Phantom [h.s]

Four

I stare at the window for a moment after he jumps, completely appalled.

"Jane, I'm h-" My mother steps into my room and stops when I turn around to look at her. "Jane, what's wrong? You look like you've just seen a ghost."

The complete irony of her statement makes me let out a small laugh, shaking my head.

She stares at me.

"Sorry, no, I'm fine," I say, quickly stopping my brief laugh. "I'm fine."

"Why is the window open? It's not that hot in here, is it?"

"No, I just wanted to make sure it works," I lie.

"Oh." My mother nods. "Alright. Well, I'm going to get started on dinner."

"Okay." I watch her walk out and turn back to the window as soon as the door shuts.

I lean out slightly to look at the ground, scanning the entire backyard for Harry. He's nowhere to be found.

I look over at my bed, where he was lying. The sheets are smooth and look untouched-odd, for having been sat on for who knows how long.

I sit down on the bed and think.

Harry is dead. There is no way any breathing, living person could project that type of odd cold feeling on me. I felt it truly within me, unlike any other cold I've known existed.

What does he want from me? My mother came home before I could ask him.

Damn it, Mom.

Despite being completely confused and utterly stricken at the fact I was just practically contacted by the dead, I can't help but be intrigued. H.S. is Harry Styles, a sarcastic dead boy that showed up on my bed today, who clearly needed something if he previously planted the box, photograph, and necklace in my room.

I realize that Harry Styles is the answer to the question asking if there is life after death.

Somehow I know I need to keep this to myself, similarly how I knew I had to keep the photo and box to myself.

I get up and look back out the window, my eyes sweeping the large backyard for any sign of the peculiar boy.

And despite being completely befuddled and a bit weary of this entire ordeal, I want to see him again.

-

"Some species of lizards have the ability to shunt their blood, enabling them to separate their tail limb from the rest of their body when threatened, thus scaring away the predator."

"Amazing!" My father shouts excitedly as the TV screen depicts the small reptile darting away from a large bird, its tiny tail being left behind it.

I wrinkle my nose.

My dad decided to change it up a bit tonight and watch the Animal Planet instead of the History Channel. He swears if he wasn't a history professor, he'd teach biology.

Typical that my father would have been a teacher for a different and possibly more tedious subject should he have chosen an alternative path in life.

But hey, that's just my opinion.

I sit on the couch with my knees pulled to my chest, rolling the skull charm on my necklace between my fingers as I try to pay attention to the program.

"You've been awfully quiet, Jane," my father says, tearing his eyes from the television briefly.

"I'm always quiet."

He raises an eyebrow. "Not when you were little, you weren't. God, you loved to yell and scream about everything. Your mother and I had a hard time getting you to shut up." He laughs lightly.

I shrug. "People change."

"Yeah, but they don't transform."

I furrow my brow, looking over at him. "What do you mean?"

"Sure, people change. You might not be as loud as you used to be, but inside you're still the same Jane that would throw flour at your mother when she'd be trying to cook. Small aspects of people's personalities may shift, but there's always something familiar left inside."

I stare at my father for a few moments before snorting. "That's deep, Dad."

"Deep as the Marianas Trench."

I roll my eyes. "You're such a nerd."

"It's a logical statement. The Marianas Trench is the deepest trench in the world!"

I shake my head and look back at the TV as my father laughs, leaning back on the couch and turning his attention back to the program.

Ten minutes later I decide there is nothing more boring in the entire universe than watching the rest of that program, which has shifted from the subject of blood shunting in lizards to the odd habits of the African dung beetle. I haul myself off the couch and make my way to my room, despite my father's protests that the dung beetle is "one of the most interesting organisms on the planet!"

It's not. It rolls shit into a ball and then eats it. There's nothing interesting about that.

I pull off my shirt and litter it to the floor, stepping into my closet to change into my pajamas.

I turn and look at myself in the mirror I hung in my closet.

