victoria Hyder

  I watched his eyes narrow a fraction. “You’re going to go with my idea? Have you asked your little friend about this?” he asked tightly, crossing his arms over his chest.

  I blinked at his tone. No matter what he said or how he said it, it always came across as cold or border-line threatening. It was almost as though he had a problem with Isabel, although I can’t say he was her number one person either. We needed to work together if we were going to succeed with our project.

  “No, I haven’t but considering we have limited time on this, and we didn’t have anything else decent from the last meet-up, I want to go ahead with your idea. It would be great; it would really show how we can work as a team.”

  He regarded me with his cold eyes and I felt a shiver run down my spine. His posture relaxed a fraction before he nodded his head, “Well that makes sense then. It would be good to pass this project with a decent grade.”

  I frowned over at him, surprised that he sounded like he did want a good grade. That was about seventy per cent of the rumours out the window. “Great, well then all we need to do is wait for Isabel.”

  His eyes darkened a fraction before he turned away and fiddled around with one of the bags on the chair. Only it wasn’t a bag it was a –violin case? I hadn’t realised he’d specialised in a certain instrument. I felt my heartstrings twang; I’d always loved the sound of violins but I hadn’t been brave enough to try and master it. Piano seemed simpler to me. “You play?” I asked, trying to sound casual despite the latch in my voice.

  He glanced at me over his shoulder before brandishing his violin, tucked it under his chin and drawing his bow along the strings. The shrill notes that vibrated out into the still air made my body ache with the need for more. I closed my eyes and let my mind wonder as he drew out a few long chords and trilled through the air and took my breath away. My fingers seemed to twitch as each chord was coaxed gently into the air and the bow whipped back and forth, gaining momentum and finally squeaking to a stop. My eyes snapped open and a flash of blue caught my attention. Isabel had arrived and was lazily trudging her way down the stairs. “I see you started without me,” she stated in a bland tone, her eyes cutting to Casper with a glare, before she threw a too-wide smile in my direction. “So have you decided on anything for the project? I know we didn’t come up with much last time but I’ve been doing something thinking and –”

  “He’s already decided to go with my idea,” Casper interjected bluntly before Isabel could continue. She looked over at him with a disbelieving frown on her face, her thin lips turning down at the corners. Casper gave her a sardonic smile, “He thinks it was ‘inspired’.”

  I threw him a look but before I could counter his statement, Isabel turned her glare onto me, “Really, Aves? You’re going with that idea? Why not wait and see if we can all agree on something together?”

  I sighed. “Well I’d prefer if we had an idea and could start work on it now, instead of wasting another three meet-ups trying to think of one. Look,” I ran a hand through my hair and grimaced. I really needed a shower, “Whatever your ideas were, I’m sure we can incorporate some of them into the plan, okay? It’s not like anything has been decided anyway, just the basic outline of what we aim to do.” She clicked her tongue at me before turning to slouch into one of the folding chairs. “Now, let’s get started and see what we can come up with,” I said as I dropped down to sit on the raised stage. Casper clicked the silver locks on his violin case shut. It was time to get down to work.

  *

  The sky was pitch-black by the time I dragged my tired body towards the communal showers. It had been yet another long, grueling session between Isabel and Casper. In the end, I’d simply told them I had other homework to do and to carry on without me.

  As I made my way to the communal bathroom, I grimaced; I really needed to order in a new showerhead so I could avoid traipsing up and down the corridor with my towel slung over my shoulder.

  The room was empty.

  My skin prickled with goosepimples as I turned the shower knob and let the hiss of the water fill the air. I undressed and gasped as the hot water scoured over my skin and ran down over my muscles. I ducked my head under the spray and turned the pressure up. It felt like Heaven after such a grueling session of trying to come up with ideas. It was like Casper and Isabel were at loggerheads with one another. Isabel couldn’t stand it when Casper came up with something interesting and he couldn’t pass up the chance to belittle whatever ideas she came up with, which admittedly hadn’t been that great. I’d noted them down regardless in case they could be used later in the project.

