Haunted Things Page 5

  He gnaws at his bottom lip for a while, like he wants to say something.

  "I hate scars," I mutter finally. "There's no way to shut them up. They can't help but be loud. My grandma says it's emotional manipulation."

  "Your grandma is wrong," he growls. I glance at him, and his jaw is strained. "I'm sorry, Ash, but it's true."

  "I don't do it anymore, but sometimes I want to." My voice is barely a whisper. His expression remains careful, but his eyes are drowning with sympathy. I can't look at him anymore or this hole in my chest will tear me apart. "I just never realized we'd have so little time. That there would be no taking anything back."

  "Death is a fucked up thing. You know it's coming from the day you're born, that it's going to end everything you see and everyone you know and love. But when it actually touches you…you can never be fully ready for that moment. It always happens too fast."

  I lean up against the window sill, and nod.

  "You're different than I thought you would be when I first met you," he says. "You're not hiding or pretending to be tougher than you are."

  I feel my cheeks warm up again and look out at the grass. "Thanks, I guess."

  "I really like that you're here, Ash," he says, and the emotion lacing his words make me glance back at him. I lean forward slowly, moving toward him as he's magnetized toward me. He glances at my lips, parting his own, trapping his bottom lip between his teeth. So close to kissing me…

  From outside, we hear tires grind into the driveway. Shit.

  Aaron pulls away. "Your dad's home. I should get going." In one fluid movement, he twists around and his feet grip the trellis. My heart is still pounding, despite the moment being lost. He swiftly descends but midway down he tilts his head up.

  "This was nice. I know that's not a good enough word, but…I'll see you later, okay?"

  I'm surprised and I raise my eyebrow. "You're actually saying goodbye this time?"

  "There's a first time for everything." His smile brightens his sullen face and the deep shadows beneath his eyes almost disappear. Warmth floods my stomach and I bite my lip, wishing he had kissed me. Wishing he would climb back up here and finish the job.

  "Don't break your neck," I call as he resumes his decent.

  "I'm not worried about it." He reaches the bottom and jumps off, glancing once back up at me before flipping his sweatshirt hood up and jogging back around the house.

  Dad seems in a better mood than usual, and we watch a movie together as we're eating dinner. It feels like things are finally settling in. This house is starting to feel like it could be home.

  CHAPTER 13

  "You're nothing but a fucking pussy, Heywood," a guy shouts as I'm coming around the corner at lunch break the next day. It takes me two seconds to register Oliver in the middle of getting the shit beaten out of him by a dude I know to be one of Carla's boyfriends, Dominic. The huge guy lands another blow into Oliver's stomach, then cracks a punch to his slender jaw. He grabs both sides of Oliver's coat and head-butts him in the eye socket. He drops him on the ground, storming off with his huge fists swinging by his sides.

  "Are you okay?" I ask, rushing to his side. It's a pointless thing to say, as already bruises are forming on his skin. He wipes blood off his face with the back of his hand and grimaces as he sits up against the wall.

  "Aww, look, Oliver's got himself a little goth girlfriend," Carla says as she comes out of the bathroom, reeking of weed. "Ain't that cute?"

  "I'm not his girlfriend," I say through gritted teeth, standing up. "But I am his friend. You can't—"

  She's in my face before I can react, and she shoves me hard into the drinking fountain. The metal ridge jabs into my kidneys and I grit my teeth. I push her off of me, and she comes back with a hard slap on my cheek that rings through the hall.

  I try to push her again, but she grabs my wrist and twists it. She notices my scars and tugs up my sleeve to my elbow. "Look at that, Miss Goth is into self injury. So pathetic."

  "You don't know what you're talking about." I force my angry tears to stay inside.

  "Like I said before…don't go fucking around with things you don't understand," she says cryptically, and stalks off.

  Crimson blood is running from a split in Oliver's bottom lip. I grab paper towels out of the bathroom and return with them, helping him to his feet. He blots his lip, as a purple bruise develops on his forehead. The entire top of his hat is busted. He puts his hand through it and then shoves it into his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder.

