Ghost Not Forgotten

III: Now

* banner by swellabella (livejournal)

I used to be able to sense Bennet. I know that sounds like crazy talk but, no lie, I could actually feel when he was near.

I wouldn't get hit with his scent either – I'm still not sure what that was about – it was always more of a feeling. Before he would walk into a room or come in through my back door or window, I would get a little shiver – like a warm trickle of water had gone down my spine – and I knew. I don't know what it was, I don't know what triggered it or why it was triggered but, by the time I was twelve, I knew that strange shiver meant Bennet was near.

And as crazy as that seems, it was also expected. Bennet was, after all, the center of my universe when I was a kid. Weirdly, I never thought of him as a brother, even though we grew up together and that's what you're supposed to do in such situations. But it was never that way for either of us. Playmate, yes. Companion, yes. But brother? It always sounded gross, even when we were five years old. It wasn't always romantic either, it was just . . . Me 'n Bennet. I always felt close to him, closer than a brother, closer than a friend, like he was my soul twin or something. I could never explain why I felt this way – even when I was a little bitty kid it confused me – I just always had. Bennet had too. It was just something about us.

My mama used to say that when I was a baby, I never cried on the days I saw Bennet, even in the night when a baby is supposed to cry. His mama said the same thing about him. Whether they were pulling our legs or not, the simple fact was he and I were just plain happier when we were together. As teenagers we made a promise to each other that we would never be apart. Ever. We shook on it and everything.

He lasted almost two years before he broke that promise.

Fast forward sixteen years and I had to wonder if the dream I had and the phantom scent following me around was my strange sixth sense coming back but in a different form.

I hoped it would stick around too, now that I understood what it was, because then I could use it to avoid him. It's much easier to run and hide from a person when you're secretly told they're coming, and I had a feeling I'd have to hide from Bennet a lot over the next few days. Melba told me she had seen him check into the motel – despite nearly everyone in town demanding he stay with them – and he had a lot of baggage. She reckoned he was going to be here awhile.

Then Della confirmed it. She said he told her he wasn't sure how long he was staying, but it might be awhile.

Nobody knew why either. Bennet wasn't talking. He hadn't told anybody why he left or where he had been all this time and why he picked now to come back. Almost everybody – except me of course – had tried to get it out of him and he used his charms and smiles to politely avoid the questions.

Which pissed me off. After all the townspeople did when he vanished, all the worrying and the mourning and–

Well. I wasn't going to think about it. I kept pushing the questions out of my head. Two days of dealing with them had reduced my brain to old cold soup and kept me on edge. Everywhere I turned Bennet was there: in conversations, in my thoughts, in person.

It was too much.

After his big return, he had a way of popping up all the time, watching me and smiling, trying to get into my good graces I suppose, but I refused to talk to him. If he was going to act like nothing happened, like everything was peachy, then I wanted nothing to do with him.

When he wasn't there, everybody else kept bringing him up, asking me questions like I knew anything about it. When I had no answers for them, they'd try to reminisce with me, talking about the good old days when Bennet still lived here and all the crazy things he used to do. Then they'd wiggle their eyebrows and nudge me with their elbows, asking me if I was gonna give Bennet Malene another shot.