Layla

There were more options in Nebraska than anywhere within an hour of Lebanon, Kansas, so we crossed the state line and went to a city called Hastings.

I was starving by the time we got there, but Layla wanted to shop first, so we went to a few boutiques before going to the restaurant. It was a smart choice on her part, because she had four margaritas with just one taco, so she was barely able to stand without assistance by the end of dinner.

She wasn’t too drunk not to question why I wanted to order tacos to go. I told her it was because she didn’t eat enough at dinner, so I wanted to take food home in case she got hungry later.

When I said that, she smiled and leaned across the table to kiss me but knocked over one of her margarita glasses. It went crashing to the floor, and she was so embarrassed she was apologizing to everyone in the restaurant while they cleaned up her mess. She even apologized to the glass she broke.

That’s when I knew she’d exceeded her limit.

It was only an hour’s drive back, but Layla had to stop twice to pee because of all the margaritas. I kept talking to her in an attempt to keep her awake. It was still fairly early in the evening on our drive back to Lebanon, so I didn’t want her sleeping in the car and then staying up late.

I felt a twinge of guilt for that—being excited for her to go to sleep at the house so Willow could take over.

But not guilty enough to stop myself from doing everything I could to keep her talking.

We arrived back at the house right as the sun was setting. Layla wanted to sit outside and watch it, so that’s what we’re doing right now.

Sitting on the grass near the pecan tree, watching as the sun is swallowed up by the earth.

It’s a painfully slow process.

I keep checking the time on my phone as if I have somewhere to be. I have nowhere to be, but I’ve never wanted Layla to want to go to sleep as much as I wish she would right now. But she’s still drunk. Still laughing at nothing and at everything.

I have so many questions for Willow, and I just want to go inside, but Layla has other plans.

She places her hand on my chest and pushes me onto my back as soon as the last sliver of sun disappears. She leans over me, dropping her hand to the button on my jeans, just as she lowers her mouth to mine. The sour taste of lime still lingers on her tongue.

I kiss her back because that’s what I’m supposed to want to do. I’m supposed to crave her, to want her tongue in my mouth, my hands on her body, to push myself inside her. But it’s not what I want right now. All I feel right now is overwhelming impatience.

I don’t know how to separate my desires now. I came here so Layla and I could regain our footing, but I have a feeling our worlds are going to grow further apart the longer we stay here. I’m becoming too fascinated with the world we aren’t in, and that’s going to affect us. Somehow. I don’t know how yet, but I know what I’m doing is wrong. Allowing Willow to use Layla’s body is a terrible form of deception. Yet, it’s a deception I find myself justifying every time I start to question it.

Layla’s hand slips between my jeans and my stomach. I can feel her deflate when she grips me and finds that I’m not nearly as into this as she is right now.

“You okay?” she asks. This normally doesn’t happen. When she wants me, all she has to do is kiss me, and that’s enough to make me hard. But right now it’s not enough. My mind is everywhere but here, and I can tell in her eyes that she feels it’s somehow a reflection of how I feel about her. It’s not. I’m just preoccupied.

I bring my hand up to her cheek. “I’m good,” I say, brushing my thumb over her mouth. “There’s just a rock or something digging into my back.” I roll her over so that I’m looking down at her now. “Maybe we can finish this later tonight. In our bed.”

She smiles. “Or right now in our bed.” She pushes me off her and then stands up. She’s wobbly when she’s on her feet, so I stand up and steady her. She brings a hand to her forehead. “Wow. I am so drunk.”

I help her back to the house, hoping she’s too drunk to want to continue this upstairs.

She doesn’t forget, though.

She starts kissing me as soon as we’re inside the house. She tucks her hands into my jeans and tugs me toward the Grand Room. “Let’s just do it on the couch,” she says.

I pause, wondering where Willow is right now. It feels weird, knowing she can see this.

I don’t want to fuck Layla in the Grand Room. I don’t want to fuck Layla at all right now. It feels awkward, knowing someone else is in this house with us. Layla is loud during sex when she thinks we’re alone. And yes, technically we’re alone, but we’re not.

Our vacation here isn’t over, though, and I can’t avoid having sex with her for the remainder of our trip. She’ll know something is up. She’ll take it personal. And the last thing I want is for her to start feeling like I made her feel in the airplane bathroom.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I say, pulling her away from the door to the Grand Room and toward the staircase. She pouts, but lets me take her hand. She holds on to the railing all the way up the stairs. I hold on to her because I don’t want her to fall.

