Snaked

Burgers and Chicken Nuggets

Avery's pov

I haven't left my room in what feels like days but when I look at my clock, I realize it's only been two hours. Willie has tried to come in but I just yell at him to leave every time. Just a few minutes ago I finally locked my door because here, ghosts we don't have any of our ghost abilities which means we can't walk through walls or doors. That's the only time I've gotten out of bed. Other than that, I've been laying in bed in the dark with nothing but silence to fill the space around me. My cat has even given up on me. If that isn't a punch to the gut I don't what is.

I hear a knock at the door and I groan, covering my face with the covers. "Go away, Willie," I say, almost yelling. I hear mumbling outside the door but I ignore it because if they wanted me to hear it, they would talk louder.

"Chaparrito, it's Cam," I hear her voice say, making me lower the covers and turn my head to look at the door, contemplating if I should open it or not.

"Go away, I don't wanna talk to you either," I say, brushing her off and turning back to face the wall.

It's quiet again, the only sound being the mumbling I hear her talk again. "I have burgers and chicken nuggets," she says, quieter this time but loud enough so that I know I'm intended to hear it. I look back over to the door and this time I actually get up and unlock the door. When I open the door, she's standing there in the same outfit she was wearing this morning but this time she has a fast food bag in her hand. She smiles softly as I move out of the way of the door, letting her inside. She sets the bag on the bed before looking me up and down and looking at me sadly. "If you're comfortable in jeans while laying in bed, I'm concerned. Go get changed, I'll pick a movie in the mean time, okay?"

I nod and walk slowly to the dresser to grab some sweater before walking into the bathroom to change and put my hair up into a bun before walking back out and seeing that she's turned on Top Gun. I sit beside her on the bed and prop some pillows against the wall so that I'm nice and comfortable before grabbing a pack of chicken nuggets and a burger out of the bag. I take a bite of the and groan since this has been the only thing I've eaten since the apple this morning.

Cam laughs at me as she puts a pillow behind her back. "What?" I ask, with my mouth full with the burger. She shakes her even though she's still smiling before she takes a bite of her burger. "So he did the same thing to you?" I recall, my voice raspy and nearly gone from the screaming I did earlier.

She nods as she takes a sip of her beer that she also brought. "Mine wasn't so bad though. When I died I wasn't really close with my family because I just moved here, so when he sent me to see them, I just watched them find out I was dead. They just stood there and nodded like they heard I got a bad grade. Nobody cried, nobody was sad, just quiet," she says, keeping her eyes on the TV as planes fly back and forth.

"That sounds awful," I say, grabbing her hand but letting it go just as quickly when I realize what I did.

"Nah, it's okay, they expected it. They warned me about moving to the city where I might die. I didn't care though," she says before taking a sip of her beer before leaning over the bed and grabbing another one and passing it to me. I hold it in my lap, knowing I'm not old enough and not wanting to be rude by giving it back.

"I- um- I can't drink this," I stutter as she looks at me confused.

"Why not?" She asks, narrowing her eyes and furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

"I'm eighteen. I need to be twenty-one," I say, making her remember the legal drinking age.

"Do you know most of the world's legal drinking age is eighteen?" She asks as I shake my head in response before tossing a chicken nugget in my mouth. "And considering we travel all over the world, we have no legal drinking again here," she says before she grabs my beer and opens it. "Just try it. If you don't like it, I have apple juice." I smile at her comment and take a sip out of the cold glass bottle. It's bitter, that's for sure, but overall it isn't that bad tho. "So, I told you all about my experience, now you tell me about yours. That's how this is gonna work between us."

I sigh and take another sip before setting it on the table beside me. I rest my head against the headboard as I look up at the ceiling, trying to keep myself from crying. "It didn't go the way I planned," I finally say quietly.

"Does anything ever really go to plan?" She asks, not expecting an answer.

"It just- I knew something happened to them when they started glowing but I didn't know that meant they were alive again, and since they're alive-" I say but stop, my throat suddenly becoming very dry.

"They can't see you," she finishes my sentence as I nod.

"I was screaming and yelling and trying anything to get their attention but then Willie came and- and he took me away," I say, shrugging and letting my hands flop into my lap.

"So that's why you won't talk to Willie," she says, piecing everything together as she nods her head.

"I thought Willie would've at least hesitated because my brother was there," I say before talking another sip.

"What's so special about your brother?" She asks, her whole picture of what happened clearly falling apart.

"They used to go out. Just briefly though."

"Damn," she says, her big brown eyes widening before taking a sip of her own beer. I nod as we both go silent. We look back up at the TV and see that we looked up just as Goose was dying and Maverick was begging him to come back. Perfect timing. I grab the remote and turn the TV off, leaving us in complete silence and almost complete silence. "Hey, you wanna go for a drive?" She asks with a smile on her face as she leans forward to pet the still unnamed cat that was again laying beside my leg.

"Sure," I say as I shrug before walking toward the door. I don't have time to open the door because she runs up and grabs my hand, making me look up at her, confused.

"When you open the door, run. Okay?" She asks, looking down at me with wide eyes.

I nod and open the door. As soon as I do she bolt down the hallway, almost making me trip but making a wide smile form on my face. When we get to the stairs we slide down the railing before bursting through the doors into the musty air of Los Angeles but I still breathe it in like it's clean. I stop when we get outside and bend over to catch my breath, a giant smile still spread across my face.

Cam eventually pulls up in this white 1980s Lincoln Continental with old music playing from the stereo, making me smile even wider. I run into the car and look over to her and notice she's wearing Ray Bans that fit her perfectly. "So where we going?"

"Do you trust me?" She asks, looking down at me.

"Not at all," I say truthfully with a smile on my face.

"Perfect," she says as she nods before she speeds off up a hill until we reach top where there's a small flat space where she parks but keeps the music going. We got here just in time to see the sunset and I honestly, in this moment, I couldn't be happier. She gets out of the car and I watch as she walks around the front before grabbing my door and opening it for me to get out. She puts her hand out for me to grab so I grab it and stand up before walking to the front of the car and sitting on the hood, smiling softly when I see the sky change colors.

I look over to her and notice she has her eyes closed and a small smile on her face as she soaks in the sunlight. When I hear Great Balls of Fire start to play and immediately grab her sunglasses off of her face and start to sing the lyrics to her. She throws her head back laughing before grabbing my hand and joining in, making the heat rush to my cheeks, thankful that the tinted sky is hiding it. When the song ends we sit back on the car, I take her sunglasses off to give them back but she refuses.

"They suit you," she says, her hand still attached to mine.

We watch the rest of the sunset and even though today was a pretty crappy day, I somehow know that everything's going to be alright.