The Ghost Under The Bed Sheet

You Bed Sheet Racist

3 Years later

It was the start of the night. Clouds whisked by in the bitter breeze and Keely stood alone. The nearby lamp post casting shadows of her dress as it danced in the wind, her grim reaper costume made from flowing white and grey contrasted the dark graveyard. Looking down at her best friend's grave from where she stood above it, she ran a gentle hand over the engraved name lovingly.

Every year for the past three, Keely came to visit on Halloween, always dressed up in the same costume and with a bouquet of burnt roses to lay against her gravestone. The pain never quite went away, but slowly she got used to it.

Keely sighed as she pulled a blanket from her bag before kneeling on it. Coordinating the candles she brought into a heart shape before lighting the waxed wicks.

As she closed her eyes she felt the breeze as it blew her hair around her face, catching on her glossy lips. She felt the goosebumps on her arms rise up against the chilled air.

She felt the indents of mud beneath her knees where the soft earth moved as she settled. She heard the rustling of the paper wrapped around the bouquet of roses as children's laughter carried from the distance.

She looked up, tears in her eyes as she placed the bouquet against the head stone. The golden engraving glowing against the black marble.

Here Lies Teayle Sharpe

2000-2019

She was a beloved daughter

And a beloved friend.

Never hesitant to share her heart

for any one that needed kindness.

May she rest knowing she was loved

Keely took laboured breaths. There were days she could pretend she had never died, living in a kinder reality where Tay was just late, as she always was. But as she looked at the headstone, Tay's name written into stone. It would never change.

"Hey, Tay." The words broke as they left her lips, Keely believed if she didn't speak to Tay then the idea of her, who she was, that she even existed, would fade to nothing.

"Another year, you're still not back." The wind blew around her.

"I kind of expect, you know, that somehow, Bang!' Keely laughed weakly. "I'll turn around and you'll be there. You'll tell me some sort of story about how you actually dove under the water, into a sewage pipe, came out the other side at france. Then how you would have married a French woman, but on your 3rd year anniversary it all became too real so you escaped the country back to me and now you need my help to give you a new identity." Keely laughed at the fantasy. Tears flowing steady.

"I miss you bitch. I really miss you."

She swiped at her eyes and took a steadying breath.

Grief was one of the few things experienced on this earth that was both the same for everyone, yet so different. Three years now, Keely carried the grief of losing her best friend, each year easier, yet sadder. But this year, inside her, all the healing she had done cracked.

'And I'm mad Tay. I'm so mad at you. Each year is supposed to get easier but each year goes by and the more I think the more it hurts to realise you never listened. You never took responsibility. You would jump at go without a thought and you always left it to me to clean up the mess and bitch. The one time-" Keely realised a shuddered breath. "The one time I told you, don't do this. You didn't listen. And - and you died."