A Ghost Story

Paizlee had invited Noah to her room for ‘story time’ after she mentioned that the ghost from the night of the party had made her cry and he has expressed concern surrounding it. For the most part, the party and the day after it was a blur to her. The sobering reality of losing the bracelet had dragged her to a place she didn’t like to go. It had dipped into the darkness she kept behind a very closely guarded wall and so, once they had found her bracelet again, she had over indulged in order to forget.

Sitting on the floor of her room, one of two large pillows she had there; specifically for the purpose of sitting. She was holding her bracelet between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. Staring at it with a level of intensity she usually kept for in the ring. It was the one she carried with her from a life she had left behind. Something she hadn’t fully explained to anyone here really - it was also the thing that held her back from pursuing the feelings she had for Noah sooner.

Inviting him in on that part of her life wasn’t something she had thought too much about. Rationally it made sense that the two worlds would come together at some point, but she held guilt for that - the giver of that bracelet was the only person she had ever had those feelings for before now. The only one she had let in that closely, until now. Paizlee exhaled the pressure she felt bearing down on her, sliding the bracelet back onto her wrist when she heard footsteps approaching the door.

Then they stopped before there were three quick, light taps on the door, followed by, ”Paiz? It’s me,” a short pause then in a deadpan voice, the person said, ”The ghostbuster.”

“Come in!” Her door was never locked, which wasn’t the smartest move she made but was a bad habit she hadn’t tried to break. As soon as he came in she smacked the cushion next to her on the floor, an easy smile on her face at the sight of him. “Sit sit sit!”

As she kept tapping the cushion, her happiness at him being there pushed back some of the heavier emotions she had been sitting in before. It wasn’t a performative happiness either, he just made it easy for her to find her joy, even in moments like this one.

“You know the ghost has already been busted though!” She pointed to a makeshift ‘ghost trap’ in the corner of her room, something Mars had put together to help her capture the ghost and retrieve her bracelet.

His eyes followed where she was pointing and he chuckled, shaking his head a little. Turning back to her, he sat down on the cushion next to her and said, ”Yeah well, you can never be too sure with these pesky ghosts. So in case this one breaks out of whatever that is, I’ll be here to help. No holy water, though.” If it weren’t for his tone, you’d think he was serious from just looking at his face but there’s a twinkle of mischief in those eyes as he looked at her.

”Unless, uh, that’s not the kind of ghost we’re dealing with here,” he continued, now looking at the bracelet around her wrist. Her eyes followed his from the trap to her wrist, her expression changed briefly to something serious, lost in deep thought before she looked away from it again, her smile returning.

“Both and neither. Not all ghosts are created equal.” She paraphrased, quotes from movies and other similar multimedia a comfortable fall back for her. The whole story, from start to finish wasn’t something she had told anyone, at all. Noah, Mars, even Razor had all seen or heard pieces of it, slipping through the net of her new reality. But never all of it.

“You’re gonna make sure no more ghosts make me cry?” That had been what tripped her up, what took the idea of the ghost in the trap and made it more about the one on her wrist. Even so she looked to Noah with an easy smile, playing into his claim of being the Ghostbuster.

His face softened, seeing that smile of hers. Then he reached for her hand, the one wearing the bracelet, to give her assurance before raising it closer to his face as he peered at it. He turned her hand over, both studying the bracelet and sort of admiring the way it looked on her wrist. Still keeping his eyes on it, he asked, ”So… why did it make you cry?” Now, he looked at her, gentle curiosity in his gaze.

She watched him quietly, her smile fading ever so slightly as he inspected the bracelet. It was worn and frayed in places, nothing much really to look at. But it held a whole other lifetime of memories. Her voice was far more timid than it had ever been when she spoke.

