Time Heals Everything

by Ell'ah

It isn't Harlow's beauty, brilliance or benign nature that has Ryan Buell head over heels in love with her - it's his horrified obsession with her past, her nightmares and her seemingly hopeless future thats got him hooked for good. PARANORMAL STATE

6. He Has Been Pummeled By The Dumb Stick

Chapter Five

He Has Been Pummeled By The Stick of Dumb

(Ryan)

"Favorite color?"

"Uhm .. yellow."

"Favorite season?"

"Autumn!"

"Hm ... favorite animal?"

"Sloths."

"Sloths?"

"Sloths."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"A sloth?"

"Oh yeah!"

True story, guys. It is very very very hard to laugh/stare adoringly/not stammer your way through every sentence all at the same time. The last one was proving to be hard enough, nevermind the first two. Try doing all of these in the presence of an absolutely, undeniably and insanely beautiful girl and I guaran-freakin'-tee you, you'll have just as hard of a time as I was.

Harlow and I were dragging ourselves as slowly as we could back to the main campus, walking close and talking fast. Her slight frame bobbed happily along beside me, bare arm rubbing every now and then on my own and that soft and smooth skin emitting it's sweetly prominent coconutty/vanilla scent. Hundreds of feet ahead of us, people were ambling drunkenly out of the wailing science building and in the distance, fire engines roared closer and closer towards us.

Of course, I'm just assuming that's what was goin' on - at that moment in time, I was deaf to everything. All I could hear was Harlow's tinkling laugh. She was beaming up at me, those perfect teeth shining and eyes twinkling in the moonlight. Man, since when can good oral hygiene and sparkly eyeballs give you a boner? Since now, apparently. Christ.

"What's so bad about a sloth?" she asked me, fingers still loosely intertwined with my own (oh, did I forget to mention that? Yeah. She was still holdin' on to my hand. With HER hand. Hand on hand contact, folks. Gettin' a liiiittle PG in here, ow oww!).

"Nothin'," I said attempting to feign nonchalance but failing miserably. "I just don't think I ever would've guessed a sloth was your favorite animal, that's all."

She giggled. "Well, element of surprise! Honestly, I don't understand why no one else likes 'em. They're quite beautiful, majestic creatures, y'know."

"Don't they sleep and eat all day and poo like once a week?"

"Well alright. Perhaps majestic isn't quite the right word I'm lookin' for," she laughed, her beautifully slender nose scrunching in amusement - oh God that was cute. "But I love them - they always look like they're happy and smilin'. I wish I was like that, all slothy and adorable."

"Luckily, you're much cuter than a sloth," I assured her, my hip brushing against hers softly (total accident, I swear to you - but you see how freakin' close we were! Hip to Hip, people, HIP TO HIPPPPP). "Not to mention you're about a million times more interesting than a sloth."

She grinned and gave my hand a light squeeze which I felt right down through to my bones. "So, since sloths are apparently so boring and repulsive, tell me what your favorite animal is."

"Nittany lion," I said automatically.

She laughed, baring those immaculate chompers. If her teeth were people, I'd hard hump them. Hard. Is that bad? Nevermind - don't answer that. "How on Earth is a freakin' mountain lion better than a sloth? Tell me that, Ryan."

"I could make an entire list of reasons why lions trump sloths," I said with a smile. "One, king of the jungle!"

"African lions are king of the jungle - mountain lions are like the dweeby younger brother of the African lion," she argued. "They're like ... like the creepy second cousin your family always invites over for Thanksgiving dinner even though they don't belong there. They are tag-along, follower lions. They are wannabe's."

Smart, beautiful, and she had a fantastic sense of humor. God, if this isn't my future wife, just strike me down now.

"Fair enough," I laughed. "But regardless of it's status on the lion hierarchy - no one messes around with a lion."

"No one messes around with a sloth, either," she countered, looking cheekily over at me.

I laughed, and shook my head. "That's because no one cares enough to mess with a sloth."

"No," she said stubbornly, her eyes glittering mischievously. "It's because they're - "

"HARLOWWWWW!"

" - Ah shit," Harlow muttered, eyes darkening as she cast a bleak look ahead of us.

About fifty feet away, the pin thin but pretty blonde girl on the volleyball team staggered towards us, feet shuffling and head bobbing about dangerously. It was Sophie, the drunken and ice cold best friend of this fantastically sweet girl right next to me. She stumbled, caught herself, and shuffled on towards us looking an awful lot like a newborn baby calf. Unsteady and unpracticed.

