Bleeding Hearts

Fragile Bonds

Cassandra
~~

Living with a ghost was a new adventure for me. I hadn't wanted to accept Joaquin's existence because I didn't like my... ability.

Ever since I was a little girl I'd been made fun of for talking to walls and staring off into empty spaces. My dad knew that I saw things, he just didn't believe what I saw was actually paranormal. My mom had been able to do the same thing, and where had that led her? She was in Creedmore Psychiatric Hospital hooked up to an IV and out if it for days on end. Sitting in my dorm room I looked to Joaquin who was humming the Doctor Who theme song while pretending to swim around the room and I tried not to burst out laughing. Could this very real, for lack of a better word, lively being truly be the hallucination of my mind?

If so he was the best one I'd ever created.

Part of me wanted to believe that he wasn't some schizophrenic conjuring, but part of me didn't want to accept that it would mean I'm a ghost magnet, because in the end they all want the same thing. Help. How can I help others when I can't even help myself?

"Did you know there's a fountain in the other side of here?" Joaquin commented randomly.

"Um, yeah." I responded absentmindedly this essay was taking longer then I'd anticipated, and Joaquin's constant need for attention always drew me away from what I should've been doing. Try to focus Cass you need a good grade. Words. Pen. Paper... ugh, who was I kidding? There was absolutely no way I could focus with my brain like mush at the moment.
"Let's go to this fountain of yours Joaquin," I decided.

"Really?" The shock in his voice made me smile.

"Yeah, let me grab my coat," I told him.
Going out of my dorm we headed downstairs, the sharp jab of fresh autumn wind met me as the streetlamps made pools of orange light that I traveled under. Joaquin went below them as a well fading in and out my vision as the light made him seemingly turn invisible. The sidewalk led us to the fountain where it was gently trickling into a pooling basin of concrete, the sound of water was a relaxing one for me, and Joaquin seemed to quiet down beside it as well. He circled the fountain twice and I noticed the concerned look on his face.

"This... I've seen this," he muttered to himself.

"No duh Sherlock, you said you've gone here when you were alive, remember?" he seemed sincerely perplexed and I was wondering if he'd just fizzle out if I didn't calm down.

"I came here... with Camellia... it was late at night..." my eyes widened as I realized what was going on, and I slowly started to back away from Joaquin. "I remember holding hands. Then as we were talking..." he looked at me desperation clouding his eyes.  "What happened to us Cass? What happened to Camellia and I?"

"I-I don't know..." my voice came out tremulously. Don't do it. Don't ask for my help. You promised me. You said you weren't going to do it. Joaquin looked at me, and I looked at myself and realized that I'd backed away so much three cars could pass in the space I'd made.

"Cass?" he looked worried.

"You said you weren't going to ask me!" I screamed. Then turning around I began to run, not back to my dorm, but to my car. Yanking my keys out of their pocket I hightailed it and sprinted. Once I got in I jammed the key in the ignition and as my car roared to life I looked in my rearview mirror. Nothing there, but didn't stop me I pulled out of the parking lot and left, tires screeching in my wake. "Never again." I muttered to myself as I drove away.

~~~

Waking up I was in a room, it was my room. I'd gone home. Late at night I'd arrived at the house I'd grown up in and pounded at the door waking my poor dad up, but begging him to stay. All I had to tell him was one word. Ghosts. He understood immediately letting me stay without question. Now that it was morning I got out of my room, filled with action figures and Funko Pop figurines, all things that would've made Joaquin fanboy completely, but he was what I was trying to get away from, and so pushing him out of my mind I went downstairs.

My dad was making breakfast and noticed when I came into the room.

"How you doing?" he asked me, thick Australian accent that grown up around my whole life a comforting reminder of home. I shrugged.

"It was weird. He was weird." I began to ramble, my dad just listened. He was used to this, me explaining my "ghosts", him giving mea rational explanation. "He was nice, and funny, quirky, and he sort of looked like this guy I started having a crush on a while back." I blushed at the last part, I hadn't meant to share that much.

"Maybe this hallucination came in that form as a way for you to not be so lonely while you're at school by yourself," he suggested.

"You're probably right," I mumbled. I didn't tell him the rest of my experience. That I'd actually befriended Joaquin, that we'd talked and laughed, that we'd been happy in each other's company. It was all too much.

"You wanna go visit your mum since you're here?" he offered. I looked at him, it'd been months since I visited my mom.

"Sure," I grunted. "I wanna go back to sleep dad, I'll go later though."

"Take your time kiddo," my dad said patting me on my back.

Crawling into my bed I closed my eyes only to be met by Joaquin's desperate eyes, he'd been so confused, all he'd wanted were answers, but weariness took over, and my dreams became nightmares as I began reliving the time in my life when I'd been haunted before, but by someone else, I'd considered them a friend, they'd told me I was everything to them, but in the end...

~~~