Ren haunted his own apartment the same way I once did, even before I died. Aside from flipping day and night, it went exactly the same: sleep, work, eat while watching TV, rinse and repeat. Days off were for visiting sisters (and brother and mother in his case) and doing laundry. As far as I knew, he never went out, and he didn’t exactly have friends over, either.
I’d meant to stay just long enough to finish catching up on the shows I used to watch. But since I didn’t need to eat or sleep or hit the toilet, that only took about a week. Afterwards, I didn’t have anywhere better to be. And he clearly needed the company.
Now, when he smoked his first cigarette of the day out on the fire escape, he let me share each drag secondhand. I usually put my hand on his shoulder, trying to keep it friendly. This time, we took turns swapping the stories.
He mumbled, unable to look me in the eye. “So, I pick up this girl from an apartment complex, even though she has that same address listed as the destination, which… weird. She asks if I can just drive around for a while because she wants to clear her head. I do, and we start talking and laughing, then she asks if I want to park, and…”
He trailed off, blushing terribly.
“Aww, come on,” I said. “You can’t leave me hanging.”
I wanted to share his next drag, but I worried what other sensations I’d pick up.
At last, he looked me in the eye. “I lost it in my back seat, all right? The one teenage rite of passage I got to have, since there weren’t any geists in the sketchy alley, though there were a couple of drunks who knocked on the window and gave us some thumbs up. Satisfied?”
Far from it. I never usually got jealous over past lovers. For once, I hadn’t gotten a turn myself.
“That’s all I’ve got,” he said.
“Don’t you hold out on me.” I didn’t mean to reach out and give him a slight shove, but I couldn’t stop myself. “I’ve dumped my whole dirty laundry bin over your head.”
His lips flickered up, but the heat flowing from his shoulder down my arm didn’t sit so well—the prickling discomfort of shame.
“I haven’t been with anyone else. Just a couple of awkward dates set up by my sister that didn’t go anywhere, and… well, the high school crush I never ended up asking out, ’cause I didn’t think she’d want to be seen with the class freak.”
His words weren’t bitter. If anything, his eyes were weary, just resigned. I wanted to take his face in my hands.
Instead, I said, “Well, you could give it another go, now that I’m taking care of your geists.”
It didn’t get any less terrifying, every time I tried spiriting one elsewhere. But I didn’t mind. I had no other way to thank him for letting me stay. Not to mention, he looked so much better now that he’d been getting a good bit of sleep. His eyes were brighter, without any shadows beneath them, and his skin flushed with color, not so dead anymore.
At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before he caught somebody’s eye. Rather, before he’d let one of those many somebodies in at last.
He looked down at me thoughtfully as he exhaled a drag. “Maybe I will.”
Before I could reach up, he rested his hand beside mine on the balcony rail, letting our fingers overlap slightly.
“You’d better,” I said. “Remember that time you promised to get a life?”
He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t expect you to stick around and hold me to it.”
I turned around, leaning back on the railing for a better look at him. “Have you thought any more about what you wanna do? I mean, with your continued existence?”
“Not really,” he said, tapping ash into an old soda can. “I’m still just trying to last the week. You know how it goes. Although…” He flicked his gaze back up to me. “It’s gotten a lot easier, coming home to you.”
My mouth went dry. I could imagine how much easier it might’ve been enduring any of my shitty old jobs if at the end of the day, I had someone waiting for me at home. Eating dinner and watching TV every night went from lonely to cozy with two. Not to mention, instead of having to make the effort of getting dressed up and going out whenever I wanted to get lucky, I would’ve been able to just reach over and undo his belt.
Too bad that wouldn’t work now. I thought about it every time we curled up around the laptop together. Whenever he left for work, after waiting to make sure he didn’t come back for any reason, I’d look up a little porn for some me time. And I couldn’t help but notice that sometimes his showers ran long.
He waved his fingers in front of my eyes. “You there?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, it’s just… no, I’m literally not here.” Aside from the fact I couldn’t jump his bones, I wasn’t exactly helping with rent, or doing the dishes. “I’m an actual deadbeat.”
“It’s not like you’re emptying my fridge and trashing the place. Even if you weren’t on top of pest control, I’m just glad to have your company.”
That wasn’t much. I wished I had more to give.
He drained his coffee and headed back inside. I lingered, looking back around over the side of the balcony down at the street below, not unlike the view from my apartment rooftop.
