I don’t know why I asked this since I was pretty sure that’s what it was, but I needed to hear it from him. This was turning out to be one terrible idea.
But he did that slight shake of the head again. It actually didn’t make me feel any better.
“Perry,” he whispered, his eyes flitting to the right, toward the Dumpster. “Can you go look down the alley? And tell me if someone is there?”
“Someone?” I asked. He just nodded and closed his eyes tightly again. “OK, no problem.”
I got up and peered down the alley. I couldn’t see anyone. It was a dead end, after all.
I even took a few steps toward the Dumpster. I looked around the edge of it but there was no one there either.
I turned around to go back to Dex.
And then I did see someone.
Standing at the other end of the alley, where the people were passing by. It was just a silhouette, but one that I had seen far too often these past two days.
She wasn’t moving, but against the grainy streetlights I could see the blood slowly falling off of her.
Splat. Splat. Splat.
Then she turned, her broken neck at that unnatural angle, and was gone.
I walked over to Dex. He looked up at me. I stared down at him. We both saw it. And now I knew the problem.
I held out my hand for him and told him to get up. After a moment of hesitation he did so, and I steadied him with my hands as he got used to his feet.
“You saw her too,” I told him.
He breathed in deeply but didn’t exhale. I stepped closer to him, close enough so that he had to back into the damp alley wall. I ran my hands through his thick hair and held them there, holding his head steady.
“You saw her,” I pressed. “You saw her, you saw what I’ve been seeing this whole time.”
“Yeah. I saw her.”
He exhaled and tried to look at the ground but I held his head tightly. Headache be damned. He was going to look at me.
“What is the problem? She’s a dead girl. She’s a ghost. This is what we do, Dex. We see ghosts. We see things others can’t. Why is this any different?”
“Because I shouldn’t be seeing her!” he said through gritted teeth.
“Why not?” I asked. “Why not? Why not for you? Why do I have to?!”
“You don’t understand,” he said, trying to move his head out of my grasp. I grabbed his hair tighter and held him in place.
“Tell me then!”
His eyes darted around, trying desperately to not meet with mine. He was going to lie, I knew it.
“I…I know her.”
I wasn’t expecting that. I let my hands drop off of his head.
“What?”
“This is not a good sign, Perry. This is not a good sign,” he said. His eyes were watering. His low voice quavered. He looked so lost, so small, so helpless and afraid.
I stepped closer again and brought my hands around his shoulders and brought his head down into the nook of my neck. I held him for a few moments, feeling his cold skin against mine, his breath as he exhaled slowly. Eventually he took his arms and wrapped them around me, holding me so tight it almost took my own breath away. My insides felt like they were mourning, for him and for whatever pain he was going through. And if I had anything to do with it.
“It’s Abby,” he said after a few minutes, speaking the words into my neck in wet bursts.
“Your…ex…your old girlfriend Abby?”
He nodded.
Oh boy. That was a fucking doozey. It explained so much. His ex had died in college after a fight with Dex. She had been cheating on him, Dex went over and they fought. Then she locked herself in the bathroom with a bottle of gin, escaped through the window and drove away. And then ended up being another victim of drunk driving.
And here she was, suddenly haunting Dex. But why now? Why now that I was in the picture?
“Dex…why do you think this is happening now? Has it happened before?”
He relaxed a bit in his grip but still held me in an embrace. I wasn’t about to let him go, so this was fine with me.
“No. I mean…” He brought his head away from my neck so he could talk properly. Our mouths were still only a few inches apart. He rested his forehead against me and kept his eyes closed. “Last time I saw her…was after she had died. She…well, she was everywhere I was. And it drove me insane. And I guess with my past…it was too much. And that’s how I got in the institute.”
“She literally drove you insane?” I asked, voice low, conscious of how close our mouths were.
“Yeah,” he breathed out. “Just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
I thought about that and tried to figure out what to do next. What was there to do? She was a ghost and like it or not, we were both seeing her.
“Did she try to harm you before?” I asked.
He sighed and straightened up, breaking up the closeness of our embrace. He looked around him at the dark alley.
“Not exactly,” he said. “But I never gave her the chance.”
“How did you get rid of her?”
“Medication,” he said. “Therapy. Whatever they did to me.”
At the mention of his medication, I swallowed hard and looked straight forward at his chest.
I debated on saying anything for a while. I didn’t want to make him suspicious. I already had a feeling he’d go home and check his meds, which meant I could easily be busted if I wasn’t fast and careful. In the end I couldn’t figure out what to say. So I just gave him a small smile.
“You’ll be OK, Dex,” I said. I was so close to leaning in an inch and kissing him delicately on the lips. Very close.
“Will I?” he breathed back, his frantic eyes powering down with a wash of passion.
I was starting to feel competing feelings of lust rise up throughout my body. It frightened me enough that I had to pull back. I let go of his back and looked away, back up at the end of the alley. Abby was still gone.
“Look, I know this is hard for you,” I said, finding my breath hard to control. “But at least we both see her. We’re not crazy. You shouldn’t have even been on any of those medications anyway, or in therapy. You can’t cure ghosts with doctors and pills.”
“Can’t you?” he asked.
I looked at him sharply, expecting him to be vindictive. But he still looked alone and cold, which melted my heart again. I reached for his hand and held it in mine.