Page 14 of Come Out, Come Out

The slowing, soft beat of my heart is a lullaby that puts me to sleep.

The now-tranquil water swaddles me.

I bask in it.

A throb of pain echoes through my chest, then my limbs, and then my head. Suddenly, everything is freezing cold. On a sharp, gasping inhale, I launch myself upright and choke up bathwater. Blinking through the skull-aching pain, I look up to find the shower pouring frigid water down upon me. Shaking wracks my body as I try to focus enough to take in my surroundings.

I’m alive. I’m alone. I’m home.

The peace never lasts.

I slump back into the nearly empty tub and close my eyes, ignoring Binx’s cries at the door. Seconds, minutes, maybe even an hour pass and I simply remain there. Nothing and everything runs through my mind at once. Mostly, I wonder what the fuck just happened.

When my shoulders and back begin to ache from the hard tub pressing into me, I finally sit up and haul myself out. Stopping in front of the mirror, I stare into my reflection, as if I’ll find the answers in my haunted gaze. I don’t see anything. I only feel the resistance of whatever forced me to remain underneath water.

The ghost. Chills erupt across my skin at the reminder that there’s something here with me. We’d been getting along so well, though. It had left me alone. My fear banks and it’s replaced with curiosity and questioning. If the ghost truly wanted me gone, why didn’t it just finish the job? I’d been so close, could feel the sweet, icy kiss of the Grim Reaper’s lips.

Only I was still here, so there must be a reason.

Aiden

November 10th, 2020 – The Same Day

I couldn’t save my sister, but I will save Skye. If she wants to live like a wraith, I’ll become her grim reaper. I’ll give her a taste of death until she can no longer stomach the idea. Until she was afraid of it.Until she wanted to live.

I set the wheels in motion today.

I had every intention of staying away from her, I couldn’t bear how on edge she’d been since Halloween. I want her to feel safe again. When she’d left, I’d sunken into a dark, desolate place that was far worse than the time I’d spent here before she moved in.

Of course, I knew what I’d done was wrong—and so unlike me—or, I suppose, who I was in life.I’d been someone who minded my own business and respected people’s boundaries. I’d live and let live. I would never pry or push. I let the people I cared about be who they wanted to be, I’d never taken it upon myself to decide what’s best for them. But now, I can’t seem to help myself. Maybe it’s because I have nothing else to fixate on, or maybe it’s because the stakes are so high. Regardless, I don’t really know who I am anymore. In death, I’m becoming someone I don’t recognize most of the time. When everything is ripped away from you, what’s left? Without societal norms, a long life to consider, and all the things anchoring me to the world I’d once known, I’m finding that what’s left is something far more primal. I’m hungry for affection. I’m desperate not to be alone anymore. I’m in need of companionship. My identity has boiled down to my most baser desires.

My decision to kill them was the catalyst for change, but from the moment my sister died, all of that bullshit, like what peopleshould and shouldn’t do,ceased to matter. And when that knife punctured my body and the last of my mortality sank into the wood of this very house, the axis of my reality shifted from life to afterlife.

Through that bloodshed, a new Aiden has emerged. I’m embracing him, I have no other choice, but more often than not, I’m faced with a stranger, one whose whole world orbits around Skye. She is the sun and I am the earth that relies on her.

I’d never been a possessive partner, never saw the reason in it. But now, I’m relentlessly protective of her—jealous, greedy—my conscience corrected.Could anyone blame me?How could I not become obsessed with her when she is the only escape I have from the grief that haunts me. Eight months, hundreds of days, and thousands of hours all spent getting to know her. And I do.Know her. Better than she knows herself, even.

It might be wrong, in any other circumstance, the way I watch her, but there is no going back. I haven’t gotten the chance to ask her all the things I’m eager to learn and she doesn’t have the luxury of unveiling just the parts of herself she was comfortable with. And yet, here we are.

I know the most basic things, like the fact that her favorite color is black. But it’s not just any black. It’s the black of smoke and gauzy curtains. It’s the hazy kind of black that’s half-in, half-out. Just like her. Hair black, lips black, nails black, even her panties are black. The color suits her in every way.

I also know the most intimate things, like the fact that she’s severely depressed in a way that tells me she could end up just like my sister. She thinks she hides it well, but there’s no hiding from me. She relies on the usual coping mechanisms: self-harm, drugs, and alcohol to dull the agony. Her impending self-destruction isn’t something I revel in watching, but I can never tear my eyes away for fear that I’ll blink and she’ll be gone. Despite the darkness that bears down upon her like a heavy shadow, she does have some light in her life. She loves web and graphic design, so she can easily get lost in front of the screen for an entire day. My favorite parts of days like these are when she finally gets it just right and sits back to admire her work, the blue light glowing against her smiling, rounded cheeks. Pride looks beautiful on her, even if she’d never share these moments with anyone willingly.

Then there’s her other love, her books. It’s so peaceful to sit here in silence with her as she loses herself in new worlds. She’s read so many since she’s been here that I can tell what types of scenes she’s reading just by her reaction. When her favorite characters are in danger, her brows furrow and she bites at her long, pointed nail. When she’s reading something scary, she pulls her shirt up to cover her mouth, as if it will hold in the gasp she eventually lets out every time. And when she’s reading one of her romance books, well, that’s obvious because she can’t help but touch herself. I’ll admit, I’m partial to those kinds of books. If I’m feeling especially lonely, sometimes I’ll move one into her line of sight when she’s not looking in hopes that she’ll pick it up. She usually does.

One of the things I appreciate most is her taste in music. She’s one of those people whose entire soul transcends when she hears a song that she connects with. She can’t live without it, and neither can I—and in death, its absence was especially notable for those first few lonely weeks. When she moved in, it changed everything for me. Part of myself that had been lost started to revive. This shared passion of ours has given me back so much—memories of my father and I singing along to Green Day when he’d pick me up from school, getting stoned with friends listening to Nirvana, driving with the windows down next to my sister with blink 182 blasting and the wind in our hair. It’s one of the few things that can shake the heaviness of this existence I’ve fallen into, it even makes this empty house feel more alive.

When she isn’t doing the things she loves, though, there’s a deep melancholy that plagues her and she doesn’t have anyone to share the burden with. Skye can tell herself she doesn’t need anyone, that she doesn’t want anyone, but I hear the words she leaves unspoken when she cries into her pillow. She’s desperate to be loved just the way she is, but she’ll never ask it of anyone.

The thing is, she doesn’t need to ask, I’m right here and I’m well on my way to falling head over heels for her despite everything that makes it totally impossible.

My girl exists in a bubble of sadness and I know one day, that despair that builds within it will smother her. She’ll leave me here without a second thought, not even knowing someone can mourn her the way I will after all these months of watching her.

She doesn’t understand how badly I yearn for her, but I’m determined to make her see. My need for her is a tightening collar around my throat that grows more possessive each day. Sometimes the linked chain pulls so taut, there’s no room for me to breathe. And because the other end is attached to her,my little wraith, I don’t even miss the air. It might be pathetic that I’ve nicknamed a woman who doesn’t even know my name and can never be with me, but I don’t fucking care. I left my pride and all sense behind when I died.

Lighter, scissors, drugs, alcohol—they were all a means to an end and they’d served her well. They kept her here, waiting for me, didn’t they? But her time fending for herself is over. I’m here now and I can do so much better. What she needs is someone who understands her pain and the release she craves.Iunderstand it.

She needs a reprieve from the endless energy it takes to make herself pay for her mere existence and perceived failures. She needs to exorcise the deep ache caused by her mere existence. I can do that for her, Iwantto take on that burden. I’m ready to take ownership of that chaos.

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