When we get to the bedroom, I close the door, confident that Willow remained downstairs.

Layla takes off her jeans and kicks them toward the bed. She pulls her shirt off, but gets caught up in it and almost falls. I help her out of her shirt.

She’s laughing when I toss it to the floor.

That’s when Layla gets my full attention. She’s in a good mood. She’s laughing. She’s drunk and carefree in this moment. It’s very rare that Layla lets loose like this anymore. I can count on one hand the times I’ve heard her giggle since her surgery.

I like it. I miss it.

Maybe this house and this vacation really are helping us.

I kiss her this time, and I’m relieved when I do, because all the want is back inside me. I force Willow out of my mind and focus on Layla as much as I possibly can. She wrestles my shirt off me, and we’re still standing next to the bed when I unfasten her bra. She presses her body against mine, and we kiss until I can feel her becoming unbalanced, her body leaning to the right.

She gasps as I spin her around and bend her over the mattress. Her gasp is followed by a giggle, and my God, I love that sound so much. I don’t even remove her panties. I just pull them aside and then shove myself into her like I’m afraid this feeling will pass if I don’t rush it.

She moans, and it’s loud, and I don’t want her to be loud tonight. I reach around and cover her mouth with my hand as I fuck her. All the noises she makes remain stifled against the palm of my hand.

I don’t make a single noise when I come.

And then when I roll her onto her back and reach between her legs, I kiss her the whole time I’m touching her.

Willow may be in the back of my mind, but that means she’s still in my mind, and for whatever reason, I don’t want her hearing this right now.

When we’re finished, I fall on top of her, breathing heavily. Layla is running her fingernails down my back, but my eyes are closed, my face pressed into the mattress.

I should be satiated, but I’m full of impatience, even still.

I want to go downstairs and talk to Willow.

I think about that—how I brought Layla back to this place so I could focus on her, but that focus is beginning to blur.

Layla has a right to know what’s going on in this house around her.

She’s ignorant of Willow’s presence. Ignorant of Willow’s use of her body at night. Ignorant of my culpability in the situation.

Yet I do nothing to change any of that.

Layla shoves against my chest until I roll onto my back. She walks to the bathroom to clean herself up. I lie on my back and stare up at the ceiling, wondering how long it’ll be before Layla goes to sleep. It’s not very late. Four margaritas would normally be enough to ensure she calls it an early night, but she slept until eleven this morning.

I can hear the shower kick on in the bathroom, and I groan. Showers wake her up even more when she’s drunk. It’s like they breathe new life into her. She’s probably going to emerge from the shower and ask to binge-watch an entire Netflix series in one go. It could be hours before she falls asleep now.

I button my jeans and walk to the dresser. I study her prescription bottles, reading the names to see which one she normally takes to help her sleep.

I open the lid to the Ambien, shake one into my hand, and then put the bottle back in the dresser.

I go downstairs to make Layla a glass of wine. Wine mixed with margaritas will make her sleepier. The sleeping pill will exacerbate that. It’s not like she doesn’t take them on her own every night anyway. I’m just accelerating the process.

I use the back of a spoon to crush the pill up on the counter. I scoop up the powder and mix it into the wineglass until it’s completely dissolved.

I turn to walk out of the kitchen, but I don’t make it far.

The glass is knocked from my grip and shatters against the kitchen floor, several feet away from me.

I look at my empty hand, and then I look at the droplets of red wine as they stain the white cabinets on their descent to the floor.

The wine is everywhere. I just stand still, completely shocked.

Instantly regretful. The glass was knocked out of my hand with enough force to send it across the kitchen, and there’s only one explanation as to why that happened.

Willow saw what I was doing, and it obviously upset her.

The severity of what I was about to do finally catches up to me. I look up at the ceiling and drag my hands down my face.

What was I thinking?

I leave the kitchen and head back upstairs, embarrassed that Willow saw that. Embarrassed I would even consider slipping Layla her own medication so that she’d fall asleep faster.

My desire to speak to Willow fades immediately and is now replaced by a heaping pile of shame. I open the bedroom door just as Layla walks out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. She points at the floor near my feet. “Toss me your T-shirt.”

