Ghost Sensitivity Training

CHAPTER THREE

ALEXEI

     In Loving Memory of Sinclair Romano

     I track his jaw with my eyes to the soft curve of his earlobe. Rounded glasses slipping down his nose. Same dark brown hair swooping across his forehead, a deep side part, longer in the front and cut short across the back.

     But hair is hair. Everyone has hair. And deep blue eyes, full lips. It's the tattoo on his neck, the long stretch of a wing as it folds across his skin and disappears behind him. It's the same wing of the same bird on the ghost hovering over my shoulder.

     His breath is cold. How can a ghost have a breath? "That's a damn good photo of me," he says, but there's something wistful in his tone.

     I clear my throat, trying to shift away from him. "So how'd you die?"

     The ghost flushes.

     "Well that's kind of personal don't you think?"

     "You're a ghost standing in my office showing me your obituary. Does it get more personal than that?"

    "Fair enough," the ghost says, reaching over to slap my laptop shut. "Do you have enough screens in here?"

     His eyes bounce between the two sleek desktops propped on stands and then the laptop. "Like this feels a bit excessive. Even if you were like an iPad kid. Do you have an iPad? I bet you have an iPad, too."

     I push my chair away so I can stand, taking a healthy step away from the ghost. I grab my laptop and slip it back into the stand with my other laptop, and yes, an iPad. "It's for my work," I say.

     "Do you repair other people's laptops? Oh, wait, you're one of those people who buys broken laptops, fixes them, and sells them as refurbs, right? I feel like that could be fairly lucrative."

     He's excited when he speaks like he's just uncovered a mystery. I shake my head, unamused. "No," I say. "Now," I pause with my gaze on him. I wonder if he died in these clothes. "Now I think you should leave."

     He frowns. It's not at all amusing to me that a ghost can frown. That I'm maybe accepting the fact he's a ghost. No, I think. He's from my subconscious. Had I seen his death on the news, maybe? In the paper?

     "You want me to leave even after I just proved myself?" he asks. His lips are already unnecessarily pouty. He doesn't actually need to pout but he's doing a big show of being sad. Am I meant to befriend a ghost? When did my life became the live-action Casper?

     "I still don't think you're real. You're in my head."

     "I'm not in your head, bro," the ghost says.

     I pin him with a look. Bro?

     I've never called a single person bro in my life. He can't be something I've conjured if he's not using my lingo. Which means he's sentient, or very nearly. Which means he exist outside of my mind. Which means I'm surely crazy.

     I suddenly feel dizzy and have to close my eyes to fight the urge to collapse. Turns out I don't fight hard enough.

SINCLAIR

     It is crazy how quickly he falls. Like a heaping bag of bricks. Kerplunk. In movies, when people catch someone before they hit the ground — I'm starting to question how realistic that is.

     He doesn't come to as quickly, barely opening his eyes. They're little slivers of white, they're so light. "Don't move, you're bleeding," I say, my hand pressing against the back of his damp head.