Goodbye, Evan [BxB]

4

We catch a bus, which surprises me. Seems he really didn't have a place to be after all. He pays for our tickets with a ten-pound note and the driver rolls his eyes dramatically before giving him the change. We take seats at the back of the bus and I watch the world pass by in wonder before I remember I'm supposed to be focusing on Theo.

When I look over at him, I realize he must have been watching me - he looks away quickly, his honey skin darkening a little at the cheeks. "Where are we going?" I finally think to ask. "Park," he mutters, still twisting that Subway wrapper in his fingers. I reach out a hand and place it on his wrist to make him stop, surprising even myself with my own compassion. It takes a moment, but he pulls away sharply and drops the wrapper, kicking it down the aisle. Sensing that he probably doesn't want to talk, I go back to staring out the window, and he goes back to glancing at me occasionally through his curls.

After a half hour, the bus stops in a rather run-down part of the town. Theo gets up and I follow, forgetting to dodge an old lady's knitting bag and nearly going flying. I'm still getting used to having a body again. Theo's head turns, but I've already righted myself and he carries on walking to the bus door. We're the only people to get off the bus at this stop and it speeds away as soon as it drops us. I look around. The sky's gone grey and the wind's picked up a bit. I shiver but relish in the feeling.

"You cold?" Theo asks over his shoulder. "Yeah," I say, and I turn to him with a huge smile on my face that I can't quite repress in time. He smirks at me, not unkindly, and starts walking.

The park's not really a park: just two swings, a roundabout and a slide enclosed in some trees. It feels a little familiar - maybe I came here when I was little? The roundabout certainly looks a few decades old, but I don't even know if they existed when I was a kid. Theo sits on one of the swings, so I go to sit on the other. He looks around, eyes misty with memories. I open my mouth to ask him what he thinks I can do to help him and close it again.

"My mum used to take me here when I was little," he says after a minute of silence, fingering the thick metal chain of the swing. "We used to have competitions to see who could go the highest on the swings, and she'd always let me win." I wonder why he's telling me this. Not that I don't want to know, but it doesn't seem relevant to my job. It doesn't seem to be making him happy to remember it. "Not to be an ass, but... were you going to tell me your problem?" His eyes snap to me. In the shadow of the trees, they look black. They go hard, then soften. When he speaks, his voice is heavy. "She died. Cancer. Three years ago. Left me alone with Dad," he snorts, "And, God, he's a fucking asshole."

"So... your dad? That's the problem?" "He's not the only one - but I think he's the root of them all." He laughs throatily.

This time, the noise doesn't disgust me. It tugs my chest with sympathy. Sympathy is dangerous. First sympathy, then empathy, then I go and get fucking attached. And I can't do that - not again. "So, my job is to sort your dad out? That's what I have to do to fix you?" I was just trying to get things back on track, but it seems it was the wrong thing to say.

Theo's eyes harden. "I don't know how many "souls" like mine you've healed, EVAN, but I'm not just some poor kid who needs a fairy godmother to solve all his problems. I'm not some kid on a list. You don't have to "fix" me." He stands abruptly. " I don't know why I'm telling you any of this. I don't know why I'm asking a fucking dead boy to solve all my problems. Hell, I don't even know why I believed you in the first place." I've heard worse, but it still hurts. Nonetheless, I stand up and grab his forearm. He tries to throw me off, but I hold fast.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to make you feel like your problems don't mean anything. I want to help you. I do, I really do. I want to help you solve the root of your problems so you can be happy. I want to help you, Daniel, like your soul asked me to." For a moment, he just stares at me, eyes lost in shadow. "You sound like a fucking hippie when you say that," he mutters after a while. But he sits back down and I follow suit. We sit in silence for a while before Daniel speaks up. "I'm sorry... for calling you a dead boy. It must've hit pretty hard." His eyes are soft again as he looks up at me through his hair.

"Don't worry," I say. "I've had a long time to get used to being dead." We're silent for a while. "So... what does he do? Your dad, I mean. Hit you?" I ask, as gently as I can "Sometimes," Theo replies. He fiddles with one of the strings of his hoodie "But very, very rarely - he's usually not around long enough to get mad, see. It's just me and the maid and the cleaning lady most of the time. It's lonely." He chuckles dryly. "Last time he hit me was when I came out, I think."

"Came out?" I plant both feet on the ground to stop myself swinging in the wind. "You're... you're gay?" "Yeah. Completely." He eyes me warily. "Is that a problem?"

I shake my head vehemently, even though my eyes prickle. "No. Not at all." We're silent again, and it's comfortable. I can tell he's thinking, and that whatever he needs to say he'll say, so I don't probe any further. "Did your dad hit you?" he asks. Then he flushes. "Oh - I'm sorry for bringing it up. He... he must be dead, right?"

"Yeah. I expect so - at least, he should be by now, unless people have somehow found a way to reverse the aging process while I was stuck in that school" I questioned politely. "So... did he?" "Hit me? Yeah. But it wasn't as unspeakable back then as it is nowadays. I don't resent him for it."

I don't remember many things about living - it's all lost in death's void, replaced by the memories of every person I've helped and subsequently lost. But I remember my father's belt, his soft hands going hard when he struck me. I also remember my mother's apron, the scent of soapsuds, the way they tickled and hurt at the same time when they went up my nose, the way she'd laugh as she wiped them away. I remember a baby in a crib and begging to pick it up, but my mother or father always holding the tiny creature out of reach. I remember dressing in my Sunday best and hugging my father's leg while my mother watered the dirt of the little thing's grave with her tears.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks. I want to tell him. I shake my head. "This isn't about me. How can I help you?" Daniel looks reluctant and frowns again. "With my father?" I nod. "I don't know. I don't see how you can make him come home earlier from work or accept the fact that I don't want to kiss girls" "Well, I haven't failed yet. I'm sure I can do something." (If I had ever failed - if I had ever thought to fail - would some of them still remember me? I try not to think about these things. If I do, I'll be lost.)

"The sun's setting," Theo says suddenly, looking up at the sky. His hood falls back (he pulled it up again a while ago to block the wind) and I get another look at his face, at the walnut shade of his eyes and the shadows beneath his high cheekbones. He has a mark - mole? freckle? chicken pox scar? - just below his right eye. In this light, it's nearly invisible. "Are you going back to the school?" he asks, snapping me out of my revive. He looks at me expectantly. "Or do you have to come to my house?"

"Er... I don't think I know where the school is, or how to get to it from here," I say truthfully, pushing a hand through my hair. (It's cropped short, and was parted to the left and brushed to one side when I was alive. It never grows, but about two decades ago I started styling it to keep up with modern trends. I've been pushing it up through my fingers all day.)

Theo rolls his eyes, but he's grinning at me. "Back to my house, it is, then."