"And so ends my evening," Harlow sighed, relinquishing her grasp on my hand - it broke my heart a little, I'm not going to lie. Okay, maybe not a little. A lot. A lot a lot. A lot a fuckin' lot lot.

"Fuh - keen - SHAT, Harlow," Sophie slurred loudly, staggering forward again - Harlow was already moving quickly and purposefully towards her. "I am so fuh-keen drunk, I think I am going to exploder sum thin."

"Christ, Sophie," Harlow mumbled, steadying the thin girl with an arm. "How much did you drink?"

"If I remembered that I would remember that I drank that much!"

"That answers my question."

I laughed without really being able to help myself and moved slowly and cautiously towards the two girls, afraid of disrupting anything. You know girls .. sometimes they're weird about this kind of thing. Everything in my mind screamed at me to give them space, but everything in my heart and a little bit of my wiener as well told me to stay close (I know, I'm a creep, shut up and don't rub it in). Anyways! I moved closer to the pair, seeing them both plainly in the lamplight for the first time in my life.

From far away, the two of them had always looked like sisters - same height, same thin frame, same long hair. Up close, the differences between the two were staggering. Sophie, tall and willowy and thin with golden blonde, pin straight hair. Harlow, tall and slim but muscular with chocolate brown, wavy hair. Sophie, face nearly gaunt with thinness and pale, Harlow's sharp but full and tanned. Almond shaped, angry blue eyes to the blonde, and round, overbright green ones on the brunette.

Eye to eye, they stood at the same height. Pound for pound, they were nearly identical. But the outward similarities ended there - on each girl, every characteristic was different, every prominent feature on one, more beautiful and conspicuous on the other. An angry personality trait on one translated to a soft, kinder quality in the other - wildly different, but I (as many other people I'm sure) had noticed, that they complimented each other rather flawlessly.

As I stared stupidly at the pair of beauties, I found myself suddenly being scrutinized by two sets of eyes that were now locked onto my face - the kind but fathomless emerald ones and the fierce and calculating sapphire ones. My face flared in embarrassment - oh well. At least I wasn't visually boob assaulting them. Not that Sophie really would have noticed ...

"Sorry, Ryan," Harlow said softly, propping Sophie up awkwardly against her side. God, maybe if I were that plastered she'd hold me up too.

Oh God, shut up mind shut up.

"It's okay, really," I affirmed. "Really. Do you need any help?"

"Ghost boy?" Sophie slurred from the crook of Harlow's neck.

I smiled and nodded - it's how most people around here knew me, to be honest. "Ghost boy, yep."

"Sophie, shut up," snapped Harlow, and I noticed with astonishment (and a little oomph of excitement) that she was blushing quite profusely. "I'm sorry .. she's kind of drunk."

"Hardly," I joked, literally only a moment before Sophie hurled all over the dark pavement in front of her.

"Fantastic, fucking fantastic, Soph," groaned Harlow, dragging herself and Sophie away from the mess. "Why am I not surprised."

"I didn't fuckin' eat that," she garbled, staring intensely down at the slime that was puddled at her feet.

"Oh, what a prize you are," Harlow muttered, wrapping an arm around her waist and grabbing Sophie's thin wrist in her hand. I couldn't help the terrible bursts of laughter escaping my mouth. "C'mon, let's go. We have to get you home and in bed."

"Whattaya think I need a bed for?" she sputtered.

"To sleep off the horrendous hangover that is clearly imminent," sighed Harlow. "Ryan, can you grab her other arm?"

I nodded and sped over to the pair. I'm not even kidding when I say that Sophie was a complete dead weight - she gave us no support, just kind of hung there in a terrifically drunken stupor. I lifted her thin, bony arm gently around my shoulder, and blushed in embarrassment as her head lolled over onto my chest.

"Nice man chest," she slurred happily, patting my man boob roughly. "Nice nice."

"I'm sorry, I'm really really really sorry," muttered Harlow, jabbing Sophie roughly with her elbow. "Stop that, Sophie. God, you're even a whore when you're drunk. I apologize on her behalf."

I laughed, propping Sophie up best and safely as I could. "Really, Harlow, it's okay. It's fine."

She glanced over and met my own gaze and smiled, a genuinely thankful and content grin. A look that melted every square inch of my heart, oh my goodness. "You're wonderful, Ryan. You know that?"