“Because.” A shaky exhale followed her first word before she continued, getting out as much as she could before her mind could catch up with her. “Once upon a time, I wasn’t me. Not the me that is this me really, a different me who didn’t know much about anything. Smaller and afraid and just a me I wouldn’t even recognise… and for her everything was hard and distant, she didn’t have anything or anyone until she had him. He gave her that, before he went away, like everyone always went away. So then she had to go away too, but I kept her with me, him with us… through the bracelet the ghost took. Losing it felt like losing all of the story, the first chapter and without the end of that part of the story, the chapters started to get all mixed up. Her and me, the was and is couldn’t keep apart and her sadness was my sadness.” She finally took a breath, her smile was completely gone now, she eyes focused on his face a little too intently, as if she was trying to stop herself from looking anywhere else.

“And when someone’s sad, they cry. The end.”

Noah’s expression hardened as he listened patiently, trying his best to also keep up with the way she told her story. There were parts that were vague that left him with more questions than before but he didn’t need to ask them all at once to feel at least part of what she was feeling. He could hear it in her voice and see it on her face, especially with the way she was looking at him like a silent scream of sorrow. He didn’t say anything at first, just scooted closer to her and hugged her, offering her head on his shoulder. After a long moment, he asked, ”What do you mean by he went away exactly?”

She placed her head on his shoulder with a small sigh, her eyebrows knit together in a mix of concentration and grief. Hooking her pinky finger under the bracelet she was silent for a moment, examining it for herself.

“He died.” She had never said those words before, always finding some floral prose or way to dance around them. “There was an accident, he lost control of his truck.” As she explained things plainly, her voice soft and quiet, she leaned into Noah more. Seeking the anchor his presence provided to not slip back into memories that made up the ghost. “I held his hand while he went.” Shifting the bracelet back, she revealed a light silvery scar around the side of her wrist, a hidden but more constant reminder of the day when fate chose her to stay and him to go.

“He went, she had to go too. Move on, become someone else but it still followed… the ghost didn’t want to let her go. People kept getting hurt, they get close, we trust and they go away.” That same soft, whispering tone as she spoke. Letting go of the bracelet and turning her head just slightly, so she could look up at Noah from his shoulder. “Not the same way, others left in different ways. But they’re all gone and I had to keep leaving myself behind. So they couldn’t keep haunting us.”

He placed his hand on her back to comfort her while reaching with his other hand to hold hers, his thumb softly touching just below the scar. “I’m sorry for your loss, Paizlee. And I’m sorry you went through that.” He imagined her holding the hand that belonged to the ghost of her past.

”Does it still… haunt you?” he considered his next words carefully, ”do you still feel like you need to keep leaving a piece of yourself behind and… I don’t know… keep the old you and the now you apart?”

“If I let her in.” She turned her hand suddenly gripping his as though she could express all the fear she felt at the idea through that grip. “You might go too. I don’t want you to do.” Her tone was almost pleading, edged with a fear she never let take hold. Swallowing hard and closing her eyes she tried to find the right way to explain it, to make sense of it all.

“He… Alex, he had to go. But then there was more, I let them get hurt or lost, let the ghosts take hold and she got in. She changed the course, she suffers so I should.” Back to that whispered tone as though someone else might hear, the ghosts might know she was talking about Her.

All of a sudden Paizlee got to her feet, moving over to where her bed sat flush against the wall she lifted the mattress and yanked something from under it. A little red paper folder that held so many of her secrets. She fiddled with it for a moment, running her fingers around the edge before she sat back down.

“This.” She dropped the folder in front of them, pulling out an old newspaper sheet. It wasn’t a front page story, not even a featured article. Buried between adverts for discount furniture and the holy trinity church, was a small piece about a local wrestling company. The promoter had been forced to close down after an accident involving two of the wrestlers had left one with serious spinal injury, lucky to make it out alive.

“This is what she does… cursed. Haunted.”