  I scrubbed at my hair, loving the feeling of the water and soap running down my face. I gnawed on my bottom lip when I heard the door to the bathroom whine on its hinges. I didn’t have the energy to drag myself away from the hot water. I waited until I heard the spray in the next cubicle turn on, before I decided to brave the steamy air and hurry out to snatch my towel off the hook beside my cubicle. Once I was wrapped up I hurried over to the benches, dried myself off and slipped into my tracksuit bottoms and a thick jumper. I heard someone curse from behind me and froze at the voice.

  The water snapped off and I felt as though I’d lost my chance to bolt.

  “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in.”

  I turned to face Casper as he dragged a robe on over his damp muscles. I shook my head, “Don’t worry yourself, I was just leaving.”

  He didn’t respond, merely stood there watching me with those cold eyes. I shivered, and bundled my towel up into my arms. “I’ll see you on Friday evening then,” I stated, not expecting an answer as I moved to leave. I barely remembered what happened, I must have bumped against him awkwardly along the way, but the next thing I knew I had an arm pressed against my throat, pinning me to the wall. I gasped out loud and scrambled at his arm but those eyes made my muscles freeze. His arm pressed harder and my neck throbbed. The muscles in his neck throbbed and strained as he clenched his jaw. I looked down at him, gasping for air.

  Casper’s lips curled back to reveal his sharp white teeth. “Don’t you dare touch me again!” he spat.

  I tried to speak but nothing came out. I simply shook my head as much as the wall and his arm would allow. He looked me dead in the eye for a few more moments before snatching his arm away and, growling under his breath, left the bathroom. I stood there slumped against the wall, my stomach doing somersaults as I rubbed at the burning muscles of my neck. I choked out a few breaths, wincing at the bruise I felt forming. I swung my towel over my shoulder and edged towards the door. I poked my head out and looked both ways of the corridor before hurrying to my room.

  I really needed a new showerhead.

  Chapter Five

  That weekend passed slowly, with no further interactions between Casper and I. He didn’t even respond to any of my emails let alone Isabel’s. I was still surprised he’d even given us his email address. I spent a lot of my weekend in my room, refusing to go out into the bitter cold weather and trying my best to overcome the side-effects of my medication. It was difficult, but I couldn’t afford to lose any more weight. I forced myself to eat three times a day even if it was smaller than what I’d usually have. I’d suppress the urge to vomit and tried to focus on my assignments despite the fog that crept into my head.

  Monday bloomed bleak and awful as I shuffled out of my dorm and made my way to the music department. The air was bitter as it snaked through my clothes and settled into my bones, but I couldn’t deny that I needed to hear some music. I needed to stare at music sheets all morning and numb my mind to the fog. I needed to come back to myself but it was becoming harder and harder.

  I rubbed a hand down my face and pushed the classroom door open, freezing when I noticed that the class was full and I’d interrupted my professor. I felt my face drain white and then flush red. I was late? How was that possible? I could feel everyone’s eyes boring into my skull. Even Casper was there before me. I blanched even more as I realised t
hat the only free seat was beside him. I really didn’t want to be near him after our exchange in the bathroom. I’d had to hunt around for a high-collared shirt and button it all the way up due to the purple bruise around my throat.

  “Ah, Mister Fletcher, how kind of you to join us,” my teacher drawled. “Take a seat and then perhaps we can carry on?” He threw a pointed look at me as I shuffled across the room and eased into the seat beside Casper.

  I tried my best to sit on the furthest edge of the seat next to Casper. As our professor droned on I couldn’t keep myself focused and found my mind wondering and felt my ears starting to ring.

  “You don’t look well,” Casper commented into my ear. I flinched away with a frown as I adjusted my bag around my shoulder. He looked at me with his unreadable expression. God, that expression infuriated me. He was like an empty book, filled with the possibilities of promises yet unfounded. Did he need filling or was he simply content to be so empty? Exactly like me. I shook the thoughts away as best as I could.

