A/N: WOWZERS. I've gotten some incredibly positive feedback on this story so far, so a HUGE thank you to all who have contributed to that! I hope the pacing of this story is alright. As always, reviews are MUCH-APPRECIATED. Enjoy, lovelies.3
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"Where the hell have you been? Why didn't you call? We didn't get you a cell phone for nothing, missy. Have you been seeing some boy? Is that why you've been so distracted lately? Don't you give me that look - roll your eyes one more time, and I swear to God... Lainey, we love you. We're just here to help you. Please don't shut us out."
And slam went my bedroom door. In all likelihood, my mother probably didn't say half of what I could've sworn she said. Then again, everything she said to me was remniscient of something she'd said the previous day and repeatedly on an almost daily basis since I turned twelve, but today she may have kept her mouth shut and I would have no way of knowing. They ignore me, I return the favor. It's that simple, and parents just don't seem to get the memo.
I flopped backwards onto my bed and stared at my Ramones poster on the ceiling. In all honesty, I didn't listen to The Ramones - never had. I thought the poster looked cool. I don't think that makes me weird. More teenagers do that than I'm willing to admit.
Rrrrrrring went the home phone and I could hear Mom screaming on the other end inside of a moment, which meant one thing: Dad was calling.
My parents' relationship had always been on the rocks. I couldn't recall a time when they hadn't argued over something, even over who left the shower curtain open in the morning.
They were part of the reason for my vicodin usage.
The other part...well, that was just me.
On this day, I had no desire whatsoever to pop any pills, and I knew that was because of one person: Gabe Goodman. The dead boy.
Don't you mean the super attractive, enticing homme fatale you're feeling a gravitational pull towards even now?
I rolled my eyes at my own subconscious, even though I knew it was right - something about Gabe was drawing me to him, drawing me back to their house. The only place in the world I wanted to be was at the Goodmans' home, and I knew it wasn't because of Natalie.
What the fuck was happening?
This boy had been dead for sixteen years, and all I wanted to do was go back there, talk to him, touch him, feel his lips on mine. I had never felt this way about a living soul, so the fact that I was feeling this for the first time about a deceased human being left my life par for the course.
I didn't eat dinner that night. What happened at the Goodmans' left my mind in a maelstrom of feelings, emotions I didn't even know I was capable of feeling, and all of it resulted in my feelings of queasiness for the rest of the night.
The next day at school, I hardly spoke a word to Natalie except to acknowledge her comment that I was looking paler than usual, which is really saying something - my skin is comparable to porcelain.
For the next five days straight I avoided my only friend and barely ate, struggling with the physical torment, the want to be back inside of their home. My stomach twisted into the tightest knots it could, my head spun with the unseen yearning, my heart ached, my joints were numb, my skin was as cold as ice. After one visit, I found myself wanting to move in, and even for a psychopath like me, that is a strange happenstance indeed.
"Laine, I'm really worried about you," I heard Natalie say upon feeling the final straw break. "You look like complete shit, and don't tell me it's vicodin - I know you haven't taken one in days. What the fuck is happening to you?"
Truth. That's what it would take. I couldn't stand any of this anymore. She had to know the truth - maybe then I could stop feeling so sickly, finally gain some sense of myself back. So I spilled my guts. I told her everything I had been feeling since my first visit to her home, of the pull I felt. I told her that the last time I'd felt like myself had been that day and I'd been anti-Laine since that day. Natalie listened with an attuned sense of urgency, as though my life depended on her open ears and willingness to listen. Other than the occasional blink and slow, intermittent nods of her head as I spoke, I could've sworn she'd been in a daze.
"Wow," was all she could say at first after I'd finished. This was followed by a hollow pause on her end and I knew she was processing all of the information I had just poured onto her.
"I don't mean to unload myself on you, Nat," I admitted, taking a sip of the apple juice - it tasted like ashes.
"No, no, not at all - you didn't unload on me." Her words were rapid-fire and she tucked her hair behind her ears before reaching across the lunch table and taking one of my hands into her thin fingers. "You're my friend, Laine. I'm trying to understand what's happening to you is all."
"If you figure it out, let me know, will you?"
She smirked, but I was serious. I had no idea what was going on or what would happen as a result. "Promptly. There is something you should know though..." Uh-oh. "Since you left that day, my brother has tried to make his presence more known. He's been messing up bits of the house like he's trying to get our attention, and that didn't happen before your visit. I'm thinking that he took to you - that he likes you - and wants you to come around again."
She was talking about her brother as though he wasn't dead, merely on house arrest. Gabe wanted me to come back that badly? Why? We'd only spoken one time...
"You think so?" I asked feebly, pulling my tube of Blistex out of my pocket and placing some onto my lips - suddenly I was feeling more inadequate than usual.
Natalie nodded. "I can't see him, but it's clear to me - and to Dad since he's noticed, too - that he's upset. I think a visit from you would mean a lot to him. Wanna drop by today?"
YES! Inside, I was screaming - every inch of me wanted to go back there - but I had to maintain some sort of normalcy.
I nodded. "I think that'd be best." Of course you think so, you slippery fiend.
