Time Is Life

Chapter 3~

Over the three months I've been a spirit- ghost sounded too unrealistic and Spector was too scary- I've been with Mavis.

I did check in on my parents but seeing my house, the front yard with the dead flowers my mom failed to nurture all these years, and a broken basketball hoop, it was all too much. Seeing my dad cry was too much. Seeing my mom stare at the same spot on a wall was too much. My parents not knowing I'm in front of them became a storm in my non-existent chest. So I selfishly stayed away.

Being around  Mavis was always a breath of fresh air and now that I can't breathe, it was a reminder of what air is. How it felt to be alive.

By the end of the first week of my passing, she lost 10 pounds and her eyes seemed like a permanent black. She collected all of my hoodies and the things I've gotten her over the years and piled them in her bed, just laying in them. I think she thought that if she smelt me, and saw the memories, I'd come back to her. Maybe that's why she cried every night. Because it wasn't working.

By the end of the first month she was super skinny. I could see her ribs and her cheekbones popped out more than they did before. But she started eating more, to help her moms worried crying every day. She also began doing to a therapist after her dad said either she'd go there or the therapist would come here.

At the end of the second month she started going back to school but she was a husk walking the filled hallways. She ran into the girls bathroom and puked after seeing my decorated locker filled with sorries and flowers the first day. It was sweet but it proved to everyone I was gone. And it meant everyone knew how. The next day a teacher took it down and gave the things to my parents. I think he saw the look on Mavis's face when she saw it. Even when she was throwing up every little thing she ate, all I could do was sit and watch as she sobbed.

Mavis was never social and always spent her spare time with me, so she had no one to talk to. Teachers gave her grace and a plan to get back on track, they even took down me and her photo of us winning a stupid cheesy costume award off the AP Literature wall, she would look at it and it was like she couldn't look away.

To see her in so much agony made me want to die, to not die like I already did, but to disappear and be reborn so I could come back to her. But at the third month mark she went numb and I was still here.

Today she sat at her desk catching up on her Pre-calc homework, her eyes were so empty and I watched her from the end of her bed. Her room was clean and the sun shone through her blinds blowing tiny particles of dust everywhere. It was beautiful but she did not look up. Her eyes did not leave that paper.

Last week she woke up and I watched her blink slowly towards me. I would lay down for hours just next to her, to be by her presence. It was creepy to do but I didn't know what else to do.

Her eyes were black from her lack of sleep but her cheekbones weren't as sharp and she actually slept this time. I tried to move the golden curls out of her face but they wouldn't move. That morning she sat up in bed, in my hoody, and got up. She pulled the hoody over her head and I looked away. She still deserved her privacy.

The hoody landed on the floor and I hear her open her dresser to grab a shirt and pants. She grabbed the hoody along with every other one of my things and started shoving them in a duffle bag. After they were all collected she threw them above her in her closet and moved to work on her room.

I looked over at the time and it was a crisp 5:43 in the morning, but she spent until it was almost 8:15 cleaning her room. I followed behind her as she took dishes half full of food to the kitchen. I watched her shiver as she took the trash out in the cold fall breeze. Then she vacuumed, dusted everything, changed her sheets, and wiped down her windows. It almost looked like the room it was before the accident. She was trying to become who she was before, to pretend I didn't happen.

That's why when I watched her on her homework and she came upon a question she didn't understand and would always call me for help on, it hurt. Because she just guessed a random answer and moved on, Mavis was the girl who never gave up on anything. Not even a seemingly impossible math problem. But my girl gave up and you could see it in her beautiful hazel eyes which was now a black abyss.