~One

If I’m starting at the beginning- and, after all, all good stories start from the beginning- then this story begins with a funeral. 

Yes, I know. Awfully bleak stuff to just dump on you like that, but circle of life and all. It was a simple affair held on the edge of a river that wound lazily through a technically public but far-enough-out-of-the-way-to-be-private park. The weather was perfect for a funeral- grey and slightly drizzly with raindrops just fine enough to fly sideways underneath umbrellas and pepper the lenses of freshly cleaned glasses.  I don’t think anyone minded the wet glasses, though. They were all crying so hard anyway. 

The priest or minister or whatever said some lovely words about the good dying too soon, yada-yada. People cried some more. A sad song played- possibly ‘What A Wonderful World’- and that was it, really. It was a beautiful service, or that’s what I was told. 

It wasn’t an accident.

I wasn’t there, of course. I was curled up in bed nursing a bottle of whisky and staring blankly at the opposite wall. You see, I thought that maybe if I stared at that wall enough and got drunk enough and wished and cried and cursed hard enough maybe it would somehow open up into a portal to a different world. A world where the last three days hadn’t happened yet. Because if I could get to that world, then maybe I could stop it. And if I could stop it, maybe she’d still be alive. Maybe, just maybe, I’d still have my best friend.

It wasn’t an accident. 

Unfortunately, either the whiskey wasn’t strong enough or I was too drunk to properly pray. The wall stayed solid. The day stayed grey. And I decided that maybe it was best- for the time being, at least- if I stayed good and reliably drunk. 

I stayed drunk for three glorious days. I probably could’ve extended that further, if the whisky hadn’t run out. When I realized that the numbing fog was beginning to leave my mind I hauled myself out of bed and to the fridge in search of something- anything- even vaguely alcoholic. I was just considering whether I had enough potatoes and sufficient lucidity to make vodka when I heard the door of my bedroom open and close. 

I dropped a potato. “Who’s there?”

There was a soft whistle of wind. That wouldn’t have been concerning, normally. Except for the fact that I knew, with absolute certainty, that every window in my apartment was tightly shut.

I turned and ran. Or at least I tried to. In reality I was just sober enough to turn but a little too drunk to run and ended up executing a manuver where I spun on my heels and smashed into a kitchen island right at gut level, completely knocking the wind from me. The kitchen seemed to dance slightly in front of me and suddenly that fog was clearing a little more- slowly, steadily, and clawing at my brain with every inch it receded. I couldn’t help but groan and hunch further over the island, putting my cheek against the cold marble. I found myself thinking that it might not be the worst thing in the world, if there was somehow an axe-murderer in the apartment. 

After all, the worst thing they could do was kill me. And at this point, who cared about that?

“I care.” 

And now I was falling backwards. I hit the tiles hard, felt the pain rush up my spine. But I was scrambling back on all fours, my eyes squeezed shut until my back hit the cabinets. I knew that voice. And I knew I was never supposed to hear it again.

“Kinny-”

“No.” I clamped my hands over my ears, pressed my face into my knees and curled up into as small of a ball as I could. “No you’re not- I’m drunk. I’m sick. I’m- this isn’t real.”

“Kinny.” 

I felt her, then. Cold, gentle hands against my cheeks, pulling my face up and my hands away from my eyes. I opened my eyes. Slowly. And suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

She was kneeling in front of me. Her eyes were bright and happy. There weren’t any bruises on her cheeks. Her chest wasn’t being held together by clumsily tied bandages. Her lips weren’t split and bleeding and blue. She was there. And I could see through her.

“You’re not real.” My voice cracked on the last word and my head spun and my eyes were burning so terribly, horribly. I closed them. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead into my knees. “You’re not real. You’re dead. She’s dead.”

“Well, no shit. You don’t just become a poltergeist while you’re alive.” She chuckled, then, and slowly lowered herself to sit next to me. “This is real.”

“No.” I mumbled, “no it isn’t-”

“Kinny.” Her cold head was against my shoulders, cold skin pressing against my neck. Cold, dead, clammy cold. Her. 

“You died.” I said it more firmly now, trying to convince myself. I had to be convincing myself. She wasn’t real. She was- “Dead. You’re dead.”

“And you’re repeating yourself.” A cold finger against my cheek, tucking a sweat soaked lock of hair behind my ear. “I never said I wasn’t dead.”

I opened my eyes- slowly, carefully.  I wasn’t expecting her to still be there- how could I expect that? She was-

She was there. Smiling at me. Bright, happy eyes. And I could have believed she was alive, that the last few days were nothing but a dream. Except for the fact that I could see the door behind her. “Uri.” Her name sounded heavy in my mouth. Tasted like ash and rot. It fell from my lips in a croak and hit the floor beneath me with a thud. “How?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Her blonde- it was still blonde, just a little more see-through- hair was falling over those gorgeous blue eyes and now she reached up to brush it out of the way. She was biting her lip as she looked me over, that look of concern and fear and just care so familiar that I felt my breath beginning to hitch again. It wasn’t fair. She’d died. I’d mourned. This wasn’t fair. Those eyes were shining again, full of a light I never thought they’d hold again. 

