Together from Across the World

Never in my 130 years as a ghost had I seen a woman with less self-restraint. Floating through the halls of an enormous manor that changed hands every couple years, I’ve seen it all. The greatest of romances, the rich fall to their knees at the hands of war, and gruesome murders left unsolved to this day. Daughters of rich men, like Valerie, were common. Less so was a lifestyle like hers. She sat, all day, doing absolutely nothing, chatting on the phone with her friends and paying her way to good grades for classes she never wanted to take. Her father loved her, loved the way she was “easy to manage”. Her mother was long dead, having passed when Valerie was a young girl. Because of this, I tried to help when she sat alone late at night. I sent a cool breeze through the windows while she screamed into her pillow, ran an invisible hand through her hair when she was so delirious she was pulling it out. I saw, throughout her life, as she developed both rage and desire in her heart. I watched as she desperately tried to satisfy one, only to indulge in the other when she couldn’t stand it any longer. Which is where he came in. 

Damien had been her lover for a short while now. They had met at the club and spent a night together. Then another, and another. Damien’s visits to the manor had grown more frequent as of late, to the point where he stayed several days at a time. But I could see how it tore at Valerie. How she saw more in him, wanted more. How her eyes closed and her body relaxed when he was near. How even though he had become obsessed with her, stalking her, almost, she never gave up, desperate to believe in something, anything, for the first time in her life. So she let him come back night after night, and I watched in horror as a bit of her beautiful soul left her eyes every time he hit her, every time he insulted her, every time he left and said he wouldn’t come back. And tonight… Tonight would be the cherry on the cake.

Valerie pulled up Damien’s contact, silent tears streaming down her face as she stared at the profile picture staring up at her. Dark hair, dark eyes, heart-wrenching smile. I watched from atop her large television, wondering for the third day in a row if she was really going to go through with it this time. When she hit dial, biting her finger to keep from crying out, I knew she would. The light of her phone was too bright in the large room, the curtains drawn and the lights out. Valerie choked as he finally picked up. She didn’t even give him a chance to speak before starting her carefully rehearsed speech.

“We’re done, Damien. I-I know we weren’t anything to begin with, but-” Her voice wavered as her fingernails bit into her hands, drawing tiny specks of blood. “But I think it’s best if you don’t come around anymore.” She waits about a second before hanging up and screaming, her voice raw and angry.

For the first time in a while, I could almost feel something. Almost feel my heart break for her. But not quite. Instead I floated down, sitting next to her on the bed and wishing she didn’t have to do this alone.

She didn’t wake until early the next afternoon. She groaned as she opened her eyes to the bright sun shining through a crack in the curtains, sitting up and glaring at her pillow, still damp from the tears she had shed until late into the night. I sit up too, leaving my post in the cushioned alcove under the window. I float above the bed, watching as she fumbles her phone and tries to decide whether the lack of texts from him- from Damien- is a good thing. Something in her face tells me she’s decided it’s not. 

Hours later, she finally drags herself out of bed, trying and failing to keep a piece of toast down as the last dregs of sunlight wash over the room in a stunning array of colors I know Valerie couldn’t care less about. So I drift over to the window, watching the light dim as it passes through my otherwise non-existent body. She doesn’t notice, not as she stares at her phone in horror, a singular text on a new thread. From Damien. It’s a picture of her, standing in her room, taken no more than a few minutes prior. Her breathing starts to speed up as another picture appears on the screen; Valerie staring down at her own phone. She seems to arrive at a conclusion the same time I do; Damien is here. Not only is he here, but he’s watching her.

A series of loud bangs sound on the window. Valerie jumps, eyes wide, searching for somewhere to hide, something to do, someone to call. Snatching up her phone, her thumb lingers over her father’s contact for a moment before she remembers that he left for a plane to Europe hours ago. The banging sounds again, somehow sharper this time, followed by the explosion of glass as Valerie’s large window is smashed in. Shards rain down, a few slashing her arms before she dives behind the bed. Heavy, male breathing comes from the spot where the window used to be. Damien’s shoulders rise and fall, his body silhouetted by the low sun at his back. A large knife is clutched in his right hand, and the other runs through his hair, pushing out clear dust that gives the illusion of a much kinder man. 

Valerie collapses behind the bed, and I have a feeling she would be sobbing if she had any tears left. Damien growls, moving closer. Even years of silence and a horrible lack of feeling, I try to scream, try to shove at his chest. No one knows he’s here. The thought strikes a nerve, and it’s then, watching a beautifully tragic girl’s life slip through my wispy fingers, that I realize even in death I can feel; that I have been feeling all this time. So I pray that Valerie too will be able to feel as Damien’s knife finds its way to her slim throat, spilling blood all over the cream-colored carpet and cutting off her pleas and cries and apologies.