When Colson comes back downstairs, he’s changed out of his standard black pants, black shirt, and black boots into grey joggers and a black sleeveless undershirt. He moves through the kitchen, grabbing items from the refrigerator, dishes from the cabinet, not ignoring me, but just embracing the silence. I watch with odd satisfaction as he begins combining ingredients in a glass bowl. Egg yolks, olive oil…then he pulls a large knife out of the block on the counter and starts chopping anchovies. My mouth begins to water. Is this what he does when he’s by himself—makes Caesar dressing from scratch? That is, when he’s not hovering in my office or following me.
Jesus, he was out here all along…
When Colson turns to slide the bowl back into the refrigerator, I see that the constellations tattooed on his arm don’t end at his bicep. They extend over his shoulder and disappear beneath his shirt across his back and chest. The sky is big, but so is he. Maybe he’s not finished yet.
He exchanges the bowl for a rectangular glass container and strolls over to the sliding glass door. When he makes a clicking noise with his tongue, Pony immediately jumps up and rushes out ahead of him, disappearing somewhere off the deck. I watch Colson over my shoulder as he plucks four chicken breasts out of the marinade and tosses them onto the grill with a hiss.
As soon as the breeze rushes through the trees, stark green against the crisp blue sky, it catches the smoke and carries it through the open door. And once it hits my nose, everything suddenly feels familiar, smells familiar, and looks familiar.
I’m back in the house where I grew up. My dad is grilling chicken, just like this, and my mom is tossing vegetables in a bowl. Jo and I are somewhere outside running through grass, falling from tree branches, and watching the boats out on the water. Everyone is barefoot because you don’t wear shoes in the summer. The weathered deck, the kitchen tile, the oak tabletop, and the way the sun cuts through the glass and showers the living room in golden light—it feels like…
Home.
It still feels that way when Colson sets down the biggest plate of chicken Caesar salad I’ve ever seen in my life. The feeling lingers for a little while longer as I skewer each piece of chicken and lettuce and Parmesan, cramming as much of it onto my fork as will fit and shoveling it into my mouth. I haven’t eaten anything in two days other than a bowl of cereal at Barrett’s house when I finally started tweaking out from the near constant flow of caffeine I was mainlining. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted, and I eat every single bite.
As soon as my plate is clean, the sun dips behind the trees, casting the kitchen into shadow. Pony stands and lumbers out the open door. I watch him trot straight out to the edge of the yard, make a sharp left, and start following the tree line.
“Where’s he going?” I ask Colson.
“He walks the perimeter every couple of hours.”
“Did you train him to do that?”
“No,” he shakes his head and proceeds to gulp down half his water bottle, “he’s always done it on his own, no matter where we live. He needs a job or he gets neurotic.”
Maybe Pony and I have a lot in common. I need something to do, something to focus on, or else I go insane, too. Except, lately, it doesn’t matter what I’m focusing on, I’m resigned to a fate of high anxiety.
The sun is gone and I’m suddenly reminded that I’m not at my childhood home in North Bay. My mom’s not in this kitchen, my dad’s not on the deck, and I’m not chasing Jo across the grass. There’s no water or boats or the neighbor boys scaring us with firecrackers.
Maybe this is who I am now; a frightened, paranoid, hollowed-out shell of a person trying to survive on a steady drip of adrenaline and caffeine laced with impending doom. Barrett’s right, everything I do is tainted with weird habits and overly specific routines. Ever since…
“I know the feeling,” my eyes fall to the table, “when things get too quiet.”
“You’re safe here, you know.”
As soon as Colson says it, a match strikes somewhere deep in my chest, a spark of sulfur racing toward a stick of dynamite. Pictures of him and the sound of his voice flash through my mind until, soon, they morph into Bowen’s face and Bowen’s voice, spun up all together in a twister of angst, resentment, and grief. If Colson never saw me at that party, if I hadn’t gone out with him, if I’d been able to let go of him, if I hadn’t been searching for him in someone else…
If…if…if…
“With you?” I’m picking at the cuticle of my thumb so intensely that I don’t realize my fingertip is smeared with blood. “Like last time?”
