Misguided Ghosts | TREEBROS

•Chapter 6•

"Evan! Son, come in. Dinner will be starting soon!" Connor's father answers the door with an overbearing smile and pulls Evan inside. Connor watched and flinched, soon disappearing from Evan's sight.

"Oh, thank you sir. I was, uh, I was exciiited..." Evan forces a smile and sits awkwardly at the dinner table, Cynthia's laugh from the kitchen caused Evan's palms to sweat as he was overcome with anxiety.

Shit, what did I do wrong? Was I not supposed to sit??? God they hate me now. I'm such a fool.

"Oh honey you don't have to sit yet, our home is your home you can make yourself comfortable!"

"Yes ma'am," Evan responds before going into the kitchen and standing awkwardly behind Cynthia, not knowing what to do. "D-Do you need any help?"

"Oh Evan, you're so sweet! But no I've got dinner handled,"

"Okay," Evan says, but doesn't move and just stays quiet.

"Hey Evan, you knew Connor well didn't you?" Cynthia asks, turning off the oven.

"Y-Yes,"

"So he must have told you about all the fights we had?" She turns to Ev, who nods. She sighs and continues, "I always think about those fights, and the times he would slam the door after dinner. He was just fighting his demons."

Evan watched the mother's shaking shoulders as she went on talking about her lost son. Evan gave her his full attention seeing how much this meant to her, this was also a great opportunity to see the Connor that Evan missed.

"He stole the pills from the medicine cabinet, and we found him passed out in the park... but there were moments where there was a little bit of light, when he was happy and trying still to fight." She wipes her tears and flashes Evan a smile, "I don't remember the last time I saw him laugh,"

"We used to laugh all the time," Evan says thinking of Connor's ghost and their talks before he goes to sleep. That same ghost watched his mother reminiscing with tears in the corners of his eyes.

"You did? He used to love jokes when his was a little boy! Like 'why did the chicken cross the road?' He had a million answers to that one. Haha! One day he said to me 'Why did the duck cross the road? To prove he wasn't chicken!'" She laughs, the tears in her eyes rolling down her cheeks.

"That's funny!" Evan laughs with her.

"He had his moments, his moments with a little bit of light. I wish I paid more attention to when he changed, maybe.... I-I'm sorry Evan, you should uh, you should go look around and get comfortable."

The boy walked with his ghost through the house, Connor's spirit leading him to one of the bedrooms down the hall.

Evan walks into the room and notices band posters, spiderman comic books, and a closet full of various hoodies. Connor's room. He feels his muscles relax and he sits on the bed, despite the room smelling like Connor (something Evan quickly loved) the atmosphere was sad.

Evan hesitates, but lays down on the bed. He plays in his mind the fantasies and dreams he's wished were true. Being in the room, something he kept denying finally set in.
Connor was dead.
The ghost he's come to lov-uh... befriend was the soul of someone who was gone. He felt tears in the corners of his eyes but made sure not to let them fall.

"Evan?" A harsh, but sweet voice cut in. Evan shot up and wipes his tears as the lights were turned on. "Why are you in my brother's-wait, are you... crying?"

"W-What??? Crying? No I'm not cryingggg. I'm just, uh, dry eyes you know. Your brother's room is quite dusty..." Evan panicked, he proceeded to ramble on every single cause of tears as he could until Zoe cut him off.

"It's fine, dry your sweaty eyes. It's dinner time," She says as she leaves, Evan sighs.

"Great,"

During dinner Evan got to see the Murphy family in action, they all seemed so eccentric. When it was over, that was when the anxiety was at its highest. They were all waiting for the emails he had promised.

"I have.. I h-have the emails," he stutters out, each member of the family perked up and looked to Evan with excitement.

Evan pulled the emails out of his bag, but he couldn't bring himself to hand them over. They were all lies, but they were lies Evan wished were true. Connor helped with some of them so it's not so bad? Without having time to even contemplate whether or not to give them the emails for moral reasons, Cynthia already had the papers in her hand and was reading over everything.

"You two seemed so close," Larry said with a somber tone. Zoe had her head down, Cynthia still shuffling through the papers. She put them down with a smile and put her hand on Ev's.

"You were his little bit of light."

Evan felt a pair of arms around his shoulders and saw Connor's face out of the corner of his eyes, wet with tears. Evan finally broke down and let everything he was keeping in out. He missed Connor.

He missed his dead friend.