  “I’m fine I must’ve just slept heavy or something.”

  Isabel caught my eye over by the door and I nodded and raised my hand weakly to let her know I’d catch up with her. She nodded and flounced away.

  “You weren’t listening when the professor said that he wants us to present what we have so far next lesson did you?” Casper asked. My stomach churned as I stopped. “If you’d like you can borrow my notes.”

  I stared over at him. He hadn’t had a notebook out the entire lesson and I was meant to borrow –what exactly? Thin air? His brain? I groaned as I felt my head growing foggy once again. I raised my hand to rub at my temple and felt something kick my leg. I looked up at Casper’s expressionless face. At his expectant tap against my foot I shook my head.

  “You don’t have notes,” I sighed in an exasperated manner. I really needed a black coffee.

  I strode out towards the staircase and started to drop down them, one foot at a time. He caught up with me and snapped, “Hey I’m offering to help!”

  I turned to glare at him despite how warped my vision had become, “You weren’t taking notes! Now leave me alone, I need to go and get some coffee.”

  “Fine. Here,” he held out a scrap of paper. When had he written on that? Was I that out of it that I didn’t notice what the person sitting next to me had been doing? I glanced down and saw eleven swirling numbers on the paper. I frowned but turned on my heel and decided to catch up with Isabel to get a coffee.

  Isabel greeted me at the end of the walkway that led away from the music department. Her cheeks were rosy with the cold and her hair had been straightened from their natural waves. “Hey,” she greeted with a hug. “I was worried when you didn’t show up this morning. You looked really out of it.”

  “It’s these new pills I’m on. They’re making me lose sleep and my appetite.”

  She looped an arm around my waist as we walked towards the coffee shop on campus. The smell of ground beans hit me as soon as Isabel pushed the door open. I groaned as I hovered beside her, “I feel like I need to become an insomniac, at least our work might benefit.”

  She swatted at my side. I gave a tired little smile before she pushed against my hip, “Go and find a table. Try not to fall over someone along the way.”

  I tried to do as she asked, forcing myself to focus, but I’m pretty sure that I bumped into a couple of tables along the way. I finally found a two-seat table and settled down in the soft leather recliner. I massaged my temples as I felt the aroma of coffee wash over me. It didn’t take that long before Isabel returned with a tray of two coffees and two large cookies. My throat felt tight and dry as I looked at the cookie.

  She seemed to catch my look, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to eat all of it. I’ll eat whatever you leave.” She grinned at me and then plonked herself down in her seat, sighing as though she’d been on her feet all morning. She munched on her cookie and I leaned over to sip at the hot coffee. It was black and strong and perfect.

  I nestled down on the leather chair and stretched my legs out. “If I could take this coffee to bed with me, I’d be the happiest man alive.”

  “Have you heard from Chris lately?” Isabel asked.

  My coffee froze midway to my mouth. I didn’t look up at her. I hadn’t thought about Chris in a long time, and now that his face loomed up in my mind, my stomach clenched into tight knots. I swallowed thickly. “I blocked his number and changed mine, remember?” I managed to choke out in a dry whisper, “I don’t want to hear from him or anything he might have to say.”

  I couldn’t believe she’d brought Chris up of all people, of all times. Why now? I hadn’t wanted to think about any of that since we’d broken up in October. Via e-mail. Who the hell broke up with someone over e-mail these days? It was so tragically cliché.

  I ran my fingers through my hair. It needed cutting. Chris and I had been dating since the start of my time at University. He’d been more than happy to work things out long-distance and for a time it had been great. Soon, however, the calls became shorter and far between, the emails sporadic at best, and one day I’d been on Isabel’s laptop and her Facebook messages had ‘binged’ for alerts. Scrolling down her home page I’d found that Chris had been going to more parties than he’d let on, his tongue down the throat of almost every person he was tagged in a photo with.

