Midnight {*COMPLETE*}

T H R E E

"Carter..."

I looked at my clock. Midnight. Again. I groaned. You have got to be fucking kidding me.

"Leave me alone," I said to the general darkness. I felt like an idiot, but I needed sleep. I didn't feel like dealing with whisper boy again tonight.

"Carter, I need your help."

Oh my god. What part of 'leave me alone' was confusing? I sat up in bed, more angry than scared. My eyes focused slowly in the dark.

That's when I saw him.

I nearly jumped out of my damn skin. There was a guy sitting calmly in the easy chair that I had squished into the corner of my room. He was watching me patiently as if waiting for me to wake up so I could talk to him.

The funny thing is, as soon as I saw him, I knew he was a ghost.

I mean, it wasn't an intellectual deduction, I didn't sit there and catalog his faint edges, and pale skin. I just knew it. Somewhere inside of me could tell that this boy was dead. Even stranger, after I realized that he was dead, and the first ghost I had ever seen, I also realized that I wasn't afraid of him. In fact, he seemed a little afraid himself.

"Who are you?" I asked. Other than a dead kid in my room of course...

"Jamie Douglas," He answered as if I should already know that.

"There's no one named Jamie living in this house." I'm not sure why I said it. Sounded kind of stupid even to me.

"I live in this house. This is my room. It has been for...what year is it?" He looked slightly confused.

"It's two thousand and nine."

"Then I guess it's been fifty years."

So if it had always been him in this room...

"What did you do to Adam?" I asked. I wanted to be prepared in case he tried it on me too. Jamie looked sheepish.

"I didn't like his girlfriend's perfume. They couldn't see me, not as you can. I just played a few games."

"What do you mean, they couldn't see you?"

I was curious now. Not afraid at all. I was starting to notice things about him, like his neatly pressed khakis, his snug t-shirt that was definitely filled out, the chocolatey waves that curled around his ears. Jesus! I was cruising a ghost.

"In all my years in this room, watching, learning, seeing the lives of so many guys, you are the first one who has ever heard me. Believe me, I've tried. I don't know what it is. I decided tonight that I would try to let you see me. Obviously, that worked too."

"Why me?"

"I told you. I don't know. Maybe because it's exactly fifty years...wait what day is it?"

"October first."

"Well, not exactly fifty years yet, then." He cocked his head to the side as if considering something. I noticed the long line of his neck, arched as his head turned. An image of me sucking on that soft skin flashed into my head. I realized I was being ridiculous. I couldn't touch him!

"Fifty years since..." I prompted. I knew what he was going to say. I just had to hear it for some reason.

"Fifty years since I died. On Halloween. Nineteen fifty-nine."

"And I'm the first one who can see and hear you. For whatever reason."

"Yes." I thought of something he had said a few minutes earlier.

"You said you didn't like Adam's girlfriend's perfume. You can smell?" He grimaced.

"Yes. Much better, as far as I remember, then when I was alive. Smells are very overwhelming to me. But not you. You smell nice."

He blushed as if realizing he had said a bit too much. No way. I literally couldn't believe this was happening. Either I had completely gone batshit or I was really sitting in my room talking to a ghost who liked how I smelled....and I actually kinda liked that he had noticed.

"Jamie, you said you needed help. What happened to you?" I felt like I wanted to do something for this kid. It must suck to be stuck in the same room for that long. Jamie gave me a disappointed look.

"I don't remember. That's one of the bad parts. I guess I need to fix something, to get closure. You know the typical story. But, like I said I don't remember what happened. I do remember everything about my life since I died. But hardly anything before." Well, that was no good. How do you help when he doesn't even know what he needs?

"I guess I have to do some research, then?" I said it like a question. I really had no idea what I was going to do. He looked so hopeful that my heart broke. "I'll help you. I promise. I'll start by learning as much about you as I can find. I have to warn you, it might not be much." Where do you even start looking for stuff about an ordinary person who lived fifty years ago?

"I know." He answered. "I was just a nineteen-year-old kid. A nobody. Thank you so much for even trying, Carter." That reminded me.

"How did you know my name?" I asked. There was that sheepish grin. So cute. He pointed at my mail pile.

"You're the one who's been looking through my stuff aren't you?" I raised my eyebrows. He blushed again. I couldn't believe a ghost could actually look embarrassed.

"Just a little bit. I wanted to know who you were."

"So you can touch things."

"Sort of. Like in the movies. I've seen a lot of those in this room. It's hard, and I have to concentrate, but I can move things. That's how I freaked out Adam and his girlfriend." He grinned as if remembering a good joke. Wow. Playing pranks for fun. He was a frat boy.

"Hey, Jamie?"

"Yeah?"

"Listen, I promised I was going to help you, and I will. But I gotta get some sleep. I have four classes tomorrow, and if I'm going to try to figure out who you are, I can't be falling asleep in the library."

He nodded and stood. I was curious suddenly as to where he would go. He actually came towards me, hesitated for a second like he was concentrating on something, then brushed my cheek with his halfway translucent hand and whispered,

"Thank you,"

Then he disappeared.