GHOSTS
“CAN YOU DRIVE ANY FASTER?” My tone is clipped, my words too sharp for the cold, icy, empty streets and the middle of the night.
“No. The roads are slick. I’d rather get you there alive.” I feel her looking at me. “You have to tell me what is going on. I want to help—I’m trying to help you—why are you so upset?”
“It’s my brother. He didn’t come home.”
“Why is that such an emergency?”
“You wouldn’t understand, okay? And I can’t explain it right now.”
“Well, try.”
I breathe in deeply, through my nose, and exhale slowly from my mouth. “Our sister was alone. She’s only twelve. I can’t understand why he would do that unless something bad happened, okay? I need to find him before—”
“Before what?”
“Can we please just stop talking?” I am exhausted, yet wired, and too tired to be so wired. I feel all wrong in every way.
“But I don’t understand. What about your mom—I mean, where’s she? What am I missing?”
“Can we please stop talking, Dani?” My patience grows more slippery with every word.
“Fine. Okay, stop yelling, though—you’re making me nervous, and I can’t drive when I’m nervous!”
“I’m not yell—” But of course I am. I keep my mouth shut until we get there.
She slows to a stop in front of my building. The fresh snow makes everything look like a dream. Makes me want to slow down and turn to her and cry and kiss and beg her to forgive me. It makes me want to tell her to keep driving and take us somewhere, anywhere, far away. It makes me want to leave it all behind, forever.
“Let me at least come in with you,” she says, unbuckling her seat belt.
“No. Please, I need to handle this by myself, okay? Thank you, but—oh my God, there he is!” I open the car door and try to run to where Aaron’s just rounded the corner. My feet slide on the ice, and I struggle to keep my balance. “Aaron!” I call out, my voice getting lost in the air as it swirls around us.
“What?” he whispers into the silence, not bothering to quicken his pace to reach me sooner.
I hear Dani calling my name behind me.
“Where were you, dammit?”
“I’m right here, you don’t have to yell,” he says, several feet away from me now. “What’s wrong?”
“You didn’t answer your phone!” I shout. “I was scared—Callie was scared, I mean.”
“It died.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and waves it around. “What? Is she okay?”
I walk closer to him, trying to see his face more clearly, but he’s all in shadow. “Callie didn’t know where you were. She called Jackie to pick her up.”
“What for?” He shrugs through the words. “You’re here.”
“I wasn’t here—I texted you that I was staying at Dani’s.”
“Okay, well, I didn’t know!” he says, getting defensive.
“Where were you?” I repeat.
“I went out. Is that a crime now?” he asks, as if that’s a question I can answer. “It’s not that huge. Callie’s okay, right? You’re okay. I’m okay. So calm down, all right?”
“Brooke?” Dani says again.
“What?” I shout, turning around to see her looking at me in that way—maybe the way I was looking at Aaron that night on the roof—that makes you feel like a total worthless piece of garbage for disappointing the one person you want to love so badly.
“Brooke, Jesus,” Aaron says under his breath.
“I’m sorry, but please go, Dani. Okay?” I say.
“I’m just trying to help,” she says, her voice so small. She walks toward me cautiously, and I want to believe that she’s being careful because she’s afraid of the ice, not me. She holds my leather messenger bag out at arm’s length.
“I know. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I keep repeating. I walk over and try to pull her in for a hug. “I’m sorry,” I whisper against her cheek as she pushes away from me, like I’m suffocating her this time. “I’ll explain everything. Later. Okay? Okay?”
“Okay,” she finally answers. She gets into her car, closes the door, and pulls away slowly. I wave to her, but she looks straight ahead. Everything’s left quiet in the wake of our voices.
Aaron walks up the steps, then brushes the snow off the top step before he turns and sits down. He looks out over the rooftops at the half-moon, barely visible through the thick clouds.
I follow his lead and brush the spot next to him and sit as well. The snowflakes float down around us, the muteness of winter finally setting in. In the streetlight it looks like dust, a fine white powder, a million tiny stars twinkling as they fall.
“Listen, you can’t be like that,” he finally says.
“Like what?”
He shakes his head slowly as he looks at me, disapprovingly. “She genuinely cares about you. Don’t start treating her like shit.”