I went to the Goodmans' straight after school. Do not pass go, do NOT collect two hundred dollars. There's an attractive dead boy waiting for you to show up.
Once I set foot into their house, Natalie swiftly disappeared up the stairs and all of my ugliness, all of the terrible feelings of heaviness suddenly disappeared without a trace as though they hadn't happened in the first place. I felt the anvil drop from my shoulders, the blackout curtains lifted from my eyes.
"Welcome back, stranger girl," the airy voice of a grounded angel cooed from behind me, and the chills down my back gave me a thrill.
"Gabe..." I breathed on an exhale, sounding more turned on than I had intended. I turned around to see him coming towards me. The way his t-shirt clung to his corners and the sight of his jeans pulled around his edges made my heart race within my chest. "Just the person I wanted to see."
"Don't you mean the 'figure' you wanted to see?" He was teasing, but I didn't mind. He said you would grow to love him teasing you... "But I kid. I wanted to see you, too."
"So Natalie informed me."
A proud smile stretched across his lips. "She told you I've been misbehaving?"
I nodded my head, folding my arms across my chest. "She said you've been upset since I left last week."
Gabe's facial expression returned a look of seriousness that made my body shiver. "I wanted you to stay. I didn't want you to leave."
"I didn't want to leave, but I had my parents to get home to." That was the truth, and I could tell by his body language that he knew it to be true - I hadn't been avoiding him. In all truth, I wanted to figure out our connection, why I could see him, feel him, talk to him, and why I wanted nothing more than to keep him close to me.
Gabe nodded, his eyes searching me as he inched ever-closer. "I thought you weren't going to come back."
He sounded like he thought I'd run away, like he thought I was purposefully avoiding coming over to see him. "I've been sick since I left."
He appeared confused. "But you looked better the second you stepped through the door..."
"I know. It's your home, it's being here, and I think it's - "
" - it's being around me." Damn, he's good. He had made a proper deduction, and all I could do is nod and shrug my shoulders.
"I don't know why."
"Everything happens for a reason - I know you don't believe in coincidence. You coming here was - " And there his sentence came to an end, but I could tell by the smile he bore that he was referring to our meeting as destiny, as Fate, and it was far too soon for me to say the same. I had to admit that my abilities, my gift meant something, but what? What good could come from a human being drawn to a ghost? What gain could rise from my visiting their home every day just to see him, be near him, because I know I'll grow ill if I don't? Those were the questions that haunted me, even as I stood facing the entity who could eventually prove to be my downfall - and he very easily could.
"Gabe..." I said with a sad shake of my head. "We've only ever spoken once. I don't know a damn thing about you, even though you seem to know a hell of a lot about me and how I think." He smiled proudly once more. "I don't know what's happening - it's too much too quickly - but I'm trusting this blindly."
"Your trust isn't blind. You're trusting me because you know it's the right thing to do."
"Is it?" My question wasn't out of the blue. It was a legitimate argument. Was trusting him the right thing to do?
Gabe's eyes pondered me for a moment before he stepped closer still. This time I could feel the hairs on his arms brush against my hand and I felt a rush like no other. I was right before - to me, he was solid. Such a notion was solidified when his fingertips brushed purposefully against mine.
"Laine," his tongue rolled through my name and my eyes tilted up to meet his, "don't be afraid of what you feel. I...I feel it, too."
"What do you feel?" I asked, feeling like I'd crossed too many boundaries.
"I feel heightened. I feel uplifted. I feel more alive with you here than I have since my mom left us. I feel warmth and light and sound with you here...I don't quite know how to explain it yet. It's like...it's like I'm awake once more, and like it was you who did the waking."
With every word I was drawn deeper into the gravitational forces he was pulling around every inch of me.
"I haven't taken a single pill since that day, you know."
Gabe smiled, trailing his fingertips up towards my neck and ghosted over my chin. I felt tingles everywhere his flesh - actual flesh - came in contact with mine. "I'm glad. You don't need them anymore. I'll look after you."
"How? You're dead, Gabe."
"I'll stick around you - I'll go wherever you want me to go."
"You can leave this house?"
"I'll try my damndest."
I bit into my bottom lip. He noticed. "There is something I've been wondering."
"What?" I asked, anxious to know his thoughts.
"I've been wondering what it would be like to kiss you."
I blushed deeply and he chuckled. "Stop wondering." Where did this impulsion come from? Damn. He's brought out a lot in you already.
Gabe's eyes went wide for a moment before his fingers pressed into the back of my neck and I could feel his muscles contract, bringing my face closer to his. It had been so long since I had been kissed, I didn't know if I even knew how anymore. Did he know how? Did it matter?
Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing I knew about conventional things was relevant anymore. None of it. The only thing I knew was that I was quickly growing attached to a dead boy I knew next to nothing about and that all I wanted was to leave my own home to live at the Goodmans', to be near to Gabe for as long as he wanted me there. Judging by the feelings I received when he placed his lips against mine and we both found ourselves in the middle of a frenzy of mixed emotions, I knew he and I not only had a lot to discuss but we also had a long way to go.
