Misguided Ghosts

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Eight – Ed

Dying the first time around is easy. I didn’t even know what had happened when Caleb appeared in front of me. But this time, the second time, I welcomed death as though it was an old friend.

It was yet another night where I didn’t sleep. I lay perfectly still, admiring at how good I’d got at being still. I counted the tiles on the ceiling, although I knew for a fact that there were 100. The steady beeps of the heart monitor filled the oppressive silence. I was always quiet. I didn’t laugh anymore. A soft sigh escaped me.  It was always quiet in this part of the hospital, the orthopaedic clogs of the numerous staff members traced the linoleum of the pale hallways, speaking in hushed voices as if they were already attending a funeral. The lights were always too bright, as if mimicking the apparent bright lights of heaven, the air too stale, everything sterilised.

“Oi,” A soft voice whispered, hands prodding my sides. “Budge up,”

A frown knitted my eyebrows together, but I moved up all the same. “Emilie?”

“Who else?” She said, climbing under the covers and curling up close to me. “Liam?”

“Maybe,” I chuckled, but stopped as my laugh turned into a hacking cough. We both froze, praying that the night nurse would just assume I was coughing in my sleep. “You do know you’re breaking almost every single rule by being here, right?”

“Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t?”

“Probably,”

My arms tightened around her and I kissed the top of her head. She sighed and rested her head on my chest. I wondered if I would ever tell her how I really felt about her. How I’d always felt about her, ever since we were little.

“Emilie?”

“Mm?” She said sleepily, raising her head to look at me, her hair already mussed from lying on my chest.

I took a deep breath. The beeps of the heart monitor increased. “Emilie, I think I love you,”

She smiled, her face just visible in the dim light. “Well, that’s good. Because I think I love you too,”

I looked down at her. In the corner, the beeps of the monitor were going haywire. “Shut up,” I mumbled, before leaning down to kiss her.

***

Hands, pulling me from the tub, wrenching me from the past. My head broke the surface of the water and my lungs screamed for air. Gasping, spluttering, water splashing over the side of the tub as I was pulled out of it. A towel was tightly wrapped around me.

“You… Bitch,” Jared gasped, collapsing next to me. He was breathing heavily, his arms drenched up to his elbows. “Have you got any idea how heavy you are?”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’ll make sure to lose weight before I try to kill myself next time?”

“What?!”

“Whoops,” I said softly. Then I promptly vomited all over the floor. Taking a few deep breaths, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and sat up straight again. Jared was looking at me incredulously, his jaw hanging slack.  Why was he looking at me like that? It wasn’t exactly a big deal. “Shut your mouth, you’ll catch flies.”

“Would you like to explain to me why you tried to kill yourself and why Taylor is currently crying her eyes out and getting my sofa covered in mascara?”

I sighed. “You’re not going to leave me alone until I tell you, are you?”

“Nope,” He said immediately. “You’ll have me babbling at your ass, every single second of every single minute of every single hour of every single day of every single week of every single month of every single year for the rest of your life,”