She catches the shirt and pulls it over her head, dropping the towel in the process. The hem of it falls to the middle of her thighs, and I take in the fact that my clothes swallow her. She’s petite and quite possibly underweight now that she barely eats; yet I was about to slip her a dosage of her sleeping medication, along with even more alcohol, not knowing how that might affect her. Especially if she would have taken her usual nightly pill along with that.

This is not who I am.

I wrap my arms around Layla, pulling her against me, silently apologizing for something I’ll never admit to almost doing. I close my eyes and press my face into her damp curls. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she says, her words muffled against my skin.

I hold her like that for a long time. Several minutes, as if it’ll somehow absolve me of my guilt.

It doesn’t. It just makes it worse.

Layla yawns against my chest and then pulls back. “I’m so tired,” she says. “I think I drank too much. I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Me too,” I say. She leaves my T-shirt on and crawls under the covers.

I change out of my jeans, pulling on a pair of sweatpants. I normally sleep in boxers, but I don’t know if Willow is going to show up tonight. I want to be prepared if she does.

I wasn’t tired when I lay down with her, and even though an hour has passed since we crawled into bed, I’m still not tired. I don’t even close my eyes. I watch Layla sleep, waiting for Willow to take over, but she still hasn’t.

She could be upset with me. Or maybe she has to wait until Layla is in a deeper sleep. I don’t know. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know if there are rules.

I want to explain my actions to Willow, but I can’t do that if she doesn’t slip into Layla, and I can’t do that from up here because I need my laptop to communicate with her.

I ease myself out of bed without waking Layla, and I head downstairs to the kitchen.

I pause in the doorway, shocked by what I see. Or by what I don’t see, actually.

There isn’t a single trace left of what happened earlier. The spilled wine has been cleaned up. The shards of glass are gone. It’s as if it never happened.

I walk over to the trash can and lift the lid. Right on top of the trash are the bits of glass that were all over the floor an hour ago.

Willow cleaned up everything while I was upstairs with Layla.

I take a seat at the kitchen table, but I don’t open my laptop. I open the security app on my phone first. I skip it back and watch as the wineglass is knocked out of my hands by nothing. I fast-forward it, and approximately ten minutes after I went upstairs earlier, the video shows the lid as it slides off the trash can.

I watch in fascination as the kitchen is slowly cleaned by nothing. The wine stains disappear. The shards of glass move from the floor to the trash can. The lid eventually slides back over the top of the trash can, and all traces of the broken glass are gone.

I close out the app and lay my phone facedown on the table.

I tried to stop understanding the world around me the day after we arrived here. Watching a tape of a ghost cleaning a kitchen doesn’t even faze me at this point. At least in this element.

I don’t know what that says about me.

I also don’t know what it says about me that I almost slipped Layla medication without her knowledge.

Maybe this house is messing with my head. Unraveling the threads of my morals.

I’m not even sure where to start the conversation with Willow. How to start the conversation. Do I apologize? I don’t want Willow to think I’m the type of guy who would drug his girlfriend, but . . . that’s exactly what I was about to do before she prevented it from happening.

Did she prevent it because she didn’t like what I was doing or because she didn’t want Layla’s body to be too hard to wake up?

I don’t know if Willow’s actions were selfless or selfish, but I’m not really in a position to judge, considering my actions were completely selfish.

I hear our bedroom door open.

My spine stiffens, and I immediately get out of my chair. I don’t know if Layla or Willow is walking down the stairs right now, but I’ll feel equally ashamed, no matter whose eyes I’m about to look into.

I suddenly don’t know how to act natural or what to do with my hands.

I grip the counter behind me and lean against it, staring at the entryway.

She walks around the corner. I can tell it’s Willow immediately. She’s pulled a pair of Layla’s shorts on and is still wearing my T-shirt. I can tell it’s Willow because of the way she’s looking at me—as if I have a lot of explaining to do.

“I’m sorry,” I say immediately.

She holds up a hand and then pulls out a chair and sits down. “Not yet.

She’s really drunk; I need to sit down for a second.” She drops her head into her hands. “Can you pour me a glass of water?”

I turn around and grab a glass from the cabinet. I fill it with ice and water and hand it to her, then take a seat at the table. She downs the glass and then sets it back on the table in front of her.

She stares at the glass for a quiet moment, gripping it with both hands.

“What was it?”

“What was what?” I ask, needing clarification.

She drags her eyes to my face. “What kind of pill did you put in her wine?”