“I—I’m not—I didn’t mean—”
“Yeah, I know!” he snaps at me. “Believe me, I understand. You didn’t mean to, right? You’re sorry—who does that sound like?” He reaches into his coat pocket and takes out his cigarettes. “It’s not okay to take your shit out on other people. For fuck’s sake, haven’t we learned that by now?”
“Why are you saying this? You act like I’ve done something terrible. You’re always fighting with Carmen.”
He turns his head and looks at me like he wants to yell but just doesn’t care enough to actually do it. “Yeah, that’s why you should listen—I know what I’m talking about. You and me, Brooke, we need to be careful with people. Callie, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you have to watch how you treat people. You have to watch how you let people treat you. They’re in us, both of them.” He pauses while his words sink their way into my brain slowly. Then he adds, “We split up weeks ago, by the way. Not exactly breaking news.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugs in response.
“How come?” I ask, trying to make my voice softer, gentler.
“I don’t know. No reason. A million reasons,” he mumbles through his cigarette. “Better question, why are you all freaked out and yelling at your girlfriend? And me, too, by the way? This is not exactly a catastrophe here,” he says, looking around at the sheer calmness surrounding us.
“No, but it could have been—”
“But it wasn’t,” he says, cutting me off.
“But it could’ve been! You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?” I feel myself start to laugh—needing some kind of release for my frustration.
“What?” he asks me, trying to be comforting but getting frustrated himself. “What are you talking about, then?”
“You, Aaron! It was the worst moment of my whole life. Finding you on the roof. Did you know it was me?” I finally ask the question that has been on the tip of my tongue for two years.
His brow furrows in confusion, as if maybe this is one of his memories that he keeps locked away.
“You do know what I’m talking about, right?” I ask when he doesn’t answer.
He hesitates. “No. I mean, yes, I know what you’re talking about. I didn’t know it was you, though.” He brings his cigarette to his mouth again, looking out across the street, and says absently, “I don’t really remember much about what happened.”
“Well, I can’t forget it,” I tell him. “I think about it all the time. And I think about what would’ve happened if I hadn’t come up and found you. And I get scared it could happen again—I’m scared about that all the time.”
He nods, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s so quiet I can hear the paper and tobacco sizzle as he inhales deeply. “Can I ask you something stupid?” he finally says, his voice amplified by the cold and the snow and that silence they create together. I nod. “Do you . . .” He stops to laugh at himself. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “Why, do you?”
“Sometimes I think I’m being haunted. Possessed or something.”
“By who?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“I can hear his voice in my head. Always there, pushing me around. ‘Loser,’ ” he mimics, almost perfectly, Dad’s deep baritone voice. “ ‘You little girl, you stupid idiot, be a man.’ ” I watch his nostrils expand as he inhales, his mouth opening slightly on the exhale. “Sometimes I look in the mirror—I see his face. Then again, I guess he was haunting me long before he was dead. It got better after I moved out. But now, being in this goddamn place again . . . he’s everywhere I turn. Starting to feel him get inside my head again.”
“Aaron, I—”
“And I don’t want you to be haunted like that, not by him, not by me, not by some screwed-up thing I did on the roof.”
“I’m not,” I lie, feeling the ground slipping out from under my feet.
“I think we need to call it, Brooke,” he blurts out. “This is over. You can’t say we didn’t go down without a fight.”
“It’s not over. I mean, can’t she appeal?”
“No, she can’t appeal. She pleaded guilty. You can’t appeal that. It’s done, Brooke. It really is. And we can’t stay here—I can’t.”
“Aaron, please. You can’t leave. Please.” I grab on to his arm. “Please? I need you. I’m sorry that we fight. I’ll be better, I’ll be more understanding. I’m trying too, you know?” I feel this overpowering desperation taking hold of me. I’m begging. I can hear it in my voice and hate it.
“No, stop.” He pulls his arm away and stands, seeming so tall, so far away from me already. “Listen to yourself, Brooke. You know, lately, if you’re not sounding like Dad, you’re sounding just like Mom.”
“I do not!” But he’s not listening; he’s backing away from me, toward the door.
“Look, I’m wrecked, okay? I’m sorry,” he says one last time, leaving me alone outside in the cold at four o’clock in the morning.
I watch as the wind drags the snow across the street in slow motion, S-like patterns, quivering snakes, making the invisible air visible. It’s strange how absence can take up so much space sometimes. I guess that’s what ghosts are. I stay outside until I get so cold I can’t stand it anymore.