The next morning, while he showered and got dressed, I made the coffee. When he got out of the bathroom, combing his fingers through his damp hair, his grin barely outpaced his guilt.
“You shouldn’t have,” he said, like he meant it.
“It’s not for you,” I said, as I poured him a cup. “I just want the secondhand caffeine.”
He nodded. “Sure, of course.”
At least I stopped short of adding the sugar, even though I knew he liked two spoons. When I handed it over, our fingers brushed. For a second, I thought the heat came from the coffee, nearly dropping it in surprise.
His eyes were unbearably soft, nearly golden in the late afternoon sun. “Thanks, boo.”
Before I could so much as stutter, he reached up and brushed my jaw with the back of his fingers, igniting my skin. Then, as casually as if we did this every morning, he turned and headed for the fire escape.
Once he’d stepped out, I went ahead and sank to the kitchen floor. Even if I couldn’t feel the hard press of the cabinets at my back, the coolness of the tile beneath my legs, it still grounded me somewhat, a comforting place to have a quick crisis.
I got up and followed him outside, so he wouldn’t get suspicious, and I told him about the time I ruined a church piano recital by swapping out “How Great Thou Art” for “Wonderwall.” If he noticed the way my hands trembled as we tangled our fingers together, hopefully he chalked it up to coffee jitters, not the recent realization that I didn’t just want to jump his bones. I longed to feel his hand in mine.
* * *
Cris hadn’t moved out from her apartment yet. Gloria might’ve paid the rent in advance, or my ex-stepdad could have helped out this month. But she’d begun to pack, boxes piling up in her living room and kitchen.
Aside from that, I couldn’t really tell how she was doing. Usually, I found her in class, or studying at her school library. Not the most thrilling eavesdropping experience, but at least it made me worry less. Her reverse disownment wasn’t as dramatic as mine had been.
Then again, our mother could have humbled herself for a change, begging for forgiveness. I doubted it. For once, I went to see her.
My childhood church hadn’t changed much, one of those historic cathedrals with high ceilings and marble saints, the last rays of sunset falling red and blue across the stone floors through the stained glass. My skin pinched with goosebumps as I walked down the aisles, my footsteps eerily silent. They used to echo when we came to confession on Saturday evenings instead of Sunday mornings, since there’d be less of a wait. Or maybe for privacy, so no one would clock our time, try to estimate our number of sins.
Gloria kneeled in the booth, resting her forearms before the wooden lattice window. I sat in midair behind her, keeping my eyes on her conservative black pumps sticking out under her long skirt.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been seventy-one days since my last confession.”
My jaw dropped. I’d never known her to skip confession for so long. Doing the math, she’d stopped right around the time of my death. What did she have to hide? Not from her omniscient Lord, but the priest’s judgment. Or her own conscience.
“I lost my daughters.”
I clasped a hand over my mouth. Here, it wasn’t just a statement of fact, but an admission of guilt. The first I’d ever heard out of her lips.
“You remember my oldest, Malena. Born outside of marriage. I worried my sin would haunt her the rest of her life. So I had to be hard on her. She needed it, always getting into trouble. I used to say she had the devil in her…” She sighed, muttering under her breath. “Dios mío, ayúdame—she had too much of me.”
All these years, I thought I’d taken after Dad. That whenever she looked at me, she saw a ghost. Well, perhaps she did, just not the one I had in mind. Like her old self had died and come back to haunt her.
No wonder she’d never seen me.
“When she quit school so she could run off and repeat her father’s mistakes, I lost it. I found myself screaming the same words my mother said to me, because I finally understood how it felt, being so helpless to keep my lamb from putting on a fur coat and running with the wolves. But when I said she could never come home—I didn’t mean it.”
The shock made my hairs stand on end, as if she were the otherworldly intruder, not the other way around.
“I always thought she’d return, like I did. I regretted ever turning from my parents, and from God. Perdóname, por favor.” Her shoulders were shaking. So were my hands, too weak to curl into fists. “She never came back.”
How could I have known she would have welcomed me home? Except, of course, she would’ve expected repentance. For me to come back a different person. Devout, obedient, straight.
Her voice pitched, swollen and broken. I couldn’t help but wince. “Cristina me echa la culpa. She’s cut me off.”
I couldn’t blame Cris. As much as I worried about her living situation, suddenly being on her own, at least she’d sided with me, if a little late.
The priest’s voice jostled me. I’d forgotten he’d been here with us the whole time, on the other side of the booth.