My jaw twitches. I lean back in my chair, folding my arms over my chest. “Ambien. A sleeping pill. I don’t . . . I’ve never done that before. I just really wanted her to go to sleep.”

“Why? So you could talk to me?”

I nod.

“That’s dangerous, Leeds. She was drunk. And what if she would have taken another pill on top of what you were already giving her?”

I lean forward, running a hand through my hair. I grip the back of my neck and blow out a breath. “I know. I wasn’t even thinking. It was like I was acting on impulse.”

“If your need to speak to me makes you act on impulse like that, I’m not sure it’s such a good idea we do this anymore.”

The thought of her putting an end to this makes my chest tighten. I have so many more questions. “I would never do anything to intentionally hurt Layla. It won’t happen again.”

Willow’s eyes are searching mine for truth. She must accept whatever it is she sees because she nods and says, “Good.” Then she leans forward, pressing a palm to her stomach as it rumbles. “Does she ever eat? Christ.

She’s always starving.”

I stand up, remembering the tacos. “I brought you tacos.” I retrieve the to-go box from the refrigerator. I had them separate the condiments and the meat from the taco shells so they’d be easy to assemble and heat. “She only ate one taco at the restaurant, but that’s probably because she drank four margaritas.” I heat up the food while Willow remains seated at the table.

“What do you want to drink?”

“Water is fine. I don’t think her body can handle anything stronger than that right now.”

I refill her water and then assemble the tacos. When I place them in front of her, her eyes are practically shimmering. She picks up one of the tacos and takes a bite.

“Holy shit,” she says with a mouthful. “These are so good.” It’s funny how small differences, like the way they eat food, are so noticeable between the two of them, even though it’s the same body. “Did Layla ask why you were getting tacos to go?”

“I just told her she didn’t eat enough.” I tilt my head as I think more about Willow’s question. “You have her memories when you’re inside of her, right? Can’t you remember us being at dinner even though you weren’t there?”

Willow grabs her napkin and wipes her mouth. She takes a sip of water. “I’m sure I could, but it takes too much effort for me to do that. Her thoughts are really . . . cluttered. I try to stay out of her head when I’m inside of her.”

“How do you do that?”

Willow leans forward a little, lowering her voice as if someone might hear us. “It’s like reading a book. How you can read an entire page before you realize you didn’t process any of what you read because your thoughts were somewhere else entirely. That’s how it is being in her head. If I want to, I can focus harder and intentionally take in all the information. But I’d rather just be distracted.” She picks up her glass and downs the rest of her water. “Her head isn’t a fun place to be sometimes.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Willow shrugs. “I don’t mean anything negative by it. We all have thoughts we’d never speak aloud. It’s weird being able to see those thoughts, so I’d rather not look at them. I think about other things when I’m inside of her.”

I want to ask her what some of Layla’s unspeakable thoughts are, but I don’t. I already feel like I’ve crossed one too many lines tonight with the Ambien. Not to mention the line I’m crossing right now—allowing Willow to use Layla’s body so she can eat tacos. Tacos can excuse a lot of bad decisions, but I’m not sure they’re worthy enough to excuse a possession.

“Can we go swimming?” Willow asks.

I’m caught off guard by her question. “You want to go outside? I thought you didn’t leave the house.”

“I never said that,” she says. “I said I’ve never left the property. The idea of it makes me nervous, but I’ve been wishing I could go swimming for as long as I can remember.”

I’m not sure what I expected tonight, but I certainly didn’t expect Willow to want to go swimming. But the water is heated, so why not?

“Sure,” I say, amused by the turn of events. “Let’s go swimming.” She’s eaten two tacos and left one on the plate, but she pushes it away from her like she’s full. I take the plate and dump the food in the trash. “Layla has a couple of bathing suits upstairs.” I set the plate on the counter, and then Willow follows me up to the bedroom.

I open the third dresser drawer and take out a pair of swim trunks for myself. Layla brought two bathing suits, and as much as we’ve swum, she hasn’t worn either of them. “Which one do you want? Red or black?”

“I don’t care,” Willow says.

I hand her the black one. It’s not as revealing as the red one. Not that it would matter—she doesn’t have anything I haven’t seen before, or touched.

But it does matter. She’s not Layla, so it doesn’t feel like her body is something I should look at in the same way I do when Willow isn’t occupying it.