  "Bet you're regretting the move now, huh, Ash?" he says humorlessly. He glances at me, his pale eyes softening. "I thought I scared you off. I'm sorry, I know I come on too strong."

  I feel bad for him. We're both in this boat together. "It's okay. Weirdos have to stick together."

  _________________

  A long, rectangular bruise marks my back by the time I get home. I check it out in the mirror in the bathroom. I feel anxious and frazzled and ready to quit. I pop two aspirin for the aching muscle cramps and head up to my room, then collapse on my stomach on the bed. I mash my face into a pillow, unable to keep back my frustrated tears.

  I want my mom. I want her back more than anything.

  No matter how much we used to fight, whenever I would cry, she would always offer a hug or sit by me or stroke my hair. Thinking about it just makes the tears come harder, the pain in my heart enough to rip me apart.

  "I've never seen you cry before," comes a familiar male voice from behind me. I twist around and see Aaron crouched in the window. He steps down and looks me over, his eyes questioning.

  "There's a first time for everything," I parrot, wiping my nose.

  "What happened?"

  "Nothing." I don't want him to see me like this. "Why did you come up here?"

  "I called for you but you didn't come out."

  "There's a reason for that." My voice is muffled by the pillow. "Get out."

  "Don't tell me to go. What happened, Ash?" he repeats so gently that I glance at him again. He carefully perches on the end of the bed and his eyes flick down to the bruises on my lower back. I yank my shirt down and sit up, wiping my tears with the back of my hand.

  "This girl at school, I stepped on her toes when I shouldn't have." I draw my knees up under my chin. "I just feel so alone here. I wish we'd never moved from Indiana."

  His brows knit together and I see pain in his expression. "You're not alone. You have me."

  I stare down at a spot on the mattress, clutching my knees. I don't know what to say.

  "I am really sorry that you lost your mother," he murmurs.

  "I'm sorry about your family, too." I must look like a mess, my nose is swollen and my eyes sting from the salt of my tears, but he's smiling gently at me. Sadly. "And that your house has become a tourist attraction."

  I can't resist this overwhelming urge to touch him. I watch his throat work as he swallows, his eyes narrowing and focusing on my lips. He bites his bottom lip and I know he wants to kiss me. I lean forward slowly and shut my eyes. I wait for the release of his lips against mine, but it doesn't happen. I open my eyes and he's still sitting in the same spot. Embarrassment makes me fumble as I stand up, and I tilt my face away so he won't see my horror.

  "I-I'm sorry," I mumble, tugging locks of hair to cover my face. "I can't believe I thought that—"

  "No, Ash. I'm the one who's sorry. It's not what you think."

  When I look back at him, his expression is tortured. He paces the floor and scrubs his hands through his hair.

  "I want to kiss you, you have no idea how much I want to kiss you…I just can't."

  My heart flutters with lust and confusion. "What do you mean?"

  His forehead creases and he pinches his lips together. "I don't know how to explain it to you."

  I stare at the floor silently. I'm ready to give up on this shitty day.

  "Who hurt you?" he demands. "Was it that bitch who broke in here with her friends? The one
with the fake bullet hole and the god complex?"

  "Yeah, Carla."

  "What are you going to do about her?"

  "I can't do anything to her," I say, my tone raised in exasperation. I nearly trip on my laptop cord and have to restrain myself from kicking it as I sit back down. "She'll get her groupies to come after me. She thinks she's untouchable."

  The corner of his mouth lifts into a crooked grin. "Then show her that she's wrong."

  "How am I going to do that?"

  His eyes glitter in the dim light. "There's always a way."

  CHAPTER 14

  "Is this true, Carla?" Our Calculus teacher asks the next day. She's pulled Carla up to her desk, but we can hear her despite her attempts to keep her voice low. "They said you've been taking photos of the test answers and distributing them, and copying files off of my computer. I wondered why the curve suddenly evened out."