  The break-up email was the worst. All I’d done was write, ‘I know everything’ to him and then he’d had the nerve to reply with a long paragraph about how we’d been drifting apart and how he didn’t feel he could put his sexual needs aside just for my sake. He’d even gone as far as to blame me for being at University when he felt the urge, despite the fact that it was my final year. I’d graduate in May. He couldn’t have waited another six and a half months? It wasn’t like we wouldn’t have seen one another at all during that time.

  I sucked on my cheeks and sipped at my coffee again. It suddenly tasted bitter. That was why I didn’t want to talk about Chris ever again. “I’m sorry,” Isabel murmured as she reached over and squeezed my hand.

  “It’s okay. One day I’ll be able to look back on it and laugh that I even cared, right?”

  “Exactly, that’s what you need to focus on. Well that and our music project. I guess the storyboard idea isn’t such a bad one,” she reluctantly admitted, “but we’re still going to need an actual storyline and then each work on a few sections. If we each do that, then the others can harmonize or something.”

  “That could work,” I nodded as I crumbled the cookie with my fingers. “We need to work out the storyline. Maybe we could all write down ideas for scenes and I can try and make them work together? Write maybe ten each, then I can take five from each of us?”

  “That sounds great. I can email you some ideas over the weekend.”

  I nodded then groaned, “You know what? I think I need to spend the day sleeping.”

  Isabel frowned at me and then I felt her cool fingers against my forehead, “You feel a little warm. Go to your room, shower and then lie down, okay? I’ll tell your professors you’re ill, if you want?”

  I looped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her, “You’re a star, you know that?”

  “Go on, go and get some rest. Set an alarm for your dose tonight, okay? I’ll call you if you want?”

  I shook my head as I forced myself onto my legs, “No need to trouble yourself. I’ll call you once I’m on my way back from the nurse’s office, yeah?”

  She gave me a nod, then watched me as I slouched out of the coffee shop, my crumbled cookie still sitting on the tray in front of her.

  Everything swayed and warped itself as I moved towards what I hoped was my room. It felt like I was suffering vertigo. My insides were knotting uncontrollably and I kept bumping into people as I tried to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. I fumbled like an idiot to get my key-card out and had to steady the card itself before slipping it through the lock and pushing my way inside. I needed the wa
lls to stop twisting. I shuffled blindly out of my clothes and kicked my shoes off.

  I needed the ringing in my ears to stop and I needed the floor to stop swirling and I needed my brain to stop spiraling in violent circles in my skull.

  Sighing heavily I popped two painkillers, downed them with day-old water and winced as they slid down my dry throat. I clamped my eyes shut and dropped onto my bed, drawing the covers over my head. I pressed my arms over my head and kept my eyes closed against the world, drowning out the hubbub of the student life outside my door and tried as hard as I could to force myself to go to sleep.

  Chapter Six

  The sound of someone pounding on my room door jolted me out of my sleep. My head felt heavy as I stumbled out of bed, almost veering into my desk. I steadied myself, and tried to push my feet across the carpet, as I fumbled along to the door and forced it open. The light from the hallway glared into my eyes and seared my brain. I dropped my head, cracked my eyelids and drank in a pair of thick-soled black boots that disappeared into a pair of dark jeans. I frowned, the attire and the clothes not matching up in my brain. I felt cold dread settle down heavily in my stomach as my eyes crawled upwards to see the baggy grey jumper and the pale eyes staring up at me in a hard manner. I swallowed thickly and something clicked sluggishly together in my mind.

  “What’re you doing here?” I slurred in a voice that was still thick with sleep.

  Casper blinked at me without changing his expression. When he spoke his voice sounded crystal clear and sharp in my ears. It was oddly refreshing after I’d slept through the roaring of my own blood for who knew how long. His expression didn’t waver; it merely fixed on me and drank in how awful I must have looked. I came back to myself and eased the door open a little more, “Do you want to come in for a bit?” I asked with a frown as he stood there.