Willow changes in the bathroom while I change in the bedroom. When she walks out, she’s holding two towels. I can’t help it when my eyes wander down her body—but it’s hard not to be enthralled by the fact that it’s not her body, yet she makes it her own somehow. Her strides are longer, her shoulders set farther back when she walks. She even holds her head differently.

When my eyes meet hers, I immediately clear my throat and look away. “Ready?”

I walk out the door, down the stairs, and all the way to the pool without making eye contact with her again.

I jump into the deep end as soon as I reach the pool, needing the refreshing water to reset my focus. I stay under the water for a moment, long enough to see Willow’s feet as she dips them into the water.

Her legs dangle over the ledge in the deep end. I push myself up out of the water, and she’s sitting near the spot where I sat when I spoke to Layla for the very first time.

That was back when I thought the hardest part of life was playing bass in a slightly successful band I couldn’t stand.

So much has happened since then. I’ve changed as a person in more ways than one. That happens when you’re forced to take another person’s life.

I don’t allow myself to think about it a lot. I did what I had to do, but it still doesn’t take away that guilt, no matter how justified it was.

I sink back under the water, hating that my thoughts have gone back to that night. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about anything right now. I just want Willow to enjoy being able to feel water for the first time.

I push myself off the bottom of the pool and break the surface. She’s still sitting in the same spot, staring at the water surrounding her calves.

“You getting in?” I ask her.

She looks at me and nods. “Yes, but I’m kind of scared. What if I can’t swim?”

“Only one way to find out.” I swim closer to her and reach out my hand. “Here. I’ll help you.”

She hesitates before taking my hand. She slips slowly into the water and sinks down to her chin before she squeals and grabs hold of my shoulder with her other hand. She starts moving her feet to try and stay afloat, but she’s too scared to let go of me.

She’s smiling, though, so I know she isn’t scared. This is just new to her. She releases my shoulder and starts to move her arm, but she’s still holding on to my hand.

“You got it?” I ask.

She nods, taking in accidental gulps of water as she barely keeps her head above the surface. She spits it back out and says, “I think so.” She’s breathless in a giddy way. It’s like watching a child try to swim for the first time. I release her hand but stay near her. When she doesn’t immediately sink, her eyes grow wide with excitement. “I’m doing it!” she says. “I’m swimming!”

Her pride makes me laugh. She stretches her arms out in front of her and parts the water. Maybe swimming is a natural instinct, even for ghosts, but she pushes off the wall and dog-paddles to the middle of the pool by herself. She spins and then swims back. She’s already got the hang of it, which proves she’s done this before.

“It’s like riding a bike,” I say.

She laughs. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done that either.”

“You probably have—you just don’t remember being alive.”

My words make her smile disappear.

She stays in the same spot, moving her arms and legs to keep herself afloat. “You really think I died?”

She asks me in a curious way, not an offended way. “If theories about ghosts are accurate, I feel like maybe you had a life before this. You just don’t remember it.”

She watches me for a moment before swimming back to the ledge of the pool. She holds on to it. “Do you think I’m a stereotypical ghost, stuck between death and an afterlife?”

“I’m not sure why else you would be here. What do you think?” I ask her.

“I don’t know. I never really thought about it until you showed up here and started trying to figure me out.”

“Do you wish I’d never showed up?”

She doesn’t answer that.

Instead, she looks away from me and presses her back against the concrete ledge. She tilts her head back until she’s staring up at the stars.

“I’m kind of scared to find out why I’m here. It’s why I’ve never left this property to search for answers, or to search for others like me. Because what if you’re right? What if I’m stuck between life and death?” Her eyes seek mine out again, but she looks scared when we make eye contact this time. “What if I find answers and then it’s over?”

“And then what’s over?”

“This. Me. What if I find a way to leave this existence, only to discover there’s nothing after it? What if I just . . . disappear? Forever?”

“Would that make you sad?” I ask. “You talk like it’s a miserable existence.”

She stares at me for several long seconds. Then she says, “It used to be.” She lets herself sink below the surface as soon as she says that.

Her response was heavier than I expected it to be.

When she comes back up, she’s closer to me. She regards my shoulder with curiosity, reaching out to touch it. She runs her finger over the scar from the wound I was left with six months ago. “Is this where you got shot?”

“Yes.” It feels odd—her touching my scar. Layla has never touched it.