  Oliver and I exchange a glance. The teacher leads Carla to her desk, where her coat hangs off the back. All the blood has drained out of her face.

  "Let me see your phone," the teacher says sternly, holding out her palm. "Hand it over." Carla clutches her phone in its purple case to her chest.

  "You can't do this. Not without my permission or my parents'," Carla protests, but hands the phone over anyway with shaking hands. The teacher unlocks it and starts scrolling through it, her brow creased in a hard frown. The other students are stone-faced, watching their connection to drugs and easy grades dry up.

  There's a knock at the door, and it's the principal. The teacher goes to answer it. Carla leans forward and slams both hands onto my desk, getting in my face. "I know this was you. You're gonna regret this."

  "We need to inspect your locker, Miss Lasko," the principal calls.

  Carla looks trapped, but she marches out with the teacher at her heels and into the hallway. The room bursts into gossip as soon as they're out in the hall.

  "What was that about?" Oliver asks, scooting his desk toward me. A fading black bruise circles his eye.

  I lean closer so no one else can hear. "I gave an anonymous tip to the principal about what Carla's been doing with the tests. Apparently they weren't surprised, I didn't say anything about her locker."

  "You sure it was anonymous?"

  I stare toward the door, where through the glass I can make out Carla sobbing with her hands over her face. "I thought so. But I might have been wrong."

  _________________

  Shannon, our chipper neighbor, comes to the door that night. She's wearing a pink dress and a high ponytail, the picture of suburban wifery.

  "No baked treats this time?" I ask, trying to make up for my earlier lack of social grace. "Your cookies were really good."

  "No, not this time. I'll keep you in mind for next time, there's a lemon cake recipe I've been wanting to try," she says with a warm smile. I like how down to earth and relaxed Shannon is.

  "Are you here to see my dad? He'll be home soon."

  I notice she's carrying a shoebox under one arm, and she waves her other hand. "No, actually, I'm here for you. I can't stay long until I have to dash, but I wanted to bring you what you asked for. I couldn't find my yearbooks, but I searched through all of my boxes and found a couple of photos."

  Intrigued, I lead her into the living room where she sits on the couch and lifts the top of the box, taking out two photographs. She hands them to me, one on top of the other.

  The first is a family picture like at one of those cheesy portrait studios, complete with a stylized, cloudy blue backdrop. Two smiling parents and their three cheerful kids. The eldest two look like they were middle school age, the youngest a preschooler on his mom's lap. A spray of freckles covers his face and he has his mom's bright red hair.

  "That's them, the Mosses. You could never imagine it, right?" She makes a tsk noise with her teeth. I'm confused, though. Aaron doesn't have any freckles now, and his hair is brown.

  I flip to the second photo and my heart stops. It's Aaron—at least, it looks just like Aaron. I could have taken this picture yesterday. It's a candid shot, outdoors, in the middle of the day, and his serious face is framed perfectly. The only difference is he's not so pale, he actually has color in his cheeks. He's even wearing the same damn brown sweatshirt.

  "Crazy, isn't it? Seth looks like such a handsome, normal, All-American kid."

  But that's not what's crazy.

  "That's Seth," I murmur, my thumbs framing the photo. It's not a question, I just need her to confirm it. My vision's going blurry and I might faint. I have to force my hands to relax so I don't bend the photos.

  The boy I have a crush on is Seth, accused murderer—not Aaron, his innocent brother. Seth…who disappeared ten years ago.

  She glances up at my face, her brow creasing in confusion. "Are you okay?"

  I look up at her, startled. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry. You're right, it is crazy. Thank you for bringing me these."

  She checks her watch. "No problem, hon. Like I said, though, I need to get going." I follow her to the foyer in a daze, still staring at the photos in my hands. I try to hand them over to her, but she declines.

  "You can keep those." Shannon cradles the box under her arm. "I felt spooked having anything of his in my house. Silly, I know, but still." She glances up at the ceiling and shrugs her shoulders. "At least this way, it's like they're home."

