My Guest in Apartment 10B

Pink Elephant in the Room

Unlike the day before, Arabella didn't have the urge to scream. She did not know whether it was because she was still emotionally drained from yesterday, or if it was because the ghost had made her breakfast.

She dated Richard for 4 years, had been engaged to him for 2 months, and he had never prepared a meal for her.

James, on the other hand, had peppered his apology with some toast and scrambled eggs.

If Mrs. Rothschild wasn't snoring on the couch behind her, she would have thought that the old lady had prepared it for her and passed it off as one of the friendly deeds of the ghost.

Deep in the pit of her stomach, Arabella somehow knew that the ghost was speaking to her, and he earnestly wanted to make amends.

"James," she whispered, testing the name on her lips as she wondered how she would explain this to her mother. Hey mom, I made a new friend in New York. He cooks in my apartment, but no one can really see him...

Arabella bit on the toast and took a spoonful of eggs. It tasted like real food.

Maybe having an imaginary friend would not be so bad after all.

She looked around, the hairs on her head starting to tingle from the awareness of being watched. "Are you here?" She swallowed, not entirely sure if she could readily accept inanimate objects moving on their own this early in the morning.

"If you're here, can you let me know really subtly that you can hear me," she whispered under her breath as she silently observed the kitchen.

There was a soft click behind her.

She whirled around to check where the sound came from and saw that the magnets had now been rearranged.

"YES," they read.

Arabella stared at the word for a long time and wondered if maybe she was going insane. Was there a mental disorder for people who started seeing things that weren't there?

"Will you harm me?" She closed her eyes for a moment, dreading the answer to the question as much as she dreaded asking it aloud.

A soft click. She opened her eyes and the refrigerator magnets read, "NO."

Arabella had never believed in ghosts. Before today, she never had any reason to. But as she stared at the magnets, she realized that maybe there were a great many supposedly known truths and facts about the world that may not necessarily be accurate.

She moved to shuffle through drawers for a pad and pen, but only found a marker. She brought the marker out of the drawer and walked up to her bedroom to find paper. When she got back to the kitchen, the Scrabble letters were already rearranged in a message.

CAN'T WRITE YET

She placed the pad gently on the counter and wondered what that meant. "Why can't you write? How can you not write when you can cook?"

She waited a moment, but there wasn't any movement on the Scrabble box. She decided to leave, but before her foot could move away from its position, she felt a soft breeze envelop her.

Arabella stopped all movement and stared at the corner where the marker was gently being lifted.

If he was lifting the marker on that corner counter, and she was standing behind one of the counters, that meant that James was right beside her.

She shivered, secretly scared but also thrilled at this new discovery. Who knew that ghosts existed, let alone were able to communicate with humans?