Me, Myself, and I

ghost

Dad wasn't subtle while he typed. I watched his movements every time he logged onto his laptop for the next week. Would move my hands in the same motion against our island counter-top, practicing, biding my time. I'd never become fluent in keyboard typing the way he was, but I could feel the way my fingers had to move to emulate his own when he typed in that password. I just needed him to slip up. Leave his baby behind once. Then I'd pounce.

He never noticed how carefully I'd been watching him. Assumed I'd returned to my erratic baking habits. Never noticed his missing files from that safe, either. Thank God and all the Saints for his disorganized chaos.

Opportunity presented itself in the form of a house call. Dad informed me he'd be visiting our grandparents while on business, that I was welcome to join him.

"No, no, you go ahead. I...promised Alex I'd help him study. Finals aren't that far away." Not a lie. Though my intention to follow through on study sessions was questionable. Sounded like medieval torture.

"Okay, let me know if you need anything. Love you."

"Love you, too."

He closed the door gently, as if it may explode on impact. I eyed the chocolate chip cookies spreading in the oven and grinned.

He hadn't brought his laptop.

I counted in my head while the oven timer went down. Couldn't risk him coming back home in a haste and catching me in that office. It was forbidden. A sacred space not for the faint of heart.

But the oven beeped, and the front door did not open. A part of me had hoped he would realize his mistake. Might stop me before I wrecked myself. Instead our silent blank walls greeted me as I pulled the sheet out of the oven and made my way over to his office. Chocolate wafted the air as I let myself in the sacred space.

Clutter. The walls looked like conspiracy boards, red lines and vintage photographs, charts and graphs where I would have expected cobwebs. But his laptop lay partially open in the desk's center, the papers parted to make way for the great piece of technology. They formed a small circle around it. They said that this must not be touched. This is for the doctor only.

I collapsed into his spinning chair and leaned forward.

Password. I closed my eyes and placed my hands on the board. Back when dad was teaching me to type in the second grade, he told me that a lot of computers would put small ridges by the pointer fingers so you'd know where to place your hands. I felt around, waited for the placement to feel right. Then imagined his hand movements. The ones I'd let myself memorize. Right pinky here. Middle down one. I didn't know what I was typing, just moved my fingers around like I was conducting a mini orchestra.

The laptop gave a successful startup sound.

Unfortunately, his desktop made his office look tidy. He had about fifty different tabs open, even more files. Some of the most random Google searches. I sighed and opened an Incognito browser, navigating to his mail folder.

"So, Kyle," I spoke to the walls. "If I told you that I'd hacked into my dad's computer, what would you say? Am I worth helping now?"

I shook my head, deleting the text message before I could send it. At this point, he'd tell me he didn't care. Had nothing to gain by rummaging through my dad's shady activities, and I had nothing on him to persuade him. Still, if anyone would understand, my gut told me Kyle would.

Besides, it was the middle of the week. He would have school. He always seemed to find that convenient excuse when he needed to. Still, it didn't quite make sense to me. He couldn't possibly be passing classes. He'd been here for weeks at a time since Ben's seizure.

I flipped back to Dad's open tabs. One of the pages held some old school records, printed names of past Delcoph High School graduates.

My phone beeped.

Kyle: I saw you typing. What do you want now?

I gritted my teeth. That gut instinct that told me he'd be able to help me also told me something else. I clicked into the records tab. The search bar. Tried my name first. Showed my year. Other names from my class. Seemed pretty accurate.

Ben told me he used to send letters to Kyle's college. Every single one of them returned to sender.

I tried the name that was stuck in my head. Kyle Wood. Among the list of school district graduates.

No Results Found. I frowned, went down the rabbit hole of records on the school website. The list of old yearbooks went back to 1940. Once again I hunted for what would have been his graduating year. Junior. Sophomore. "Wood." Was I insane? End of the alphabet, yeah? But I saw a Valentine. Vang. Etc. Walter. Etc. I closed my eyes and turned on the text-to-speech. The "W's". Went back another year.

That's when I heard it. The AI's dry voice echoing the caption, "Freshmen Dixie Valentine and Kyle Wood raked leaves at twenty-three different Delcoph resident houses to celebrate Make a Difference Day." His only appearance across four years. He was a ghost.

I closed my mouth, realizing how loud my breathing had become.

Another text. Kyle: I'll be home for the next five minutes. Whatever you found, that's how long you got. Or you're on your own.

Coming and going. A ghost. Guess Maggie White wasn't the only one with the innate ability to disappear.

I right-clicked the screen. Print All.