What a surprise, I blushed. Luckily, we were attempting to drag Sophie across the pavement so Harlow barely had any time to notice my flustered pinkish hue (thank God). Sophie's feet shuffled uselessly behind her, but I was surprised with Harlow's quick movement and natural, easy fluidity. Even while a drunk was flung across her shoulder, she moved with the grace of a deer. God, what I'd do to see her use that form in the sack.

"My car's just over there," she said, motioning with her head to the parking lot about thirty feet away. "It's that ugly silver one, the Prius."

"I'm goin' teh puke all in your car, Lo," Sophie mumbled. "Juss wanna 'pologize in advanceded."

"You puke in my car you clean my car," Harlow said irritably. "Or just buy me a new one - God only knows the devastation you're bound to create on the fifteen minute ride home."

I laughed at her irritation, and tightened my hold on Sophie who was slipping quickly from my grasps. "Oh, jeeze - "

"It's okay if you drop her," Harlow said benignly, pulling her keys out of her pocket with fantastic finesse. "Maybe it'll knock her out and I don't have to deal with this - "

"BLUHHHHHH!"

" - all the way home," Harlow sighed, narrowly avoiding the projectile vomit.

"Shit son," moaned Sophie, as I pulled her up closer against my side. Maybe it was just my imagination (or perhaps my raunchy dreams?), but I swear I saw a flicker of jealousy move across that flawless face of Harlow.

I know, I know. Just me being a lewd, overly-optimistic creeper again.

We came to an unsteady stop in front of her car, and while still holding on tightly to Sophie's waist, Harlow managed to unlock the front driver's side door, fling Sophie's coat into the back and insert the key into the ignition.

"Multi-tasking at it's best," I said, impressed.

She grinned at me, and pulled Sophie gently out of my grasp. "You learn to deal with this shit an awful lot - I've gotten good at the whole 'drunk juggling', as I call it."

She yanked the back door open and pushed Sophie's head down with her hand. She carefully maneuvered Sophie over to her right side, ducked her head, and pushed her into the back seat with impressive and skillful ease. Sophie collapsed over onto her side, eyes shut and breathing heavy. From the car, that soft, subtle scent of coconut wafted out and filled my mind with hazy goodness. Oh, coconuts would never be the same again.

"I don't see why I even bother working out," Harlow said to me mildly, pulling the seat belt proficiently over Sophie's thin chest. "I do this with at least one of the volleyball girls weekly - I'm ripped from carrying drunks."

I laughed, and tried (but failed miserably, might I add) to not look longingly at her ass. Hey! I couldn't help it. While she was busy buckling her drunken best friend into the back of her car, her ass was waving at me in the cutest, most bum-tastic way I'd ever seen. It took every ounce of strength inside of me to not reach out and honk that beauty.

"You're good to do it," I said earnestly (I'm so glad she didn't notice that I was having a serious staring contest with her arse). "Not a lot of people would put up with weekly piss-drunks."

She pulled herself out of the backseat and slammed the door, turning to face me with a bright smile etched on that flawless face. My God, I wanted to stare at that face forever and ever. "I don't mind. I think my car does, but I don't."

We both laughed, and the air around us grew strangely silent and awkward. Awkward for the first time all night, might I add - this was a huge step-up from where I thought the night would end. For one, I was still talking to her. I hadn't burst into unsuppressed tears and run to hide in an abandoned hallway. Huzzah, I had managed to grow a pair!

"Well," Harlow said after a moment, looking timidly up at me. "Thanks for the help."

"Oh, it was no problem," I said bashfully. "Thanks for .. thanks for the Corona."

She smiled. "I'll share my Corona's with you anytime."

"Thanks for the talk, too," I said, rather ineptly (I was busy secretly wishing she'd share more than just a beer with me - oh what a surprise, I was being obscenely filthy minded again, fabulous). "It was .. it was really nice."

"You're a very interesting guy," she said softly.

"And you're a very interesting girl," I said, shifting nervously - God, I was a tool. "I feel badly, though, we only talked about me all night."

"Oh, I don't mind," she said easily, with such natural assurance (so natural, people wish they'd been blessed with it). "I liked hearing about you."

"I'd like to hear more about you, next time," I said, my heart racing and my awkwardness becoming more and more prevalent - oh fuckity fuck! "I know we only just met, but .. would you wanna go and grab coffee or something? Whenever you're free, you know - it doesn't matter when to me, whenever you can, or if you want to, if you don't it's like .. it's not a big deal, I was just wondering, you know, and I - "

"I'd love to," she cut in, thankfully cutting my horrific and embarrassing stuttering session short. She smiled, and ran a hand nervously over her arm. "I'd absolutely love to."

