He sees her everywhere.
Not in the somewhat normal sense, where a song or a smell might remind you of someone. He actually sees her. Talks to her. It's a comfort he can't quite explain to anyone, including himself, so he just doesn't. He lets it be what it is. Like an imaginary friend.
Only it's his dead twin sister.
It's been two years, four months, eleven days, and fourteen hours since he's put a needle in his arm. It was touch and go there for a while, after Nell and after his father. But he's stayed straight, and he's fucking proud of it.
"You should get out," Shirley tells him over dinner, in front of Jayden and Allie and Kevin, as if he too, were a child. "It's not healthy to just stay in that house all the time."
"I get out enough," he answers, staring down at his pork loin, poking it with a fork.
His oldest sister sighs and picks up the plates and looks at him with that worried face she always wears, before retreating to the kitchen.
Don't worry about her, Nell says from across the room, sitting in a chair behind Kevin. She flashes Luke a wide grin. She hangs out with dead people for a living.
He stifles a laugh. What's that say about me?
Nell giggles and Luke smiles into his dinner and Allie and Jayden and Kevin give each other a look that Luke has learned to ignore.
Living in Shirley and Kevin's guest house for the past few years has been great. Luke never wanted for much, especially after being on the street. A roof over his head, a warm bed, and a working shower was more than he'd ever dreamed of a few years ago. He's grateful. Grateful for his life, for his family, and grateful that Nell hasn't left him.
After all, she'd told him there's no without. I am not gone. I am scattered into so many pieces, sprinkled on your life like new snow.
She'd come back to him, after the hospital. His new therapist called it a coping mechanism, but Luke knew better. Nell knew he needed her. She knew he was too fragile to leave. It's a twin thing. Truly.
She's with him always, in the morning at the Early Birds AA meeting. At the diner he goes to later for a cup of coffee. On the ride home, and then again for lunch, work, and dinner. It's made coping with her death a hell of a lot easier, and staying sober a little less shitty.
He knows how it looks. Hell, even he thinks it's weird sometimes. But it's what works. And you're not supposed to fix what ain't broke.
It's April when he goes to visit her.
The cemetery sits at the top of the hill and it's breathtakingly beautiful. Luke lugs the spring cemetery flowers up to the plot for his parents and Nell, chuffed to see her already standing beside her grave. She always wears her red dress, her hair long, cheeks pink and full of life, smiling as he comes up the grass.
He can't wait to show her the arrangement: pink peonies, white roses, purple forget-me-nots and green spider lilies. They cost almost half a day's pay, but it's worth it to see Nell's reaction. Except, as he approaches her, he knows something's different. Not necessarily wrong...just different. He can't place his finger on it.
Luke sets down the flowers at the grave, then turns to face his twin. She's staring off, down the hill, her eyes far away.
"Nell?"
She turns, as if she's just noticed he's standing there. His heart quickens it's pace, pounding loudly behind his rib cage. He's too aware of himself now, and the fact that he's seeing Nell here, again. Talking to her like she's real.
She's not real. He has to remind himself. The strange moment of clarity slaps him in the face.
"Luke," she says, looking up at him sadly.
"What's wrong?"
He's a good few feet away from her, but suddenly, she's cold. The flush leaves her cheeks. Nell's eyes sink, her face hollows, and Luke steps back. He closes his eyes, squeezes them shut, tight, like he's wincing in pain. It's painful. He hates wishing her away.
"No, no, no," he mutters, his hands finding his pockets. "Please Nellie, no."
"Luke." Her voice is airy like it traveled with the wind, far away and close all at once. It surrounds him. He opens his eyes.
She's directly in front of him, peering up at him, little Nellie, his best friend. She's dead. So clearly dead, with dirt in the creases of her eyes, her skin drained of color, permanently a cold gray-blue. Her hair is stringy, caked in mud, her eyes glossed, the life inside of them gone.
"I'm stuck," she tells him.
He's afraid. So fucking afraid. Luke's always afraid, always wants to run or hide or numb it away. But he can't. He can't ignore Nell, even when she looks like this, even when she scares the ever-loving shit out of him. He can't leave. She's always been there for him.
"Stuck where?" he manages to ask.
"I need to move on." She sticks on that last word for a second, and he sees her teeth, rotten and yellow and dirty. He wants to close his eyes again.
"Move where?" Luke asks, forcing himself to look. To listen.
"I need to move on."
She's so close now, just up against his chest, he can feel her, a solid, rotting, stinking body. He cries out, a whimper of both fear and grief. He wants to reach out, to hug her, to let her know that even though he can't say it right now, he loves her.
She's gone before his body reacts. So suddenly he falls forward, tripping over his own big feet, regaining his balance on the grass. He looks around. The cemetery is empty, and the wind sweeps through, ruffling the petals of the flowers at the Crain's grave.
Luke remembers to breathe, and takes a big breath, wetting his lips and tasting salt from tears he hadn't even realized he'd cried.
It's later that night when he realizes something's different. Something's wrong. He's back at the table, twirling his linguini on his fork when he notices. Nellie. She's not here.
He drops his fork, closes his eyes, rubs them, and opens them again. The chair in the corner's still empty. Luke stares at it, longingly, waiting for something...anything to come back to him. Where the hell is she?
"Luke?"
He comes to, looking across the table at Shirley, who's got her head cocked to the side, watching him. Her eyes narrow. She knows something's off.
"What?" he answers, too quickly, picking up his fork again. He feels his ears redden.
"How was your day?" Shirley asks slowly, dragging out each word.
"Fine," Luke says, clearing his throat. He's back to looking at the chair, tucked away in the corner, looking abnormally empty. "It was fine."
"That's good," Shirley answers uncertainly, before Allie busies her with a question about her homework. Luke takes the opportunity to shovel three more bites into his mouth before he stands abruptly, hitting the table with his knee.
"Sorry," he stammers, nearly tripping over the chair, eager to get it behind him. "Feeling weird. Gonna lie down," he mumbles.
He hears them call out for him as he turns to leave, beelining for the front porch, scrambling across it, down over the driveway and into the front door of the guest home.
Luke expects her here, he's so sure she'll be here, standing in the door of the bathroom or sitting by the window. The house is dark and he flips on the light, but it's empty. Fucking empty. He knows somewhere, in that rational mind of his, that no one was ever really here. He was always alone. Somehow. Even though it didn't feel like it.
He closes the door behind himself, his back flush against it and sinks to the floor. Luke brings his hand to his mouth, eyes darting around the room. To think, he's spent his whole life running from ghosts. Now, he wants one to appear.
"Come back to me, Nellie." His words echo across the empty space, unheard.