Noah’s frown deepened as he glanced at the folder before looking at the article to take and read. He sat hunched over taking in the words while hers repeated in his head. Cursed? Then he looked back up at her. ”It says it’s an accident, Paiz.” He probably could’ve worded that better, more sympathetic, but there’s no judgment or anything like that in his tone. But hers though sounded like the one she used when talking about the situation with Mars after they found out why she didn’t show up for her match. The one where she kept blaming herself for it. At the time, he didn’t understand why she would do that. But maybe now he was beginning to, or at least had a guess.

“He said it wasn’t safe. Wasn’t right but she didn’t listen, all the others said it was ok, they weren’t her friends but she believed them.” Her eyes practically burned a hole through the paper before she looked away. “We learned from him, everything, all of it. After we had to go… I didn’t think I’d ever come back to this again, not after that, after she didn’t listen.”

Paizlee was slowly interchanging the words, her, me, us, they were all becoming the same. Her mind let the memories of those two incidents overlap. Her guilt for both, tied to the same core belief that she was cursed. The idea that fate always favored her, only to punish her. She shook the other contents from the folder, some of which were older than others.

Her fathers death certificate.
Articles about her mother’s disappearance, about the accident when she was in high school, things she was directly tied to.
But mixed in were other things, incidents or accidents that she happened to find some connection to; a tapestry of ghosts that she had pieced together over time, all to cope with and explain away the tragedies of her past.

When she finally looked back at Noah, her expression was fearful. Her eyes trained on his face, waiting for him to realise that she was to blame. That she had caused all of this hurt and suffering in the lives of others. “I trust and she takes them.”

Looking at the fallen contents now on the floor, he was shocked to find how deep this went. To think that the girl he knew with all her quirks and infectious personality would be harboring such a heavy secret. One that he would never expect. But knowing her reliance on the “stuff” she took, he should’ve guessed. He’s seen a little of that before in someone he looked up to once before they crumbled under the weight of all that self-inflicted guilt. With an inaudible sigh, he picked up the contents, every piece of it, and arranged them together neatly before placing the pile on the floor again, making sure that not one was out of place. As if it mattered but he found it more comforting this way, rather than leaving it haphazard.

He looked back at her and placed one finger on the top of the pile. ”Paiz, trust is supposed to be a good thing. It isn’t supposed to make you lose something in exchange of it. I mean, it’s not like it might only be rainbows and butterflies all the time but sometimes things happen because… they just do. And it’s nothing to do with something you did. It just… is.”

He watched for her reaction, minding his words a lot more. ”And I think that’s what these are. They’re just… accidents and coincidences, as unfortunate as they are. It sucks but that’s life. It’s supposed to suck sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t.” He probably wasn’t explaining it right but he tried his best. He wasn’t an expert at what life was. He himself was having trouble dealing with the death of someone he didn’t even get the chance to know so he could relate a little but at the same time, not at all. Wouldn’t stop him from trying though as he couldn’t bear to see Paizlee like this.

“You don’t believe in fate?” Her fingers traced a circle his heart, over his shirt as she looked up into his eyes with a hint of her usual curiosity. “We make choices and those choices affect others who didn’t get to - we can’t, it can’t all be incidental. Someone has to hear them.” The way her memories interlinked with the moment confused her thoughts, it all getting jumbled. She leaned in closer to him, pressing her forehead to his and closing her eyes, looking to centre herself in the moment. “I have to leave it with her, little pieces, it’s the only way. And then I can swallow it all with everything that makes me ok again, like a pill with a pill. So it’s all just a story, once upon a time and then like that she’s gone, she stays with them and I can escape the ghosts.”

He held her hand, keeping it on his chest. ”That sounds exhausting, Paiz,” he said simply. He could feel her lean in more and he took it as her giving way to all that emotional weight she’s been carrying so he held her, hoping to be the support she needed right now. ”It’s like you’re taking one and then removing another one but only to place it somewhere else. So you’re not exactly removing them, right? You’re just replacing it with each other, just a quick patch up. Maybe good for the short term but not for long. I mean, that’s how I see it. You can’t escape from the same things you still stay with. And remember when you couldn’t do the quick fix? You went right back to the original state just like that. I mean, I believe in fate but not like this. You holding onto this guilt isn’t the work of fate. That’s all you. Your choice.”