“You are not to blame,” he said. “Your daughter’s sin is her own.”
I bristled in indignation. “Fuck off, Father.”
Never in my life had my mother admitted any wrongdoing. I’d be damned if he ruined it. Maybe literally, because I whirled out of the confessional and knocked over the first object my fist met. The crucifix fell off the altar and clanged to the floor, echoing loud enough to bounce off the high ceiling the same as voices singing praise. All the candles blew out.
Gloria’s voice rang shrill. “What was that?”
I spirited off as fast as I could, before I could risk angering any higher powers further by boiling the holy water, shattering the stained-glass saints.
* * *
I expected to find the usual blank white walls of the apartment, not friendly floral wallpaper, covered in framed photos and traditional Japanese art. Ren sat surrounded by people at a dinner table, speaking in a language I didn’t understand. Their laughter fell silent as the warm yellow light hanging from above dimmed and then brightened, the curtains of the nearby window shuddering. My stomach cinched with guilt for interrupting.
“I’ll be right back,” said Ren.
He sprang out of his chair and made his way around the table toward me, lifting his hand just enough to brush my fingers. It couldn’t ground me the same as another ghost, but at least it gave me something to feel other than the chafing on my wrists.
The elegantly dressed woman with a touch of gray in her hair sitting at the head of the table must be his mom. She brought her hand to her collarbone, saying something in Japanese.
Though I didn’t know the words, I recognized the tone of concern. He answered in the same language. The other two people at the table, probably his brother and sister, exchanged wary looks.
I followed him down the hallway into a dark room. He didn’t even bother hitting the lights, shutting the door quickly. For once, he didn’t hesitate to throw his arms around me. I swallowed a gasp. Though I couldn’t feel the shape of his body, the warmth of him still wrapped around me like a beloved old blanket.
“Hang on,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere.”
I tried my best to bury my face into his neck, wishing I could breathe in his scent, whatever that might be. Then I remembered the look of worry on his mother’s face.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I said. “I don’t mean to keep you from your family.”
I choked on the last word, my eyes stinging with tears. At least he couldn’t see them with my face tucked into his shoulder, his chin on my brow.
“You’re fine,” he said, stroking his hand over my hair. “They probably think I’m having an episode. I’ll be here as long as you need.”
He had even more literal demons than I ever had, and yet, his mother still invited him back home for dinner, fed him and laughed with him and let him have his space if he needed it. I wanted to shove him away, curse at him, make myself even harder to hold.
But now I knew where I got that urge to push people away. From the same person who taught me how to make myself scarce afterwards. So, just to spite her, I resisted. Taking a pretend breath, I went slack, letting my limbs go soft.
“Are you all right?” he asked, pulling back just enough to look into my face.
I nodded, tongue-tied.
“Did something happen?”
Shaking my head didn’t quite cover it. “I keep going off alone when I’m not supposed to be.”
“Well, don’t do that,” he said. “I can’t lose you.”
I wanted to warn him that he already had. Instead, I tried my best to sink deeper into his arms, just short of curling up under his skin. His face pressed into my hair felt like a patch of sunlight.
When I eventually opened my eyes, I finally took notice of the room around us. It was almost as sparsely furnished as his own place, nothing but a twin-sized bed and a trunk, too heavy for any geists to knock over. The walls were covered in heavy metal posters, some pretty angsty charcoal drawings, and a handful of bright, smiling family photos. There probably weren’t many geists hanging out at beaches and theme parks.
I couldn’t keep my voice from swelling, not just with laughter, but fondness. “Is this your room?”
“Look, considering I had a literal horror story of a childhood, I regret nothing.”
It nearly hurt to pull away, lose his warmth. But I wanted a better look, grinning as I circled around.
“It’s too bad I can’t meet your mom,” I said. “I would’ve loved to see some baby pictures.”
I found myself blinking in disbelief at the words coming out of my mouth. I’d never even met any of my exes’ parents, not exactly the bring-home type.
“You’re missing out.” He smiled, just teasing, but the truth of it stung. I wondered who the lucky girl he’d end up introducing to his family would be. The longer I stayed with him, the less time he’d have to look for her.
“Are you good?” he asked.
Far from it. But taking in that face of his, I found it in me to smile anyway. “Go spend time with your folks.”
“I’ll see you at home.”
As soon as he left, I lay back on his old bed, wondering if there were any chance in hell his mom would’ve liked me. At least mine would never have met him, anyway.