Ghost Girl

Chapter 2

As soon as I walked through the door of my house, I dropped my bag and headed straight to the shower, shedding clothes along the way, not caring where they fell, just needing to get them off my body. Now.

The entire drive home, I kept replaying the scene with Travis over and over in my head. No matter how hard I tried, I kept feeling his hands on my body. The crazy thing was five months ago, I would have loved it. But the attraction I had felt for him had faded and now, the feel of his hands make me shake and feel sick to my stomach. I almost had to pull over a few times and empty my stomach.

I turned on the water and stepped under the hot droplets. I immediately grabbed a loofa and some soap, my intention being to scrub every inch of my body until I felt clean. I scrubbed for 10 straight minutes and had taken off five layers of skin in my pursuit to rid the feel of Travis from my body. But no matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn't erase Travis. I think what killed me the most was that I used to know this man intimately; I trusted him with my body and tonight... tonight he had violated that trust. I collapsed to the shower floor and sobbed. Just sobbed. For everything Travis had said to me and everything he had done.

In all the years we'd been together, he had never acted like he had tonight. But towards the end of our relationship he had started to show abusive tendencies. For a while I had denied his behaviour but it got to the point when denying and making excuses for him wasn't enough. There were days I had gotten up, battered and bruised because of him. Eventually I had ended things with him but it had taken some convincing though, on Zak's part. Zak... I thought as I crawled out of the tub and enveloped myself in a towel. I headed into my bedroom and dressed in pajamas before heading into the kitchen. All the while I was thinking of Zak.

Zak was interesting. I'd met him a year ago at the grocery store of all places. I'd ended up showing him and some friends around the city. Zak was from Las Vegas and he had been up here for work at the time. He worked for the Travel Channel as lead investigator and host of Ghost Adventures. I had been a huge fan—I still was—but I had acted calm and treated him as a normal person which was how we'd come to exchange numbers and become really good friends. He had gone through a tough breakup and he was the one who helped me realize that Travis wasn't the type of guy I should be with; which is why I had called him tonight. He was the only one who really knew what I had gone through; in a way, he had been there through it all.

I just hope he calls back soon, Ithought as I poured myself a glass of wine. I sighed and sat down, picking up apen to start marking my pile of tests. But as I picked up the first test,everything swam together and Travis popped back into my head. I realized prettyquickly that I wasn't going to get any work done tonight. So I gulped down mywine, grabbed a quick bite to eat and crawled into bed. It had been a long dayand everything with Travis just made it that much worse. I lay there andreplayed the scene from the parking lot over and over in my head until I fellinto a deep, fitful sleep