Misguided Ghosts

Chapter One

One – Ed

The day I nearly spoke to Emilie was the toughest day of my life. Even in the warmth of the bookshop, I felt cold and goosebumps had sprung up on my skin. I slouched in my stool behind the till and shivered like there was no tomorrow. As the hours crept past, I thought about Tay, who was just lying there, helpless in the hospital.

“There’s been no change,” the doctor had said. “We may have to consider taking her off life support.”

My girlfriend, Tay, had been in a car crash two months earlier. She had suffered severe head injuries and been in a coma for those two months. There’s been no change. I missed Tay so much. But there was one girl, and I had felt drawn to her over those two long months. Maybe it was because she reminded me of Tay.

I was reading in an attempt to distract myself and get rid of every horrible thought when the door opened, bringing with it a rush of cold air. I shivered and pulled my eyes up from the book, glancing at the group of girls that entered and were laughing a little too loudly, as well as talking about anything but books. I turned my eyes back to my book.

I don’t think I would have given the girls a second glance if I hadn’t recognised one of them as my eyes made the journey back to the printed page in front of me. She swept up her brown hair into a ponytail, and the action was so insignificant, but it showed she meant business. It was her. It had to be.

Jerking my book up to my face as a shield, I risked a glance in her direction. The group was standing by the revision guide section, joking about what subjects they were going to fail, well, all of them apart from her. She hung back ever so slightly, her eyes flickering over the bookshelves, as if she was looking for an escape.

I had so many different scenarios planned out in my head for that moment, but nothing compared to real life. I had so many different versions, in which I said all kinds of things to her, but in reality, I had no idea what to say.

She was so real here. It was different when I saw her in the library, where she was either reading or furiously scribbling notes from a thick textbook, desperate to get ahead of the game. There, the distance felt like a bottomless chasm. Here, in the bookshop, she felt closer to me than ever, breathtakingly so. There was nothing to stop me from talking to her now. Except Tay, lying in her hospital bed. There’s been no change.  

Her gaze panned over to my direction, and I hid my face behind my book once more, trying to stop feeling like a fool. If she didn’t recognise my face, then she might recognise my eyes. Grey, almost silver irises were kind of hard to hide. I had to believe that she would recognise my eyes.

I prayed for her to leave so I could go back to thinking about Tay.

I prayed for her to buy a book so I’d have the opportunity to talk to her.

I prayed for Tay to come back. I prayed to hold her again, to hear her laugh softly in my ear, to feel her fingertips dancing on my chest while her head rested on my shoulder.

One of the girls called, “Hey, Emilie, OCR Religious Ethics for AS and A2 - Is that the right one?”

I sucked in a breath, watching the bob of Emilie’s hair as she nodded. Then she crouched down with the other two to look at the rest of the A-Level books. The tilt to her shoulders indicated slight interest, but she didn’t seem that bothered. She nodded as they pointed out other books, but she didn’t say anything and seemed distracted.

“Hey,”

I jumped back as a face appeared in front of me. In fact, I jumped back so much; I thought I might fall off my stool. It wasn’t Emilie. It was one of the other girls, with flaming red hair and alabaster skin.  A huge camera was slung over her shoulder and she was staring straight into my eyes. She said nothing, but I knew what she was thinking. Reactions to my eyes ranged from stating the obvious (“Wow, your eyes are really silver,”), to surreptitious glances, to blatant staring.  At least she looked mildly surprised at my unusual eye colour.

“Do you mind if I take your photo?” She asked.

I searched around for an excuse. “There are some people who believe that when people take pictures of you, they take away your soul. It seems like a sensible argument to me, so, sorry, no pictures.” At her irritated expression, I shrugged and added: “You can take pictures of the shop if you want.”

The third girl pushed up against the camera girl, but it still wasn’t Emilie. This girl had dark blonde hair and emitted so much energy she exhausted me simply by being there. “Flirting, Hayley? We don’t have time for that. Here, dude, we’ll take this one.”   

I took OCR Religious Ethics from her, vigilantly glancing around for Emilie.

“Nine pounds, ninety-nine pence,” I said.

“For a paperback school book?” The girl scoffed.

I held up my hands in defence. “Hey, I don’t make the prices.”

The girl reluctantly handed me a tenner and I put her money in the till. When I handed her the penny change and her receipt, she pushed the penny away. We didn’t have a charity tin, so I made a mental note to take the contents of the penny jar to the Oxfam store later. I took my time putting the book in a bag, praying that Emilie would come over to see what was taking so long.

But she stayed in the biography section, running her index finger along the spines of the books. Her head was tipped to the side in interest. The blonde girl took the bag and grinned at me and Hayley. Then Hayley moved over to the biography section to grab Emilie, herding her towards the door.

I’m here, Emilie. Just turn around.  If she turned around now, she’d see my eyes and recognise me as the boy who smiled at her in the library.

Blondie opened the door- ding- and made an impatient noise, signalling to the rest of the herd that they were going. Hayley turned her head, looking at me once more. I knew I was staring at them – staring at Emilie – but I couldn’t help it. She snapped one quick shot, and then looked quickly away again, grinning in a mischievous way as she did so.

Hayley frowned and left the store. “Come on, Emilie. We’ve got training,”

My chest ached, my body sending me mixed signals. Longing for Tay, loss for Tay. Heartache for Tay, my heart breaking over the possibility of losing her.

I waited.

Emilie, the only other person in the world that I wanted to know me, had just left without even knowing I was there, Why hadn’t I done something? Why hadn’t I spoken to her? She had ran a finger over the books that I’d put there, right within my reach. I could have recommended one to her, or asked if she’d found what she was looking for, or asked if there was anything I could do to help.  

I waited a bit more, just until my shift ended, watching the minutes tick away and race their way around the clockface.

Then I snatched up my coat and headed for the hospital once more.