Not once. Every time we make love, she deliberately runs her hands around it, near it, but she never touches it. I’ve always wondered if it brings back bad memories for her, or if she’s just scared it might hurt me if she touched it.

“Who shot you?”

“Sable. The same girl who shot Layla.” I lift her hand and bring it to the scar on Layla’s head. “Feel that?” Willow touches Layla’s scar with her fingertips, running her fingers back and forth over it. Then she brings her hand back to my shoulder and runs her finger over my scar.

“Yours feels healed. Hers doesn’t.”

“She messes with hers a lot,” I say.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. You’re the one inside her head. You tell me.”

She stares at me for several seconds, and I think maybe it’s because she’s sifting through Layla’s memories. I want to ask her what Layla remembers, but I don’t want to use Willow to pry into Layla’s mind without her permission. What we’re doing with Layla’s body is wrong enough.

Willow swims back to the ledge and rests against it. She drops her chin to her arms and looks out over the backyard. I swim up next to her and do the same. I watch her, but she doesn’t look at me. I’m not sure what she saw in Layla’s head—or if she even saw anything at all—but her quietness stirs up an uneasiness inside me.

She lays her cheek on her arm and looks at me. “She fell in love with you in this pool.”

“Did she?”

Willow nods, but the nod isn’t accompanied by a smile or a look of fondness while she thinks back on it. She just whispers, “Yes,” and then turns away from me. She lays her opposite cheek on her arm and looks in the other direction. I swim around her, wanting to see the look on her face.

When we make eye contact, her eyes are rimmed with tears.

“What’s wrong?”

She laughs, embarrassed, and wipes at her eyes. “It’s just confusing. I have her feelings when I’m inside of her. I guess she’s sad right now.”

“How do you know the tears aren’t yours?”

Willow regards me with a stoic expression. “I guess I don’t.” She slips beneath the water, and when she comes back up, she wipes her burgeoning tears away along with the water.

I feel conflicted.

She’s inside Layla’s body, and if Layla is the one who is sad right now, I want to comfort her. Pull her against me and kiss away her pain.

But she isn’t Layla, so the need to comfort her and the knowledge that I can’t leave me feeling empty. It feels a little like longing, and I don’t like that feeling. This is all starting to become muddled.

“We should go back inside,” I say. “I’ll need to wash and dry her bathing suit before I go to sleep so she doesn’t notice it was used.”

Willow concedes, even though she seems like she isn’t ready to stop swimming yet. She swims to the edge of the pool and lifts herself out of the water. She grabs a towel and wraps herself in it, her back to me. Then she walks back toward the house, never checking to see if I’m following her.

I’m still in the middle of the pool, watching as the door closes and she disappears inside.

I sigh heavily and then sink to the bottom of the pool, holding my breath until I can’t hold it anymore.

Willow is wearing my T-shirt when I get back to the bedroom, but she’s not wearing the shorts this time. When I close the bedroom door, my eyes linger on her thighs for a moment.

“I put her shorts back in the drawer where I found them,” Willow says.

“I don’t want her to question herself by waking up in something she didn’t fall asleep in.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “Where’s the bathing suit?”

She motions toward the bathroom door. “I hung it up on the shower door.”

I walk toward the bathroom, but pause before I go inside. I’m not sure Willow is ready to leave Layla’s body. “You want to watch TV while I shower?”

She nods, so I grab the remote and turn on the bedroom television. I toss the remote to the bed and then go inside the bathroom.

I take a long shower—not because I’m trying to avoid Willow, but because I need time to clear my head. This whole thing feels wrong, but how does one properly interact with a ghost? It’s not like there’s a

handbook, or people who could tell me if what I’m doing is morally corrupt.

Who would I ask? A psychiatrist would tell me I’m schizophrenic. A doctor would send me to a psychiatrist. My mother would tell me the stress from all that’s happened is getting to my head, and she’d beg me to move back home.

Layla would probably leave me if she knew what was happening while she slept. Who wouldn’t? If she told me she was allowing some spirit from a different realm to inhabit my body to fulfill some gaping hole in her life, I’d have her committed and then I’d run in the opposite direction.

There isn’t a single person I can talk to about this.

But that also means there isn’t anyone to tell me that what I’m doing is wrong.

It’s after midnight now, and I don’t really feel like staying up for an entire washing machine cycle just for a bathing suit, so I hand-wash it in the sink and then take it down to the laundry room and throw it in the dryer.

