Ren wasn’t in his apartment. I tried spiriting straight to him, but that only left me in the middle of a dark urban street, blinking in the rushing headlights of cars that roared right through me. He must’ve been driving.
I tried again in the morning, after sunrise. He looked even paler than before in darkness, lit only by the blue light of his laptop, curled up in a nest of sheets on his mattress.
He didn’t look up as I approached. It felt so intrusive, kneeling across from him on the bed like I’d been invited. But he was my best shot at communicating across the veil. I had no choice but to pester him.
Then again, I didn’t have to be a nuisance. This could be fun. I need only turn on the charm. Too bad I’d died in such a long skirt, and I hadn’t thought to undo any buttons on my blouse.
I put my hands on my knees, leaned forward, and smiled. At the last second, I couldn’t resist a joke. “Hey there, boo.”
Nothing. Not even an eyeroll. He barely turned his head away from the screen. He didn’t even flinch when I waved my hands in front of his eyes, though his jaw clenched.
“Ouch.”
Evie and I might have gotten a rise out of him earlier, but now he was trying to take back some self-respect, refusing to talk back to his own supposed self. Striking a pose and a seductive grin in his bed might do the opposite of convincing him that I wasn’t just a figment of his lonely imagination.
I sighed, imagining all the years of therapy and medication I’d have to break through. But he probably didn’t need all that. Unlike me.
“I’m not Brian,” I said.
His chest rose and fell with a silent sigh. I must’ve been hard to ignore. Unlike the raving geists, I talked right at him.
“I’m different from all your other so-called hallucinations, aren’t I?” I said. “Way more coherent, right?”
He didn’t answer, of course.
“Either you could choose to believe you’ve hit a new level of psychosis, or there’s another explanation: I’m real.”
His mouth curled with a strangled start of a laugh. That was something.
“We’re all real, but the rest have been dead so long, something’s gone wrong with them. I only just died.”
I pressed closer, blocking the light with my legs as I dipped my head down, trying to look into his face. He shrank away, getting up.
As much as I didn’t want to follow him to the bathroom, I had to confirm my suspicion. He blinked in the fluorescent light, fumbling in the medicine cabinet. Something clattered into the sink with a familiar clacking rattle, that warning shade of orange. I couldn’t quite catch the multisyllabic medication listed on the label beneath Takahashi, Renji.
“I knew it.”
He glared at his reflection as he popped the pills in his mouth, swallowing dry, with a tap-water chaser.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how you take those,” I said. “They’re maintenance, not at will; you can’t pop ’em like candy and make me go away.”
That won me a glance of a few seconds, his brow furrowed.
“Look, I’ve seen shit,” I said. Normally, I’d rather die than open up, but between already being dead, and having my existence questioned, somehow it came easy. “I’ve never been diagnosed—well, not correctly. You know when you’re seeing shit that it’s not real. It doesn’t make you question. Deep down, you know.”
Most of the time, anyway. That’s why I hadn’t freaked out that much when I’d first left my body and couldn’t touch anything. I’d figured it was an episode. I’d simply gone home and climbed into bed, like I could sleep it all off. In the morning, I’d finally get around to calling my old shrink, try sticking out some meds long enough for them to actually work.
I amended my assertion a tad. “Your brain usually recognizes its own self.”
“Mine doesn’t,” he said.
“That’s because I’m not Brian,” I said. “I’m Mal.”
He laughed again, but it sounded like a sob.
“You want me to prove it? Go look me up,” I said. “You couldn’t make up what you find when you search ‘Mal Caldera.’ ”
“Why not?” he asked, still staring at his reflection, rather than me. “I’m so far gone that I’m talking to myself.”
He picked up the pill bottle again, and from the way his eyes lingered on the warnings on the label, I could tell exactly what he must’ve been thinking. I’d done the same. It started off innocently, as if out of self-preservation: checking the recommended dosage, doing the math of exactly how many more pills it would take for a permanent cure.
I didn’t know what to say.
At last, he put the pills back in the cabinet and took out his toothbrush. I waited in the doorway for him to finish, since he couldn’t talk back with his mouth full. Once he’d spat and rinsed, he whipped his shirt off, and I barely turned in time as he dropped his jeans and boxers. My skin flushed just from imagining what I’d see if I turned around, so I sure as hell didn’t need an actual glimpse. It had been way too long since I’d seen anybody naked in real life.
His showerhead whined, then roared. I wondered if he’d retreated to the shower on purpose, since I didn’t want to follow him there. He might’ve been giving me some credit for sentience after all. I took a seat—so to speak—on the edge of the toilet, resting my head on my hands.
My heart swelled for a moment as he spoke, only to fall again, because he’d begun singing to himself. He had a good voice, low but soft with a bit of rasp, and utterly pissed, all but screaming except in volume. Maybe I’d been getting to him, making him feel witnessed, even if he wouldn’t admit it aloud.
“You ever do music?” I asked. “I used to.”
He went quiet.
I regretted it as soon as the words left my mouth. But if I really wanted, I could’ve shown him something he couldn’t make up. I could sing him something I’d written, perhaps even conjure an instrument from my memory, like the band had in the ballroom. Even he’d have to admit his brain couldn’t bullshit that.
Only I couldn’t bring myself to sing a single note. My hands were too empty, sitting there without my kit. Even his fucking bathroom turned into a stage, the fluorescent light golden and glaring, faces I couldn’t see staring up in the dark.
He threw the curtain back. I sprang up, somehow still not catching any more than a peripheral glimpse of skin. It felt like a test. After all, if I were nothing but his own subconscious running wild, I wouldn’t be so embarrassed to look.
My own restraint surprised me. For once, I didn’t do what I knew I’d regret. There were already so many other things in life I’d be missing out on. I didn’t need to see all that skin I could never touch.
While he toweled himself off and covered up again, sans jeans, I waited on the mattress in lieu of anyplace else to sit. I didn’t think about how I must’ve looked. But even he couldn’t help but notice, sucking in a breath as he hovered over his own bed, as if contemplating whether he wanted to join me. I had half a mind to wink at him, but from the look on his face, it wouldn’t go over well.
“Am I just lonely?” he asked.
His eyes were dark with hate, but not for me. I could relate.
At least I hadn’t winked.
I got up, letting him have his bed back. He dove down, burrowing into a cave of piled sheets, like that could keep me and every other ghost out.
“I don’t mean to piss you off,” I said. “I know how annoying it is when someone barges in and tries to fix your life without your permission.”
He pulled the covers over his head. “Then go away.”
That sounded like he was talking to someone other than himself.
“I could help you,” I said. I nearly added that I needed his help in return, but I thought twice. Not yet.
From under the blankets, his hand peeked out, flipping the bird. I laughed. That totally counted as acknowledging me.
Right then, something clamored in his kitchen. All the cabinets strained against their locks and chains as a shadow emerged straight through the wall, leaving the stove top burning red in its wake. I didn’t have to look twice at the trenchcoated businessman’s blank face to recognize him as a geist.
“Good night,” I said, as if it wasn’t early morning.
He didn’t say it back. I couldn’t blame him.