THE COURTSHIP OF MALLORY RICHARDS

Chapter One

"Rise and shine, pretty boy!" I shout at him and he doesn't respond. Of course not. Almost two months have passed and I'm still dead.

Evan rolls over with a sigh and slaps in the wrong direction for the alarm. I suppress a smile, as if he could see my expression. He stumbles out of bed yawning and stretching. His boxers make a tent and I laugh, feeling awkward as usual.

I follow him into the bathroom, but spin to face the wall when he strips off his plaid underwear and steps into the shower. The hooks clink across the shower rod and I turn back around to wait. Evan has been naked in front of me before, but each instance felt too invasive. That's why I look away whenever possible now.

It takes a minute, but soon his ritual morning sounds begin. Evan busts out a few notes that are too sparse to make a real melody, a bird lacking a tune. I chime in with him and try to morph it into a song. Really, he'd be surprised at how good we are at this.

His shower lasts longer than normal, or maybe it just feels that way to me. Time is a funny thing to judge when it's all you have — and yet you still tend to lose track of it.

The water shuts off when the bathroom is saturated with steam. Evan gropes around the wall for the navy blue towel.

"That's old remember? You forgot to do laundry last night. Again." Just then, he rips the curtain open with the towel around his waist and annoyance on his face. "Told you so." I laugh.

Evan walks to the mirror and rubs at the condensation. He grabs his toothbrush from the shelf and I move behind him to sit on the side of the tub, head in my hands. There's a small puddle of water at my feet and I resist the urge to try and dip my toes in it.

"Don't brush so hard. You'll make your gums bleed again."

I hear him groan at his reflection.

"Told you." I repeat it as if my days aren't filled with various unheard comments like these. I stare at his ankles, noticing a tiny scar by his left foot. I wish I knew how he'd gotten it.

And without warning, Evan farts right in my face.

There's no foul odor — thankfully, my sense of smell didn't make it to the afterlife — but it doesn't stop me from reacting with human instincts that are hard to break. I lift my hands in disgust and my energy gathers and explodes, giving his towel wrapped butt cheeks a hard slap.

"Gross, pretty boy!"

He jumps from the impact and spins around to stare at the space above my head, which happens to be the shower wall. Great. He'll be scared to bathe for a while.

For whatever reason, I can place pressure on things if I concentrate enough. It has to be limited to rare occasions; it causes too many problems. But that's fine with me since I can't actually experience touch, like the texture of the towel or his ass. There's no point, really.

Evan caught me off guard last time by walking in my path. Rather than moving to the side - which I can do in an instant just by thinking about it - I pushed my arms out to brace for a collision. We were in the hallway in the middle of the night because he'd gotten up to pee, the poor baby.

Now he may never re-enter the room again. Wonderful. I'm Mallory - the violent bathroom ghost. Dammit.

Evan does a fair job of moving on, though he does glance behind him a bit much. He eats some sort of oatmeal and fruit concoction that nauseates me. I doubt there's anything in his cabinet containing preservatives - or flavor for that matter. His dedication to health food is admirable, but Pop-Tarts were way more my style.