A Ghost Haunts Me With Words In My Window: This Mirror Of Mine

Twenty-One

"I honestly don't know what to write," Ian said, his palm on his cheek. "Day in, day out, I sit here with a pen to my paper writing tirelessly trying to get something going. In that time, the famous Citrus Debole has probably sold another hundred copies. I just don't understand the purpose of fighting when it feels like there is nothing to fight for. Every field of every craft is flooded with talent and people who are more diligent and punctual than I am. Why do I keep doing this to myself?"

The man leans back in his chair then gets up from it. He paces the hotel room for a moment before staring at the unmade bed. Even in disarray, it looks all too comfortable. He contemplates it for a moment, then sits back in the chair. The pen is picked up, held over the notepad, and set down once more.

Eventually, one word is written on the college-ruled notebook paper. Then another, and one more after that. The words fall like dominos, one into the other until a paragraph is written.

Ian sets the pen down for the last time of the night. Though it is a meager one hundred or so words, it's still something. One day, it'll be a collection of some things that form a whole thing. While he would have laid on the bed disappointed in himself twenty minutes ago, now he is satisfied and the bed is so much more comfy and warm than nights when he wrote nothing. He falls asleep with a smile.

###

The sudden shock sent Kaylee reeling to the floor. Never had she cried this much in her life. Every norm she had developed in her life, even the ones she grew to hate, was now collapsing. But this; this was it. The straw that broke the camel's back they say.

She crawled on her stomach like a sloth to the shattered glass sitting on the carpet. The cold cuts of wind were stinging her cheeks. "Fuck this life and the next one!" she screamed, scooping up a shard.

Kay looked through the piece as if it were a lens but all she saw was the windowless frame. Balling her hand into a fist, the glass cut into her pinky and palm. With a decisive swing, she plunged the weapon but missed. Her whole arm was shaking. Her whole body was screaming not to commit this selfish act. But with a mental blowoff, she plunged once more and struck her wrist.

The blood drained out at first. However, once she dislodged it to have another go, it started to gush and spew. She felt dizzy but not even passing out would stop her. With a grind of her teeth, she drove it home once more.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed the wrist of the arm that held the dangerous weapon. Her whole body flung over as the force of the stranger's grip threw hers to the ground, pinned. Before she could even make out the face in the hint of moonlight that was leaking into the room, a secondhand hit the open wound on her other wrist, gripping tighter than even Thomas's. Surely there would be a bruise.

She looked up, only now realizing that someone, a stranger, was in her house and had mounted her. Kay's vision had started to fail but she could still make out the ember of the sweet stick hanging between the purple messy curls. "Is that one of my reserves?" she muttered.

"Yep," the voice was warm but cocky, like someone who was proud for saving a life but who would hang it over the survivor's head the rest of their existence. "Want a hit?"

Kaylee tried her best to nod.

Instead of taking one of her hands from Kay's wrists, the woman opted for a bout of showboating. Turning her head up, she spit the cigarette up in the air. One second the glowing coal was spinning. The next it disappeared. The woman then draped her long curls over Kay, darkening everything like a theater curtain. But Kaylee didn't need light.

The butt of the filter hit her bottom lip so she closed the top one on it. She waited for the stranger to pull away but she didn't. Kay wanted to wait longer, but she could feel her consciousness slipping.

She sucked the best drag she could but the heat of the smoke barely reached her throat. Best case scenario, take another and if a blackout so be it, she thought. But as she prepared the last of her strength for the second toke, a rush of smoke filled her mouth, throat, and lungs. The strength of the breath was not her own but assisted by the woman on top of her, the woman blowing as she sucked in.

There was a cough, the smoke started pouring from her nose. Then she blacked out.

###

Kay repeated her actions from the night prior. But when she entered the guest room, the window had been covered with a reflective material and painter's tape. The scent of cigarette smoke wafted upstairs and Kaylee followed it. At the bottom step, she saw the person who had saved her life, but instead of being cast in shadow, the stranger looked full of life.

The purple-haired woman twirled a Polaroid as she balanced herself with her foot on the table. Her lips held the white stick to the side. It looked fresh and it was. On the table sat the used roll of painter's tape, Kay's lighter, and a pack of Molboro's with only a single cig missing. She felt an inherent urge to reach for it but turned for the coffee pot instead.

However, it was already made. Not only that, but it looked piping hot. Kay knew she should question the woman. There were so many to ask. Who is she? she thought. Why is she in my house? Did she break the window?

Kay grabbed a mug from the cupboard and only then saw the brown medical wrap pinned with a metal clip covering her wrist. The mysterious woman was clearly no one to fear—not from a physical assault at least. Though, she supposed some kind of deal or snooping might be involved. But that begged the question: how was she going to approach this situation?

"You wanna smoke?" the woman asked as the click from a lighter hit.

"Coffee when I wake up," Kay replied, not adding any ingredients. She typically did, but the energy of the guest made it seem as if adding sweetener would be a laughable offense. "It was a thing between my mom and me. But I'll toke after I finish."

"Helluva tradition you hold," she let out a ball of smoke. "Take she's not around anymore. 'Was a thing.' Doesn't get more dead than that. Take it the basement was hers?"

Kay would have dropped the mug if she hadn't just finished setting it, "you went in the basement?"

"Gotta problem with that?" she blew the smoke in Kay's face.

"I don't even know who you fucking are and you're rummaging through my house! What do you think?"

Though Kay had snapped, the woman's coolness leaked from her mouth like smoke, "I think you better be goddamn grateful that I saved your life." She ashed her cigarette on the table, "I'm Em-c and you'll be bowing down to me from this day forward."