Unfinished Business

CHAPTER 23: THE OPPOSITE OF A SUICIDE LETTER

The walk to my house (or what used to be my house) was a quick and easy one. The road was mostly flat. The incline never bothered me all that much when I was alive, anyway. While Willa pulled out to drive Ethan home and get her things, I made the trek over and tried to get inside.

As far as I knew, I was still invisible to the living unless I showed myself to them. That was good, since I very much did not want to do that. I wanted to get in and out as easily as I could.

I knew how to get in without being noticed. I had practice. Sure, I hadn't mastered the art of walking through walls like some sort of ghost or poltergeist (since I was stuck as some weird mix of undead and ghoul), but I could hook my fingers around the outside of Cash's window, knock loose the screen, and pull myself though the open space and onto his nearby bed. This was how I would get in when I locked myself out of the house. Technically speaking, I was doing the same thing now as I had back then. It wasn't like I had my house keys in my pocket. I didn't have anything in my pockets except lint and an endless cavalcade of fists.

I landed masterfully on my brother's unmade bed. Of all the things I had to do in my life (and afterlife), this was one of the few I was good at. While I pulled the window and screen back into place, I looked around the room and tried to spot what had changed. I didn't expect to see much. I was right in that expectation.

Cash's room was, as always, a little cluttered, but mostly clean. There was one of his posters, listing off a scripture with a tangentially-related picture attached; the corner was falling off the wall, exposing the glob of blue sticky-tack underneath. The fan on his bedside table was off. His laundry basket, next to his bed, was empty except for a few socks. I tried not to step in it when I swung my legs off the bed and tried to get onto the ground.

It was early enough that Cash had visibly already left for school, but Naomi wasn't up yet. Her classes started an hour and a half after ours did, so she usually slept in, trying to get as much shut-eye as possible.

The problem was, Naomi being home meant that my parents were also still home. There was no way I was going to get out of here with the gun and ammo undetected, not when my family was still haunting the house.

I tried to navigate my former home without letting the floorboards creak. I knew how to do that fairly well, thanks to years of having to train myself on that particular art.

My mother was at the kitchen table, reading her scriptures while drinking a glass of orange juice from concentrate and holding a piece of unbuttered, nearly-burnt toast in her non-dominant hand. I made a conscious choice not to go into that room. Instead, I turned down the hall and went back into the room I once shared with my sister.

I guessed that I didn't share it with her anymore. It wasn't like I was around to do that anymore. I was dead. It was impossible for me to take up half the closet space and three of the dresser drawers. It was a surprise (and not a pleasant one) to walk into the room and see that so little had changed.

There were two reasons that I stopped in the doorway. The first was that I had changed so much in the past week or so. I was capable of fighting back now, of defending myself. I was undead. I still felt as weird, awkward, and angry as ever, but I was proud of myself. As I stood in the doorway, I couldn't help but think that I had outgrown this place.

No, that wasn't quite right. It was more accurate to say that I had never really belonged here at all. It was like whatever notion of me that had existed before my death was gone.

That version of me, the one that was made of periwinkle paint chips, gold-sided leather-bound scriptures, messy handwriting, journals that were gifts, and glossy photos featuring girls from church who did not particularly matter to me or like me: she did not exist anymore. She had been eradicated forever.