Chapter 2

It’s easy to forget you’re dead.

It happened to me three times last month. Jessica forgets sometimes as well. She would go home to her kids and try to cook dinner only to find she can’t touch any of the utensils or her children. She would just settle with playing with her kid’s cat.

I am so grateful that animals can see and touch us. If it wasn’t for Max, I would think about moving on every day.
I snuggle into a rusty smelling blanket I found in a garbage bin. I sleep near the couch in the living room. I could leave and sleep in all those abandoned places ghosts like to be but I prefer it here. We can touch anything the living has forgotten about. So, it is easier living in those places but it’s dangerous too.

Those ghosts can permanently forget that they’re dead. Their brains turn to mush and they dive into this neverending delusion. They go mad with the fumes of the living. We aren’t supposed to be here. I was supposed to move on as soon as I died but I just couldn’t.

I wasn’t ready.

I had to see Tyler grow up and see if my mom ever goes back to nursing school. I wanted to see if my dad would finally land that job at Google that he wants so bad. I couldn’t just leave. I couldn’t understand how some ghosts that I’ve met could just ask for directions and go off to the afterlife.

Weren’t they scared?

What even happens when we go pass the horizon? Will there be heaven or hell? Will there be anything at all? Will I come back as a rock or another person? I don’t know. Even with all these unknowns, I am still thinking about it.

I don’t like how confused I get on Monday mornings or how I cry myself to sleep every night. I miss having fun and being happy. I haven’t been myself since the day I died.

I used to be a bubbly sarcastic mess. I would babysit everyone’s kids and was a part of the Big Sisters Program. I got accepted into Vanderbilt University to chase my dreams. I did my first year there before coming back here for summer vacation. If I would’ve known how I would die when I came back, I would’ve stayed my ass in Tennessee.

It’s too late but I can dream about the what if’s and theorize what my life would be like if I had made different choices. What if I didn’t drive that night? What if I took a different road? What if I reacted quicker? All these rack my head twenty-four seven, all day everyday. Well, the days when I remember that I’m dead anyways.

“Sweetheart, I was thinking we should head down to Connecticut with Tyler,”

I lift my head up at the sound of my dad’s voice. They are both at the dinner table with glasses full of red wine. My mom brings her painted lips to the glass and takes a long sip.

“I was thinking the same thing. He needs us. Ever since Anwen died, he’s been struggling. We won’t smother him but we can make sure we’re available when he needs us,” my mom replies.

I listen, frog in throat. They’re leaving?

I guess it is silly of me to think this but I thought they’ll be in this house forever. I was born here. Tyler was born here. Even when I was away at college, I still considered this place my one and only home.

“Can’t we ask Barbara? She’s in real estate down there,” my dad says, biting his nails.

“I’ve already asked her. Found a nice little house right across from a dog park. Max will love it,”

No, not Max.

“We can try to move in the summer, we have nothing to do and we have got a place,”

Calm down Anwen. It’s just talk. It doesn’t mean they aren’t actually going to go. My parents can stay here and Tyler can come back for winter vacations, not in the summer, just in the winter. No need to freak out.

I am shaking out of my mind and I’m crying before I know it. “We’ll all live in this house together. I promise to try to be happy, please don’t go,”

“Paul, do you hear that?”

My dad scoots up his chair. “Hear what?”

“That awful weeping,” my mom says, her eyes frisking around but not once does her caramel eyes land on me.

“I don’t hear it,”

“But Tyler says he hears it sometimes too. Footsteps in the middle of the night. Max goes crazy at night too. Like that! Do you feel that cold breeze? All the windows are closed I’m sure of it.”

“All the more reason to move, Gloria” my dad says chuckling.

“I swear this place is haunted,” my mom says, rubbing her arms.

“Should I call the priest tomorrow?” my dad says joking.

“No, no, that’s okay. We’re moving out anyway,”

They laugh and joke but I’m not in a humorous mood. I fight the brain fog and try to stay in the moment. Every time my brain tries to alleviate my pain by deluding me to think I’m alive, it works. It does its job. I feel better but as soon as I realize that I’m not, the whole world stops and crashes down on my shoulders. I can’t have that happen because I can’t imagine how painful it would be this time.

I’m already toiling past my limit.

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Gosh, she’s gorgeous.