Manic [h.s]

36

Two ghosts
Skye
I can picture her when I think of it hard enough.

It's like I'm still there.

It was a Thursday in early October, the beginning of my sophomore year, it was raining out so I didn't have cheer because the football game was cancelled. I had just gotten home from school.

I come running through my mother's bedroom door, she's laying there, sitting up and patiently waiting for Adam and I. I hop into her bed. She's finally getting better, I think to myself. 18 months of this battle against acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and finally she's getting better. She holds me in her tiny little arms, she has so much more strength.

I pull away from her embrace to just look at her, her dark wavy hair cascades over her shoulders, and her brown eyes are the same as mine. Her cheekbones are high, and she doesn't have a nasal cannula on for the first time in two weeks.

"How was school my love?" She asks.
"Today was good." I say, I feel kind of shy about it, I want to tell her about The new boy in my french class and how I sat with him and his friends at lunch for the past two weeks. I want to tell her about how Adam and his childhood best friend Taylor are rumored to be dating. But it all feels so small.
"Everyday is good for you isn't it?" She says it in this affirming tone, that I also kind of believe it as she says it.
"I want to hear all about it." She pats next to her for me to settle in next to her.

I tell her about my friends, and my French presentation due next week. It seems mundane, but things that I'm excited about.

"What about the new boy you mentioned the other day." I almost forgot I even mentioned him.
"Harry?" I ask. She nods excitedly and invested. "Yeah."
I think I mentioned him in passing last week when I told her about Ellie's idea to try and get with his friend Liam. I thought she was half asleep and probably couldn't hear so I just rambled on about anything.
"I ate lunch with him today." I say. I try to contain my excitement a little bit. it feels sort of wrong to rub it in. I know she wants me to enjoy high school and have fun, I know she doesn't want this all to effect my everyday life. The only way I can do that, is if the minute I walk through the school doors, I forget all about it. So when I get home, I try to leave my school life there, and my home life here.

"And?" She asks me excitedly. I lean back onto the headboard like she is. Hardly able to contain my excitement I don't hold eye contact with her to tell her about how we share the same humor and somehow the 4 boys all moved from England without knowing each other beforehand. She tells me that living in Brooklyn there's a lot of foreign people coming in and out, but I tell her how different they seem from the people who's parents work on wall street and hold corporate offices.

She asks me specifically about Harry another two times until I finally budge and tell her about his dazzling green eyes and I just always feel excited to be around him. She seems happy, and excited for me.

We laugh and talk about him for hours until Adam peaks his head in to tell us dinner is ready. We walk downstairs and have a family dinner, I watch as she finishes her plate for the first time in weeks.

I started dating Harry two weeks later.

She died 6 weeks after that.

That version of me doesn't exist. That was just two ghosts lingering, it was sweet and so real. I could feel it. I was there.

"Skylar, C'mon, it's been two hours." Kenzie shakes my shoulder.
I'm still on the hardwood floor of the bedroom. She's holding a hot mug in her free hand, I sit up and look around to see Louis and Liam still in the room.

"Is he back yet?" I ask immediately without thinking about it. It's like second nature to me to need to know exactly where he is.

"They should be finishing up soon." Louis says.

My stomach is in my throat, Kenzie passes me the mug and I take a sip, it's an herbal tea, I don't really know what kind, I don't drink tea. But it's nice, and it calms me more than I would like to admit.

They all give me this look of pity.

"So you gonna tell us what that was about?" Louis asks.
I stay silent.
"Louis shut up." Liam says. He has a grimaced look on his face, "It's obvious they're back together." Yeah right they definitely had no idea.

"I don't know I thought maybe you were going for Niall." Louis says before taking a bite of a subway sandwich.
"How are you eating right now?" I ask.
"This used to happen a lot more often, and to all of us. You stomach it better the longer it's been happening."
Niall walks in from the bathroom, "It's still terrible though." He comments before sitting on the bed that's supposed to be mine.

"Mmm, by the way we had to sedate you, don't eat solids for atleast an hour or you'll get sick." Liam looks up from his phone.
"You what?" I shout. I didn't mean for it to be that loud. I take another sip of my tea.

"Skye you went off the walls for a little bit, we can't have you running out to him or anything." Liam clarifies. I know it wasn't very rational how I was acting, but it was definitely warranted giving the nature of how dangerous these people are.
"What would happen if I did?"
"It's not like you would have stopped them." Niall says. "What you've tried?" I ask.
"We all have." Louis sets down his sandwich before standing up, pulling up his shirt and showing me his back.

It's covered in burn scars. Hundreds of them. Some must be newer, they're more pink while others are almost the same color as his skin. He drops his shirt to cover his back again and he points out that all of the boys have arm tattoos, the closer I look, I see they're covering scars.

"I wouldn't let you out there in your wildest dreams." he says.

I look over at Niall, "You too?" I ask. He doesn't say anything, he just looks at kenzie who is sitting next to me and nods.

"What the fuck is wrong with these people?" I ask, entirely rhetorical.

"Just not the kind of people you wanna get in bed with, you'll come up with fleas." Liam says it so damningly. So matter of fact.

And he's right.