TWO GHOSTS│REGGIE PETERS

the night we met

Isabelle Molina sat on her bed, crying as she read They Both Die In The End, a book recommended by her locker neighbor at school.

Her crying was interrupted as she heard a loud bang from outside of her door. She jumped up and opened her door to see her new ghost friend, Reggie, laying on the floor. "Hey, how's it going?" He chuckled.

"Uh, are you okay?"

"Yea. Well, define okay, because I just found out I'm dead, so..." He stayed on the ground, staring up at her.

"Wow, dude, that was dark. Anyway, what're you doing on the floor?" Belle slid down the wall outside of her room.

"It's kind of a funny story." He laughed, scooting over to the wall and sitting next to Belle.

She stared at him for a minute, waiting. "Okay, so am I gonna have to wait until you write out a script and release it as a movie? Or are you gonna tell me the story?" She chuckled as his face got red.

"Right. Well, what happened was... Alex told me he saw a dragon in your room and I-"

"Reggie." The girl cut him off, giving him a blank stare as if to let him know she wasn't falling for his lie.

"Okay." He sighed. "Alex told me he heard you crying and I just wanted to make sure you were okay." He stared down at his hands while he fiddled with his fingers.

Belle didn't know how to feel. Why did he care what she was feeling? Even if it was over a silly book. "I'm fine, Reggie."

"Why were you crying? Was it over a boy?" Despite the calm, gentle feeling that the girl felt when she was around the boy, she could sense that he was tense.

"No, no, nothing like that. God, my life feels like a bad eighties movie right now." The girl laughed, leaning her head back against the wall.

"What do you mean?"

"Well... I have sort of a stupid question."

"There are no stupid questions." Reggie smiled at her.

"Okay. When you were alive, did you ever feel like what's the point in all this?"

He looked at her with a blank expression. "That's the stupidest question I've ever heard. What's the point in all this? The point is to have fun. Let loose, live your life. After all, you do only get one."

"Yea, my life won't be complete until I've spent a day in a coffee house with five of my friends, making jokes and ranting about life." Belle stared off, wondering what life was like back then.

"You need better ambitions." The girl laughed, knowing he didn't understand what she was referencing.

"What I need to do is stop caring what others think and just do what I love."

"What do you love?" The two stared in each other's eyes before she spoke.

"I don't know, really. I mean, I love my family. I love rom-coms, eighties movies, drawing..." She zoned off. "But career wise- Reggie, I don't know if I could make it as a singer."

"Are you kidding me? Of course you can."

This made Belle confused. "How do you know? You've never even heard me sing." The boy looked down. "Right?"

"I mean, it was- I wasn't... it was an accident." He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck.

"What are you talking about?"

He hesitated. "I heard you singing in the shower."

"When?" Reggie felt as though her eyes were going to pop out of her head.

"Like.. an hour ago."

"Ugh, cause that's not embarrassing." She hid her face in her knees.

"Don't be embarrassed. You have a really pretty voice. And that song you were singing about what makes someone beautiful, it was cute."

Belle's face got alarmingly red once she realized the boy had heard her singing What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction. "Oh, god. Please, don't tell the boys that you heard me singing." She realized he already had when he looked down once more. "Reggie!"

"Sorry." He held his hands up in defense. "I just wanted to tell them how talented you are." The girl blushed while smiling. "Hey, you never told me why you were crying."

"Oh. It's just a book that I'm reading."

"What's it called?"

"They Both Did In The End."

"Way to ruin the ending, Belle. I wanted to read it." Reggie crossed his arms, pouting.

"That's the name, Reggie." She laughed. After it got quiet, the girl spoke up again. "Wanna go read it?"

The boy nodded. For the next two hours, the girl read the words of the book out loud, only drifting off when the two of them laid down to look at the fake stars that have been stuck to her ceiling since she was seven years old.