  As soon as she's gone, I bolt upstairs to my bedroom. Painful sobs resound inside my chest as I try to keep myself from falling apart. Why wasn't I paying attention to the signs? How he didn't want to meet my dad, how he always played it secret.

  I kneel in front of my bed with the photos on the mattress, and glance back and forth between them. I tug at my hair with my hands. There's no doubt about it, it's the same guy. I know the truth in every hard, unrelenting beat of my heart.

  "You know, don't you?" comes his voice from behind me. I swallow hard and look up at Aaron—Seth—standing with his jaw clenched. His eyes burn into me, his voice soaked with bitterness and resentment. "Did I finally scare you?"

  CHAPTER 15

  I back away from him toward the dresser, keeping my wide eyes fixated on him. Fear urges on my heart and my pulse beats in my ears.

  "Most people would be scared of having a murderer in their room," he says, taking a cautious step forward.

  "You told me you were Aaron."

  "It was the first name I thought of. He's my little brother. I didn't want you to know who I was, at the time." He runs his tongue across his lips. "I haven't seen him in ten years, and I knew he wasn't coming back."

  He's moving now and I realize I'm trying to shift toward the door and he's matching my movements. But he's not closing the space in between us. Our eyes remain locked in a duel and I feel like I might get swallowed by the pull of his dark irises.

  "Why did you come back now?"

  "I never left. I never ran away like they said. I've been here the whole time."

  I try to ingest his words, but my thoughts are racing and my head seems overfull. "How? How is it that you still look so young? You don't look like you aged a day and it's been over ten years. You must be almost thirty."

  He stops moving, his eyebrows knitting together. "You already know the answer to that. I know you do, if you really think about it."

  My lips have gone dry and my head is fuzzy.

  "Stop lying to yourself, Ash. That's the only way you didn't realize it." His voice is soft and soothing now, his hands at his sides. I feel like he's very far away even though he's right in front of me.

  How he wears the same outfit every time I see him. How he doesn't have a smell. How he just appears out of nowhere, and no one else seems to have seen him.

  I want to kiss you, but I can't…

  "You're dead?" I whisper, my voice cracking.

  He nods slowly and look down, then back up at me through his lashes. "I never made it to thirty, or twenty five, or even twenty. I died when I was eighteen, that same night as my parents an
d Lauren."

  My emotions explode from my core. "That's crap!" I shout at him, angry tears prickling my eyes. "You're not a ghost, you're full of shit!"

  He doesn't react angrily, his voice soft and sad, his eyebrows puckered up. "You want proof?"

  I'm speechless as he crosses to the dresser, where a pencil cup sits on top. He yanks one of the pens out, uncaps it, and jabs it swiftly into his neck.

  I shriek and cup my hands over my mouth. He didn't even flinch. He stares at me blankly as he slides the pen out and recaps it, putting it back in the cup. There's no blood. Not even a mark on his neck.

  "I didn't even feel that. I don't feel anything." Now irritation is creeping back into his voice. "I can use myself as a pin cushion if you want, but it's not going to change anything."

  "How? How is this possible? You touch things, you—"

  "Yeah, I can touch things. But I can't touch people." He looks at me pointedly and his expression is tortured, pressing his hands against his temples. "I can't touch you. And I can't hurt you even if I wanted to, which I never would."

  Silent tears run down my cheeks as my hands fall to my sides.

  "I didn't kill my family, Ash. I don't think you'll believe me, but it's the truth. And I would leave, if I could." His sad tone crushes my chest like a rock. "But I can't. I swear, you can trust me."

  "How can I trust you?" My voice cracks again, almost hysterical. "You've been lying to me from the start!"

  He sighs, his shoulders dropping. "I had to. But I won't bother you anymore."

  He disappears right in front of my face, evaporating into thin air. One second he was here and now he's gone. I drop to the floor, tears still rolling down my face even though I feel numb and cold. I clutch my arms, shivering. I feel like I might crack. Maybe I already have.