I'm not nearly as insecure as I used to be. If I had looked at myself in a full length mirror a few months ago, I would have been horrendously disgusted with my image. Things are better now. Moving away from those who made me feel inferior helped, but at the end of the day I still look at my stomach and thighs and the scars on my wrists and want to scream.

I sigh and exit my closet after putting my pajames on, pulling my hair into a ponytail.

It's been exactly two days since Harry showed up in my room, and I've done nothing but wonder where he's been. What do you do when you're dead? How does it feel? Does it get boring?

All these questions are ones I have come up with in the past days, wanting to ask Harry, if I ever see him again. I feel like it's obvious I'm going to encounter him again-why else would he leave me a random photo and necklace and then show up in my room?

Maybe I should buy a Ouija Board.

Kidding. I'm completely kidding.

I open my window, taking in a breath of fresh air. It's a Saturday night, and I couldn't be more content that I don't have to be at school tomorrow. My weekends mostly consist of watching reruns of Friends while my mother tries to get me to eat vegetables instead of chips and junk food, and it's become comfortable for me that way. I would rather be alone than be around a bunch of drunk people my age that are too hammered to know their left from their right. Sue me.

I hear footsteps in the hallway and internally groan. It's probably my father, wanting me to come down and finish watching the program with him. The segment on the dung beetle is finished, I bet.

"Dad, I don't want to-" I stop short, the words caught in my throat.

"Expecting someone else?" Harry asks, shutting the door behind him. He looks exactly the same as he did two days ago-white sweater, black jeans and eyes the lightest shade of green I've ever had the pleasure of encountering.

"Uh, yeah," I manage to stammer. "My dad, actually."

"Oh, he's the guy sitting on the couch down there?"

I nod. "That, uh...that would be him."

"I see." Harry's eyes look me up and down and then move to the open window. "Planning on taking a leap?"

I shake my head, turning and pulling it shut. "No. Just..."

"Looking for me." The corners of his lips twitch, threatening to upturn in a crooked smile.

"Well, you did show up randomly in my room, told me you were dead, and then jumped out of my window. Which, by the way, is extremely dangerous and just plain stupid."

He throws back his head in a laugh. "Dangerous," he repeats. He locks gazes with me again, raising an eyebrow. "How can something be dangerous when you're already dead?"

I narrow my eyes at him. "What do you want from me?" I ask him the question he failed to answer the last time we crossed paths.

"It's not a matter of what I want from you," he says, taking a few steps toward me. "It's more of what needs to be done." He holds his hands behind his back, running his tongue over his lips.

"Stop talking in code," I retort, crossing my arms over my chest. "Just tell me who the hell you are and what you want from me so I can get it out of my mind and move on with my life."

"Feisty," Harry observes, tilting his head slightly to the side.

I stand frozen as he steps toward me again, his pale eyes narrowing as he analyzes me.

"How did you get into my house?" I ask him.

"Took the back door this time. Your father really isn't very attentive to his surroundings when he's watching TV."

"Yeah, that's just about accurate." The odd cold that radiates off of him seems to whisper through the air, colliding with my skin and sending chills through my body.

"Why are you so cold?"

He half smiles at my question. "My organs don't function," he says, shrugging slightly. "Therefore, I don't maintain homeostasis."

"But you're such an odd type of cold," I say. "It's almost...bone chilling."

"Death does tend to have that effect."

We stop talking for a few moments after that. He stares at me almost curiously as he looks me over once again. Why does he keep examining me this way? I'm not that interesting of a sight to see.

I have so many questions for him. So, so many questions.

But I concern myself with looking at him as he looks at me, fascinated with the silky, pale skin that adorns him and the red of his sculpted lips.

"I'd like you to come somewhere with me," he says at last.

"No," I answer flatly.

"Why not?"

"You're dead. And I hardly know you."

"What, you're anti-dead or something?"

"Is that a thing?"

"Seems that you've just made it so."

"Guess I have, then."

"Shame."

"Why is that?"

"The dead bring to the world what the living fail to."

"Meaning?"

A smile crosses his lips. "You've got a lot to learn about life after death, Jane. And I'm going to teach you it all."