You can’t do this alone, my father told me.
You’re dead.
You should have trusted us, my mother told me.
I don’t even know if I trust myself.
But it was Kelly I talked to most. Kelly who was sometimes so angry I could almost see the spittle on his lips as he shouted at me. Kelly who would be there waiting for me as I closed my eyes. Kelly who would sing along with me when an old rock song came on the radio.
He wasn’t there.
But I could pretend he was.
I said, “I’m sorry.”
I said, “I know you don’t understand.”
I said, “You might never forgive me.”
I said, “I wish I could see you.”
I know, he’d say. And, Turn up the radio. I like this song.
I did, because I would do anything he asked me.
It was getting easier to imagine Kelly was there.
Sometimes I could actually see him sitting next to me.
It should have scared me more than it did.
THE FIRST NOTE I FOUND was after I’d seen a ghost. I’d left Green Creek behind five months prior, and it was one of the bad days.
It was my birthday.
I turned thirty-one years old.
I was talking to Kelly, telling him that if I was home, there would be food and presents and everyone would be smiling. Kelly and Joe would make breakfast. I’d wake up, and they’d bring it into my room. We’d sit on the bed, just the three of us, and Joe would eat my bacon, and Kelly would slap him on the back of his hand, telling him to leave some for me. Joe would flash his Alpha eyes, and we’d make fun of him for it. We’d stop talking after a while, listening to Mom in the kitchen, singing about Johnny and his guitar.
And then we’d run with the pack. All of us together.
“It’d be good,” I said, staring straight ahead but lost in the dream. “We’d run as fast as we could.”
I’m faster than you.
I snorted. “You keep telling yourself that. We all know that’s never been true.”
Is Gavin there?
That felt dangerous. “I… don’t know.”
It’s okay not to know. Do you want him to be?
“I don’t even know him.”
And yet here you are, chasing after him like he’s the most important thing in the world.
“I….”