Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
This, he realized, was what Jamie had been trying to help him do when they asked him to look at himself as a ghost. But no one could do this for him.
Edgar took another tentative step toward the ghost. He was now twenty feet away, and the ghost stayed put. At ten feet away, Edgar could see everything.
He could see the small wire-rimmed spectacles that had perched on the man’s nose before he died. They’d been smashed, the glass digging in around his eyes. Blood seeped from the wounds as if he had cried crimson.
Edgar’s hand went to his own face. The ghost’s hand drifted up in a strange echo of Edgar’s gesture. It touched the bits of smashed glass and the blood around its eyes. Its eyebrows drew together.
Edgar took a step closer. He touched his hair. The ghost touched its hair, fingers exploring the wound that mangled its head. On its face were confusion and pain. Edgar would know the expression anywhere.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry for whatever happened to you.”
Edgar didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until his voice startled him in the dark quiet.
The ghost didn’t respond, but its arm dropped back to its side.
Edgar took one last step toward the ghost. He was now standing closer to a ghost than he ever had, except when one blasted through him, like on his first date with Jamie. Usually he fled long before they had the opportunity. He was still trembling slightly. But his feet were beneath him, his head functional. He couldn’t believe it.
Antoine’s ghost had floated away from him. Why wasn’t this ghost? Was it tethered to the cemetery? Did it like the light?
“Why are you here?” Edgar asked. “Do you know you’re dead?”
The ghost just stared. Not at Edgar exactly, but around him.
“When did you die?”
The ghost didn’t respond. Edgar supposed he hadn’t really expected it to.
“What do you want with me?” This was the real question.
The ghost’s gelatinous eyes blinked, but it said nothing.
Edgar slumped against the cemetery gates. It had been wishful thinking to imagine a ghost would have any answers for him. This had been stupid, and he was angry with himself that he’d thought it might change things. Suddenly he wanted to tear the ghost limb from limb. How dare it just stand there staring when it and ones like it had ruined Edgar’s life?
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” Edgar yelled at the ghost.
Edgar’s words echoed around them, and he punched the stone wall surrounding the cemetery. Fuck, that hurt, and Edgar roared his pain out into the uncaring night.
He blew out a furious breath and looked at the ghost. It had moved. Edgar watched as it took a step away from him, then another.
“Are you…?”
Edgar’s brain supplied a truly hilarious thought: The ghost is afraid of you. But that was absurd, right?
He stood tall once more and yelled at the ghost again. Again, it stepped away from him.
“Wait,” Edgar said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
The ghost stilled.
“I didn’t even know ghosts could get scared. See, I don’t really know much about y’all, even though I’ve seen you my whole life. It’s not your problem, I realize. I just really need to get over this fucking terror.”
Great, now I’m making a ghost my therapist.
It did feel good to talk to someone though. He’d talked to Allie about it, sure, and even Jamie. But always there was the pressure not to worry them. To keep them from knowing how utterly undone he was by fear, because if they truly knew, then they would understand that he was beyond help. Beyond hope.
But the ghost just listened. Or not. Who could tell? But it stayed. And Edgar poured his heart out.
He didn’t know how much time had passed before he’d exhausted himself talking. But when the tears came, he let them fall. The ghost stood in the pool of light once more, and Edgar lifted himself to sit on the wall of the cemetery across from it.
Now that Edgar had gotten used to the particulars of the ghost’s configuration, they lost some of their grotesque impact. He was able to imagine what the man’s face would have looked like when he was alive. Handsome, probably. Blue-gray eyes a little like Jamie’s. Dark hair a little like his own. About their age when his life was ripped from him.
“Thanks for listening,” Edgar said.
Still, the ghost said nothing. But they both stayed there, looking at each other for a long time. Something like peace settled around Edgar.
He’d done it. He’d faced a ghost directly. He’d spoken to it—hell, he’d yelled at it. And here he stood. The ghost hadn’t harmed him. His fear hadn’t killed him.
Now he could walk away.
He eased down from the wall and addressed the ghost for the last time.
“I’m gonna go home now. Maybe you can go wherever you belong too. Or if not, maybe I’ll see you around sometime.”