She let out a soft sigh, resting her head to his shoulder once again, her hand under his feeling like a tether that held her safe against the storm in her memories. “I make the choice so they don’t have to.” The guilt and the blame was her way of controlling how others viewed her, by letting herself shoulder the weight for others and leaving that part of herself there to blame; she never had to let anyone else feel the way she did. But he was right, it was exhausting and that’s why she balanced it with the things she did. Substances that let her escape the clutches of her own forced reality.

“I just don’t want it to take you.” Her words felt heavy, but true. “Or Mars. I trusted them, to understand and to keep us safe. I don’t want to leave again.” All of her guilt and fear summed up in those last few words. She was finally feeling like she belonged again, something she hadn’t felt since she was a young teen sitting alone in the house in front of movies she let replace real life experiences. This felt so close to being home, she didn’t want to leave this time.

”No,” he said, letting her rest on him, ”It won’t take me. And I think it won’t take Mars either or anyone else you decide to trust and let in. Because you know why? The ghost doesn’t haunt me. I can make my choice without being cursed. And I choose to be here. With you. So there. What can it do now?” He was hoping to lighten the mood a little, to slowly ease her pain after bearing herself already.

“Hide your shoes.” She smiled as she said it, a little above a whisper and a small playful gasp at the horror. “Ghosts like shoes, towels too. What’ll you do when you can’t find your towel after a shower?” Paizlee welcomed the chance to shrug off the weight that talking about these memories cast down on her. Relishing an opportunity to just breathe, be in the moment. “Here with me.” She repeated the words and her smile grew, tilting her head to meet his eyes again. “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird.”

There's an amused look on his face now, a little surprised by the quick change in her mood. ”If you’re a bird, I’m a bird… where’s that one from?” He said as he softly curled her hair with his finger. She gave a shocked expression as she half laughed, utterly unable to believe he didn’t know the movie.

“The Notebook!” She used her free hand to point towards the pile of VHS tapes she swore were better than any DVD could ever be, an attachment to something that predated her and yet was such a solid part of her childhood memories. “How have you never seen that one? This is why you need me, the education!”

He chuckled. ”Paiz, do I really look like someone who has seen The Notebook? And you know what, maybe I do need you.” He chuckled again but he took her hand back to pull her attention back from the tapes for a second. ”For the movies, the being the Paizlee I know and the Paizlee you were and all in between. I need you to just be. You don’t have to carry all that, all the stuff in that folder,” he moved her hand to her heart, ”or in here,” then moved it to her head, ”or in there. Just… be. Okay?” He smirked, knowing he’s moving her hand around almost comical-like at the end, but also meaning what he said at the same time.

“Okay.” She bobbled her head just a little, agreeing and meaning it, even if she didn’t quite believe it was that simple. She knew how to make it so simple, the same way she managed everything else. The same thing that prevented her from being tested when others called for it - but also the same thing Noah was less than fond of. So she replaced that thought with another, one she was trying to make more permanent whenever she thought it. “And I need you.” She stole a quick kiss, his lips soft against hers before she broke away with a grin.

“We’re watching it. All great stories start with a doomed love story that fixes itself in the end, even if it’s not the fix we think we wanted at the start.”

”Alright, lay it on me,” he said jokingly as if he wasn’t curious to see how the movie would play out based on her take on it. He then relaxed more into the floor cushion and patted on the spot next to him, calling for her to sit closer.

Without even needing to look through the stack she pulled out the right tape, pushing it into the player before settling back next to Noah with an exaggerated sigh. “No talking this time! I’m not gonna spoil the ending like last time.” The smile on her face was genuine but playful, settling back into her usual happier mood. He nodded to the no talking rule and then just pulled her close to him with a quick kiss on her hair before settling in to watch the movie together.

”You’re just gonna have to wait and see with this one, but the good ones are always worth the wait.”