your ghost

PEOPLE WHO CLAIM to have experiences with the paranormal say that you feel it as soon as you enter the room. The air feels thinner, colder. You feel it as a sort of wind that starts in the back of your neck and travels to the small of your back. The hairs on your arms rise in anticipation. Your senses betray you. Your eyes and ears tell you there’s no one there but your heart says otherwise. If you close your eyes, you can almost make out a figure –a clammy presence making itself known. Someone else is here. 

 And I remember that first time I felt that. It was the same night you took me out on our first date. It felt like a scene from a movie. The food was awful but the conversation was divine. It seemed like time had sped up and slowed down all at once. The world blurred away and there was just you, me, and this depressingly bland carbonara. 

You walked me home. It felt nice. Everything clicked together like two puzzle pieces or those oddly satisfying YouTube videos. I said goodbye and walked into my seemingly empty apartment when I felt a cold air brush my cheek. I called you up because I was scared. You thought I was just looking for an excuse for you to spend the night. We searched for hours but found no ghosts behind the curtains, no ghouls hiding in the cupboards. And when the hunt wore us out, you asked if I wanted you to spend the night. I said yes. I felt safer with you here. When the stories ran out, we retreated to the bedroom to investigate if all our parts clicked together. They did. 

And I wish I could pause this image of us – the way your shirt got caught on your ears as you undressed. How we laughed at how sloppily we were coming together, how it seemed we were running on a deadline. Perhaps some part of us always knew it would end eventually – the way you rush towards a wave on your surfboard knowing fully well you’ll eventually wipe out. That first night I met you and when we had a great first date despite an abysmal meal, and I came home and thought I saw a ghost in my apartment and you came up to be with me, I – I thought we would last forever. But I would soon learn that was a mistake. We were living on borrowed time. 

You say that first night was the night you moved in. It all happened so fast. Before I knew it, you had taken over my house, my heart, my life. But something wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t articulate it but there was something about the ends of your sentences when you spoke to me, or the way the light cast strange shadows on your face. If your heart were a room, I could feel someone else was there - a ghost inside that begged to be found. I didn’t know if I could trust this man who saved me from my imagined monsters. There had to be a catch. There was always a catch. I began to search for clues in missed dinners, secret messages, and hushed phone calls in the hall. I didn’t want to say it but the more I held the question down, the harder it fought to float to the top. I had to know - 

Where did you sleep last night? 

YOUR GHOST WAS an itch I needed to scratch. It started from my palms and crawled to my arms, my legs. It brought me to your apartment one night when I knew you would be working late. It made me take the key you hid in your mailbox. It made me open the door, slowly as though I would disturb you even when I knew you weren’t there. It made me sift through your garbage and look through your mail. And when I couldn’t find any proof of your infidelity, it took me to your bed where I retreated facedown, exhausted and defeated. 

It was around 4am when I heard your key in the door and I suddenly realized I was not where I was supposed to be. My brain combed through a rolodex of excuses. I wanted to surprise you. I left my notebook here last week when I came over. The internet was down in my apartment and I had to work. None of these seemed to make sense and so I did what I could to make myself scarce. I slid under the bed and listened to the sound your feet made on the wooden floor. I counted the steps and imagined where you were in your apartment – in the hall, in the kitchen, in the living room. I was firmly hidden amongst the suitcases with your winter clothes, an odd sock that must have slipped under, and the dust bunnies that came out to play when I heard it. 

Not one pair of shoes but two. 

Not one voice but two. 

Not one subtle laugh, not one chair pulled up, not one bottle of beer opening. 

Two. 

Two. 

Two. 

...

My little heart was broken in two. 

I BRACED THE inevitable as you made your way to the bedroom. I am still under your bed, quiet as a mouse. I listened as you undressed him, sloppy kisses underscoring the percussion of belt buckles jangling against a button fly. I considered coming out of hiding, to stop you from your crime before you had a chance to commit it but my legs proved immobile. My hands were glued shut over my mouth. And when you moved to the bed, I heard you break every promise you made to me. I felt him get on top of what I thought was mine. I heard him say your name over and over again, as though he owned it. As though that name was his to scream and not mine. And when you took his body the same way you took mine and you pushed and pulled with all of your might, I saw the life we were going to live together, the children we thought we would have, the birthdays, the anniversaries, the retirement parties – I saw it all like spilled milk dripping all over his back. 

I lay there for hours waiting for you to fall asleep. When I could hear two distinct snores, I slid out of my cocoon hardly a butterfly. Hardly even human. I came to your house thinking the truth would save me but it only tore me apart. I tiptoed out of the bedroom, through the kitchen and into your hall. I was still as quiet as a mouse. If your heart were a room, it’s true that there was a ghost in it. I could see his reflection in the mirror as I walked by. 

I came home to an empty apartment. The sun was beginning to rise. People who claim to have experiences with the paranormal say that you feel it as soon as you enter the room. But the air in here was neither thin nor cold. It just felt empty. My senses betray me. My eyes see your things scattered around – your jacket carelessly hanging behind the door, a pack of cigarettes collecting dust on the counter, your toothbrush mocking me from the bathroom. My eyes and ears tell me you’re still here but my heart knows otherwise. If my heart were a room, it would be empty. I’m afraid that no one is here. 

♫: Indigo Girls | Ghost (1992)

Originally published in September 2021 on the stories i wish you heard.