I was crying now. It’d become so common now that I didn’t even notice anymore.

“I came back.” She said- quietly, calmly. “To deliver a message.”

“Deliver it.” My voice was a croak, drowned out by the alcohol and the tears. “And leave me alone.”

“You’re not happy to see me?”

“I’m mourning.” It came out more bluntly than I intended, “I have to mourn. I can’t if you’re here.”

Maybe it was the look of disappointment on her face. Maybe it was how she was biting her lip. Maybe it was the way that she was looking me up and down, love and anger and fear all at once, or maybe it was something else- some hand of fate or justice or a divine force I’d sworn not to believe in (how could I?) pushing me to the inevitable conclusion. Real. She was real. A ghost- my best friend. Back again. And now I really cried, my body rocking back and forth with so much force that the cabinets behind me creaked in protest. She’d died. I’d mourned.

She was dead. That wasn’t fair. She was back. That was less fair.

“What do you want?” The tears had become so simple now, dripping down my cheeks without disturbing my breaths. “Tell me, and go back.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

There it was- the thought that had been haunting me for hours I had no energy to count. It was no accident. I looked at her again, willed myself to focus on her lips. I had to know that it was her saying it, not just the broken ghost of her voice that had become the bitter voice in my head.

The creature in front of me was a ghost too, though. But her voice was strong. “It wasn’t an accident. My death.”

“I know.” I croaked. The tears had stopped now- or maybe I’d become so numb I didn’t feel them anymore. Actually, I didn’t feel anything- not the kitchen floor beneath me or her hands on my cheeks or the handle of the cabinet digging into my back. “I knew.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything, dipshit?”

And I laughed. It happened so suddenly that I didn’t even realize it at first. It felt foreign, crawling its way unbidden up my throat. It sounded sacrilegious. Who was I, that I deserved to laugh?

I, who had lived. 

Uri’s bright blue eyes crinkled at the corners as she laughed too, hard and boisterous until her ghostly form shook. She, who had died.

I was still laughing, despite myself, and now I forced myself back to calm. I drew in deep hiccuping breaths and she wiped the warmth from my cheeks. “I- I didn’t know what to say. The police-”

“The police are idiots.” Uri said firmly. “Kinny, they said it was a car accident.”

“I know.” I had the report memorized. I had the phone call playing on repeat between my ears. 

“It wasn’t an accident. The other car-”

“Yes.”

“- they said it drove into the river.”

“They’re dredging it.” I said quietly, “For the wreck.” I studied her face, marvelling at its forgotten beauty. “They won’t find anything.”

It wasn’t a question, but she still shook her head. “No, they won’t.”

“We have to find the other driver.” I said. And now I was angry. Angry was the only word that came to mind, although it didn’t even come close to what I felt- not anger. Anger was for when someone cut you off in traffic. Furious- that was for being betrayed, being cheated on, finding out that the job that should’ve been yours had gone to someone else.

I was vengeful. It was a horrible feeling, the way it burned itself into my heart, punctured every chamber and burst out the other side, the way it twisted into a knotted iron vice around the bruised muscle and set my pulse pounding. It was dizzying- worse than the booze. It filled my mind with a grey haze that crept into the corner of my eyes and then across them like the curtain of a stage, wreathing everything in a grey-white mist. A shroud.

It was empowering, and I clambered to my feet. I walked to the kitchen sink and splashed water on my face, rubbed the drunken glow from my cheeks. I raised my head, cold water dripping down my chin, and counted- first to three, then to ten, then to fifty. If I turned around, if she was gone again-

A cold hand landed on my shoulder. “We have to find the other driver.” Uri agreed. “Whoever they are.”

“I’ll-” I balled my hands into fists, then relaxed them. Then balled them up again, “-what do I do? Once I find them?”

Uri moved to lean against the counter next to me. She held her hand up to the light and examined it somberly, seeing how the shimmer soaked into and through her now translucent skin. “I don’t know. But I can’t rest until we do- that’s what they said.”

“Who?”

“They. You know, the-” she made a vague gesture, “- the others. The one who watch over things down there.”

Down there. And suddenly it hit me again- that she was dead and I wasn’t. That it wasn’t an accident and I hadn’t done shit. That she was gone. “Uri.” Her name still tore itself from me in a croak, a death rattle. “Uri I’m sorry. I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry, I’m-”

Her hand was on my cheek again, and her face was inches away, “Hush. You’re saving me now.”

“I am?” 

She looked back down at her hands and for a moment her face fell. Only for a moment. “When we find the driver, when we- do something about it- then I can… go back, I guess. I can be at peace. You can give that to me, Kinny. You can give me that peace.”

“I can.” I leaned in, pressing my forehead into the coldness of hers, “I will.”

“Thank you.”

“Will you stay?”

“I will.” She said, “Until we’re done.”

“Thank you.”

The night fell like that, over the two of us perched shoulder to shoulder on the cold marble of the kitchen countertop. We’d sat like this a thousand times but this time it was different, changed. We sat together but apart- both lost in the fog upon a middle sea.

There, in the place between.