While I’m downstairs, I pop a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

Willow is sitting up in bed, half-covered with the blanket when I bring it to her, along with another glass of water. She looks elated when she sees the popcorn. She sits up straighter and grabs for the bowl before I’m even seated on the bed.

“What are you watching?” I ask.

She shoves three pieces into her mouth. “Ghost.” I raise an eyebrow, and it makes her laugh. “I know. I’m a ghost, watching the movie Ghost.

Ironic.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

Her eyes grow wide. “How have you never seen this movie?”

I shrug and take a handful of the popcorn. “It released before I was born.” My comment makes me wonder if that could be a clue. If she’s seen this movie before, how long has she been in this house, watching movies when no one’s around? “How old do you think you are?”

“I already told you I don’t know. Why?”

“You seem young. The way you talk. The fact that you know how to use a computer. But then you act like it’s crazy that I’ve never seen a movie that came out thirty years ago.”

Willow laughs. “I don’t think that’s a clue. This movie is like a rite of passage; pretty much everyone alive has seen it. Everyone but you. Hell,

I’ve seen it, and I don’t even really exist.”

“Stop saying that.”

“What?”

“That you don’t exist. You’ve said it at least three times since we met.”

“It’s no worse than you calling me dead.” She shoves more popcorn in her mouth and leans back, focusing on the movie again. I watch a little bit of it with her, but the irony of our situation is too much.

“This is so weird,” I say.

“The movie? Or watching a movie called Ghost with a ghost?”

“All of it.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You know what would be even weirder?”

“What?”

“If another ghost showed up,” she says, grinning. “Then there would be a ghost watching a ghost watch Ghost while in someone else’s body.”

I study her for a moment, then take a few pieces of popcorn and toss them at her face. “You are so strange.”

Kernels of popcorn are all over her shirt, in her hair. She pulls a piece from her shirt and then eats it. I sit back and look at the TV, because looking at her is starting to stir something up inside me. Normally when Layla says something I find funny, I’d laugh and then kiss her.

There are moments when I forget that Willow isn’t Layla while she’s using her body.

I can’t react with her how I would react with Layla. But it’s instinctual for me to just want to grab her hand, or kiss her. But then I remember she’s not the girl I’m in love with, and it’s confusing.

Maybe I shouldn’t put myself in situations like this. Familiar situations where I’m sitting on a bed in our bedroom. It makes everything dangerously blurred.

I let Willow finish her movie, but I go downstairs and check the dryer.

The bathing suit is almost dry, so I set it for five more minutes and go to the kitchen. I sit at the table and open my laptop, then go straight to the paranormal forum. I’m curious if anyone has said anything else that might give me any answers as to why Willow is here.

I never updated the group to let them know I did, in fact, speak to the ghost. I certainly haven’t updated them to tell them I communicate with her through Layla. Those two things seem too far fetched, even for a paranormal forum.

I have a notification in the top-right corner of my screen. I open the private messages in the forum and have one unread message from the forum member UncoverInc . I click on it.

Did you ever communicate with your ghost?

I don’t respond to his message. I’m not sure anyone would even believe me at this point. I hit delete, and my in-box is empty again, but then I get a ping and a box pops up in the left-hand corner of my screen. It’s from the same username.

I’ve been waiting for an update. Your post has me intrigued.

The message is live, sent just now in a chat box. I move my mouse over the X to minimize it, but I don’t minimize it. I’m anonymous in this forum, so what would it hurt to talk to this guy? I type, Let’s just say I’m no longer a skeptic.

I hit send and immediately see that he’s typing something out. I watch the chat box until his next message comes up.

So you’ve communicated?

Yes.

Are you stil there at the house? Or did you leave?

I’m stil here.

Is there a reason you chose to stay? Most people would have left if they were in your situation.

She doesn’t seem dangerous.

Hopeful y. They usual y aren’t.

I stare at that sentence for a beat. This person hasn’t hesitated at all while chatting with me. What if whoever this is has had an experience like mine? I type out another question:

She has no memory of her life. I don’t know how to help her. I’m not even sure she wants help.

Ghosts have no capacity to hold specific

memories. Only feelings, so that’s not unusual.

But her lack of desire for answers could be an indicator that she might be a fairly new spirit. It takes its tol after a while. They’re usual y more than ready to move on the longer they’ve been

around. It’s not a fun place to be.

