Chapter five: While You Were Away

At first it didn't register in my mind that he was actually here. I thought I was having another hallucination. I stood there for a while, kind of blank, and then just shook my head and started combing my hair. I had cut it the moment I got back to New York that summer; chopped it off right next to my ears so that I couldn't feel his fingertips stroking it any longer.

I stood there, combing the ends of my hair, until I noticed in the reflection of the mirror that he was still there. Which was weird, because well, I'd never been delusional for that long.

So I walked right up to him and poked him in the chest. You know, to prove to myself that what I was seeing was real. That I wasn't just having another trance, that I wasn't just picturing everything was normal.

I did that a lot, the first year he was gone.

When I came home from school I would picture him on the window seat, and I would think of all the things I'd say to him. I'd picture myself telling him about a new ghost I had encountered, or about all the stupid things Paul had tried to pull after he found out Jesse was gone. And then I'd picture him holding me and reassuring me, him telling me he'd never let anything happen to me. Which is dumb, because he never actually did that in real life. The closest thing we had to that was just that one last kiss.

I had once let slip that I did this, picturing Jesse, to Father Dominic, who was very much alarmed. He warned me that this wasn't healthy, and made me promise to tell him whenever I had another one of these 'fantasies' as he called it. And after that incident they just sort of stopped. Admittance, he said, was one of the first steps to overcoming denial.

But there were times when I could swear I saw him again, sitting on the window seat, watching me sleep. It happened so often that I took a habit of pretending to sleep sometimes, late at night. I'd lie there as quiet as possible, trying to control my breathing, head turned towards the window seat. Every once in a while I'd sneak a peek. Sometimes he'd be there, sometimes he wouldn't. But it was something I looked forward to during the day.

I guess there were a lot of logical explanations as to why I saw him. Obviously, he couldn't really be there. He had, like Father Dominic said, had himself exorcised the night I was rescued. Or I should say, he rescued me.

So maybe I was imagining everything, maybe I was delusional. It certainly felt like it sometimes, those nights when I would sit up and wait for him, refusing to fall asleep until I caught a glimpse of his face. Those times, I most likely was, without a doubt, really far gone.

Or maybe, and I chose to believe this theory a bit more, it was because I needed to see him. Needed that one glimpse of his face, the tiniest flicker of his smile. Needed it to go on, needed him to go on.

It was around senior year that I saw him for the last time. I had just put the finishing touches on an entrance essay for the New York University—where I ended up going, majoring in psychology—and was just getting into bed, when I saw him sitting on the window seat.

It was already three; the moonlight was ominously shining through the blinds and playing tricks on his perfectly sculpted face. I can still remember exactly what he looked like. His expression was somber: his eyes—two dark, cavernous caves, the highlights in his hair a pale blue.

"Jesse…" I whispered. He looked up at me, his dark eyes pleading. He met my gaze and held it for what was most likely just a millisecond, but felt like much longer.

And then he was gone. As if he'd never been there in the first place. I told myself it was just my imagination, but I never saw him again, imagination or not. And a few months later, I went away to college. Started over, moved on.

But now he was back, I was sure of it. Not because I was fully awake this time that I saw him, but because my hand didn't go through his chest.

"Jesse…" I breathed. It felt weird, calling out to him in a situation where he actually existed. There had been too many nights where I woke up around three a.m., only to find Caddy, sitting up in the bed next to mine with an inquisitive look on her face.

He didn't say anything, but his gaze had never left mine. "Jesse," I said again, "Jesse, are you really here?"

He nodded, but was silent. I felt his eyes roaming over my features, taking in their changes for the first time in three years – the wrinkles appearing on my forehead, my short, choppy hair. The way my hands were shaking at my sides, the weariness of my shoulders. The hickey Chris had left on my neck.

I shivered. Wow, I really hope he didn't recognize what that was.

He reached out a hand towards my face, perhaps hoping to stroke it—or so I imagine—but I stepped back, sitting down hard on my bed.

For some reason I couldn't stop shivering, or suppress the tears that filled my eyes. The whole thing was far too reminiscent of the last time I had spoken to him.

That night on the beach; where we said goodbye.

It's nice to know that ghosts don't change; they stay as hot as they were when you last saw them. Jesse hadn't changed, grown old and cynical. Jesse hadn't felt the pain that was eating away at my chest. Jesse was Jesse, plain and simple. The same unearthly being that had haunted me since I was sixteen years old. The same presence that just wouldn't let me go.

I could feel tears globbing up as they trailed down the sides of my face. All of a sudden I felt too dirty, too tainted under his gaze. Too broken.

He did this to you.

I ran downstairs and grabbed the keys to the Land Rover. I got in the car and stuck the key in, desperately trying to remember how to drive the freaking thing. My vision was blurring before my eyes. I grabbed wrenched open the glove compartment, hoping to find a pack of Kleenex, anything.

Condoms. A giant box of Trojans fell onto the passenger seat. Extra-ribbed for her pleasure.

It was hoarse and unrecognizable, the sound that first escaped my lips. Oh no, I thought. Now I've really lost it. Five seconds ago I was bawling my heart out, and now I couldn't stop laughing.

Who knows how long I sat there in the Land Rover, reveling in the mixture of laughter and tears that was my emotional breakdown. I think it was around noon when I regained my sense of sanity. Then I turned the key and headed towards the mission.

I had some things to discuss with a certain priest that lived there.