The Almost Rock Star (A Ghost Story) (DRAFT)

The Almost Rock Star (A Ghost Story) 25, Pain

Chapter Twenty-Five

Pain

“Owwww!” Daith shouted, grabbing his right hand with his left and dropping a pan in the process. It clattered loudly on the hard marble floor, and the sound reverberated across the two-story penthouse. “Sh**!”

“Shoot, shoot, shoot!!!” Daith was holding his right hand.

“What is it?” Rebecca nearly screamed. It was probably genuine, but it sounded artificial coming from her. Like she was acting out something because it was an opportunity to get Daith’s attention. “What happened? Are you OK?”

I had shaken the cubes only once at Daith. I looked with horror at my hands, still clutching the white cubes. I looked back at Daith, and wanted to go run to fix what I had done. He couldn’t help having a Bimbo-ette girlfriend. He had never met me. How could he even be looking for me? I wondered briefly if I was having weird thoughts again. This must be some cursed plight of being a ghost or something, I thought. Maybe I just picked up negative thoughts from the universe now. As Rebecca ran to get ice cubes in a kitchen towel for Daith’s hand, I realized that before I died, I never would have been thinking or acting like this. Something was affecting me.

I had sat, stood and walked around my corpse for more than a week. Completely out of it. As if I were sleep walking or something. I had doubted, and started hating, my best friend. Now I was attacking the man I had always hoped to meet. Before I even met him.

Don’t stop now. I told you to hit him with that. I didn’t say to just ding him once.

It was the beautiful man who called himself Satan. Speaking quietly in my head. I was starting to hate whoever this really was. I didn’t truly believe this guy was the Devil; he didn’t have horns and a tail. I didn’t remember - during any of my Catholic upbringing -hearing that the Devil was astoundingly beautiful. I had only heard about his evil forked tongue, his intense hatred of God, his pitchfork and blackened wings. 

Rebecca put the ice on Daith’s hand and sidled up to him again, using the opportunity of  his occupied hands to rub up against him and kiss him slowly, lovingly, and sexily.

“Do you want me to kiss your boo-boo?” she cooed. 

I felt sickened. This scene would have disgusted me even if I were watching it in a movie. The fact that it was my soulmate getting seduced made me furious again. A red rage came over me, and even though I felt an overwhelming impulse to hit Daith again, I shook and twisted the cubes in the direction of Rebecca. She screamed and doubled over in pain. Daith dropped his towel, and ice cubes went flying all over the black counter. Some hit the floor. Shadow leapt off the coffee table and ran over to one ice cube and began batting it around. The huge black cat wasn’t bothered by Rebecca’s wailing. 

Daith had knelt down and was trying to feel Rebecca’s waist. She continued to cry out in pain.

“It’s sharp pains. Really bad. No, don’t call 9-1-1. No, I’ll be OK.” Rebecca was sobbing a bit. I couldn’t quite hear what Daith said. 

“I’m not kidding. It’s sharp pains! It really hurts. No, the really bad part has stopped. Like cramps and sharp pains,” she said. Then she slowly straightened up. Tears had stained the makeup on her face, running ragged black streaks down each cheek. “It must have been this crab dip.”

Daith said something like the crab dip was just fine, he had been eating it all day or something. I couldn’t quite hear him, but I was feeling satisfied. Daith wasn’t really hurt, and Rebecca was sick. 

“I think I have to go home. Please take me home, I feel like throwing up, too,” Rebecca said. 

Daith had stood up, and Rebecca was holding her stomach. On her, with the low-cut aqua dress and the streaked blonde hair, the picture looked like some sort of high fashion photo shoot, with the handsome, serious expression on Daith’s face reflecting the angry look on Rebecca’s. It almost looked like one of those farce fashion photos of the latest designers in “Vogue.” I remembered one particular layout by some old designer who I thought was just trying to get attention: the female models all had black streaks of mascara running down white makeup down their faces, and smeared lipstick, like the joker in “Batman.” I realized the absurdity of the whole situation, and looked down at the cubes. 

One black dot had appeared in each of them, in the center of the white square. I turned them over. There was only one dot on each cube. 

Snake eyes. 

Just then, as I looked up at Daith grabbing Rebecca’s purse and his key, I saw at the same time, in my mind, a flash of a different scene that somehow was off to my right. Standing in a darkened hallway behind me, someone who faintly resembled James Dean was leaning against the wall, smiling in an irritatingly smug way. Smirking. I could barely see his face. Then I clearly knew who he was.

Satan.