I reread the response, wanting to believe this person knows what they’re talking about, but this is the internet. Chances are the person on the other end of this conversation is laughing at my gullibility.

I would like to help your ghost find answers. It’s what I do.

I start to type a response to that, but my fingers grow still on the keyboard. How could this person possibly help without me having to give him personal information, like where the ghost resides or how to contact me? I can’t tell a complete stranger who I am. I learned my lesson the hard way that privacy is a precious and fragile thing.

My entire body jerks when the buzzer from the dryer sounds off. I quickly close my laptop, go get Layla’s bathing suit, and head back upstairs.

Willow is staring at the TV as the credits roll, her eyes full of tears.

She doesn’t even look away from the TV when I close the door behind me.

I put Layla’s bathing suit back in the dresser and then grab the empty popcorn bowl from Willow. She finally breaks her stare and follows me with her eyes as I set the bowl on my nightstand. “It’s such a terrible ending,” she mutters. “I always forget how bad the ending is.”

“How does it end?”

“He finds closure and goes to heaven,” she says with a pout.

I laugh, not understanding why that’s a bad ending. “If heaven exists, isn’t that what a ghost should want?”

She waves her arm angrily at the television. “What about Molly? She’s all alone now. She has to live the rest of her life knowing her husband is gallivanting around in eternity while she still has to work and pay the bills and . . . live.”

She says live like it’s such a bad thing. I take a seat on the bed. “Let me make sure I have this right. You’re sad for the human? Not the ghost?”

“Of course I’m sad for the human. Wow, great ending, the ghost became an even ghostlier ghost,” she says sarcastically. “Big freaking deal, we knew he was dead since it happened in the beginning of the movie. But where does that leave her? She got proof he was dead, and then she got even more proof that he was dead. How is that romantic? She had to grieve twice! It’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen.”

“I thought you’ve seen it before.”

“I have, but not while I was in a body with a heart that could break and tears that could form. I didn’t feel all this when I watched it before.

This sucks.” She drops down onto the bed and hugs Layla’s pillow. “I don’t like all these feelings.”

I point the remote at the TV and then hit the power button. The room grows dark. I set the remote on the nightstand and then lie down in the bed and pull the covers over me. Willow turns to face me, curling her hands beneath her cheek. “Patrick Swayze died, right? In real life?”

“Yeah.”

“You think he’s a real ghost now? You think he could be like me?”

“Maybe. But you’ve never left this property, so how can you know what else is out there? Who else is out there?”

She grins. “I’d leave this property for Patrick Swayze.”

“Maybe that’s what you need to do. Leave. Travel. Go see if there are others like you.”

“But it feels like I’m supposed to stay here.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “I’ve just always felt that way. Surely there’s a reason I’m here, in this random house in the middle of nowhere.”

“Maybe you used to live here. Maybe you died here.”

She thinks on that for a moment. “It doesn’t feel like home, though.

Not that anywhere could, I guess.”

“What if there was a way you could find out where you’re from? Who you are? Would you do it?”

Her eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean? Like hire a detective?”

“Something like that. I might know a guy.”

She laughs. “You know a guy?” She rolls her eyes as if that’s far fetched. But honestly, not much seems improbable to me anymore. She covers her mouth and yawns. “Layla’s really tired. She’ll have a hangover when she wakes up tomorrow.”

“Will I see you tomorrow night? I want to talk more about how I can help you find answers.”

Willow adjusts the pillow beneath her head. “I don’t really want help, Leeds. Every time you bring it up, it gives me a Dr. Kevorkian vibe.”

I laugh, confused. “What?”

“How would you feel if I told you that you should move on from your existence? It’s like encouraging me to commit suicide.”

Wow.

I roll onto my back, clasping my hands together over my chest. “I didn’t think about it from your point of view. I’m sorry I keep bringing it up.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “And I’m not saying I’m opposed to searching for answers someday. I’m just not sure I’m brave enough to take that step yet. For now, I just want to enjoy this last week of being able to hang out with you.”

I don’t look at her, but I can feel her staring at me. She enjoys hanging out with me. It’s not an inappropriate thing to say, but the reaction I have in my chest to those words might be bordering on inappropriate.

I don’t respond to her. It’s during the moments of silence between us when I feel the guiltiest.

Silence is where all the mistakes happen.

I roll over and close my eyes. “Good night, Willow.”