When he meets my eyes, my muscles are so rigid that I feel the veins popping in my neck and each breath feels like my lungs are made of iron.
“No,” Colson says with a hint of a smile, “not like last time.”
I’m sitting with him at his kitchen table, in his house, next-fucking-door to the Garrisons, on a gorgeous summer night, eating dinner like everything is perfectly normal. But, it’s not.
“But it is like last time,” I return a bitter smile, “the only difference is that now I know why you like me so much. It’s the same reason Bowen does, and now it’s the reason he hates me.”
Colson’s eyes narrow slightly, “And what reason is that, Brett?” he challenges.
I plant my elbows on the edge of the table, “Because I’m a ghost.” I stare intently over the oak table, “Yeah…” I lower my voice, the resentment bubbling over, “I figured it out pretty quickly. Col and Bo locked in an eternal battle, destroying everyone who gets in their way. But you forgot that this is my life, too. I’m not the reincarnated ghost of Evie Maguire,” I clench my jaw, my nostrils flaring, “I’m not a replacement for your dead sister!”
I shoot up out of my chair, grab my plate, and hurl it onto the kitchen floor, shattering it across the tile. Colson stares blankly at the ceramic shards as they scatter across the floor.
“No,” he gives a placid shake of his head, “no one can replace Evie. And even if I could get her back—right now—she wouldn’t be a replacement for you, Brett. Because without you, I stay suspended in one moment in time, forever. And without me, you would’ve eventually ended up suspended in your own moment in time—forever 24 years old, broken and destroyed, hidden away in the dark where no one will find you, while everyone you ever knew lives on, remembering a shadow of who you once were.”
He describes my death so easily, but I know it’s because he’s already seen death and met it face to face. And now he sees my face there, too. But I’m not like him. I’m still running from death.
“I don’t know why I decided to go drinking one night and walked into the same house as you,” he continues, “I don’t know why yours is the pulse I feel over my own or why yours is the only love worth chasing. Maybe you can ask God whenever you see him, but the only way you and I keep living is with each other, and you need to come to terms with that in whatever way you see fit.”
He speaks so plainly, like everything’s already been revealed to him and he’s accepted his fate.
“I know what you did to me back then wasn’t your fault,” I say it like I’m still trying to convince myself, “but you should’ve told me what happened. Just like you should’ve told me about Bowen. I’m so tired of only getting pieces of you, or anyone else, for that matter.” I look down, wincing as I furiously pick at my fingers, “You could’ve told me all of it. But you just decided to fuck with me instead. You made me love you and hate myself…and now I hate you, too!” I roar.
A heavy silence hangs between us as the echo dissipates through the kitchen. Finally, Colson rises from his chair and closes the space between us, his jeweled eyes boring into me.
He stops so close that his chest brushes my shoulder, “Do you?” he barks, giving me a start.
But I’m so broken, I don’t even have the guts to look at him. He towers over me, his chest rising and falling like a dragon about to breathe fire. I’m absolutely sure I’ve sealed my fate. Maybe he actually will kill me, and this time it’ll be a conscious decision. Maybe I just prefer Colson’s eerie serenity over Bowen’s gnashing teeth. Maybe, this time, I’ll thank him while he finally puts me out of my misery, as long as he does it with a straight face…
I only glance up when Colson steps past me on his way across the room. He opens the closet next to the front door and shoves his arm into his backpack hanging on the hook. I can’t make out what he’s doing until he slams the door shut and swings both hands out in front of him.
The heavy metallic snap as he pulls back the slide and chambers a round in his Glock sends a wave of terror through my chest. I remain motionless, petrified as I watch him from the other side of the table. His eyes trained on me, he strolls back into the kitchen, the gun swinging with his gait. He returns to my side, his body heat radiating against me while he invades my space. Trembling, I manage to look up at him for a split second and meet his eyes, ablaze with contempt.
Colson takes the barrel of the gun in his other hand and offers the grip to me. My eyes dart back and forth in confusion.
“Take it,” his deep voice cuts through the silence.