"Good," I said, and hard as I tried, I just could not keep the excitement out of my voice. "Good. Great, actually, great ... uhm, are you busy on Friday?"

She frowned and looked at me thoughtfully. "Well, I'm leaving in the afternoon - I'm going to Sophie's parents, more for moral support than anything. They're a bunch of pompous, rich assholes but they like me and buy me food. I'll be gone all weekend, but I'm back on Monday?"

"Monday works for me," I said, without actually thinking - dude, to be frank, I could have been best man at a wedding on Monday and I still would completely, totally have blown it off for this. "Monday works fantastically."

"Great," she said happily. "I've got class until 4:00 and then volleyball from 5:00 to 6:30 - but anytime after that would work for me?"

"I've got the PRS class at 6:00 and it's done at 8:00 - you wanna say 8:15?" I asked.

"Perfect," she said. "I'll meet you in the class at 8:15?"

"Perfect," I said. "That's .. perfect."

"Good," she said brightly, running a hand through that thick hair. "Well, I've got to drive drunk-o home before she completely trashes my car."

"That's a good idea," I agreed. "I don't know if your car will forgive you if it happens again."

She laughed, and yanked the drivers side door open. She turned to me, and before I had time to react (which was probably a good thing, since my reaction likely would have been to shit everywhere, curl into a ball and cry), she rested a small, delicate hand on my arm, perched up on her tippy toes, and planted a soft, sweet little kiss on my burning cheek.

"Thanks again, Ryan," she said quietly, her eyes glittering. "For everything."

With one last jovial little smile, she slipped gracefully into her car, started it up, and drove away quickly into the dark, moonlit night. I stared as she drove off, face burning and mind exploding - had that actually just happened?

I raised a hand to my cheek, and felt the hot, slightly lip glossy spot on my cheek.

"Sweet mother Mary," I whispered. "I have died and gone to heaven."

(Harlow)

"You're home early."

I sighed, and dropped my car keys into the small, bronze dish. "Fire alarm was pulled, Sophie was so drunk she couldn't move and I have to finish my outline for cognitive coaching."

"What a fascinating life you lead."

I smiled, scratching the back of my leg lightly. "Yeah, well - better a dull one then none."

"Touché."

"How are you?" I asked, peeling my shoes off my aching feet.

"Same old, same old."

"Course," I said. "You do anything fun this evening?"

"The hell is there fun to do around here?"

I shrugged. "Find something."

"Oh, suck a big one."

I laughed, and dragged my buzzed and tired ass down the hallway and into the large, spacious living room. Seated on the couch was a girl about my age, a little bit shorter, with long and bluntly cut dirty blonde hair. She gazed over at me, eyes vacant and bored. She looked me up and down, and her eyes narrowed inquisitively.

"How'd the game go?" she asked.

"Good," I replied, plopping down on the opposite end of the couch and grabbing the remote. "We won. No surprise."

"So modest," she sneered. "Final score?"

"13 to 12."

"Impressive."

"Oh, shut up."

I clicked the remote wearily, propping my feet up against the coffee table.

"I was watching that."

"No you weren't."

"Was so."

"Chick, please. You don't even know how to turn a television on."

"Do too."

"Don't."

"Do too."

"Don't."

"Don't you have an essay to go write, Ass?"

"Later," I muttered.

After driving the short five minute drive to Sophie's apartment and dragging her up five flights of stairs (her family was worth millions, but she lived in the shittiest, most decrepit and ugly old apartment building ever), I finally loaded myself back into the car and drove the ten minute trek home. The majority of people on campus assumed that Soph and I lived together - the fact is, if I had to room with her for any amount of time ever, I think it would be the end of our friendship. I loved her dearly, and she loved me right back - but we were polar opposites. She was a slob, I was not. She slept until three in the afternoon, I was up by eight every single day. She had dishes in her sink from two weeks ago - I barely even kept dishes that were two weeks old. Our varying lifestyles would've killed the relationship, I think.

Unlike Sophie's small, cramped and messy apartment, mine was large, spacious and compulsively tidy. Located about ten minutes off of campus, I had bought the place four years ago - only one month after my 20th birthday. I had traveled all over this great country, but ultimately, I chose to settle in Pennsylvania. At the time, it was the only state I had never lived in before, or even traveled through. I needed a fresh start, and I had found a fantastic location where I could make one. My apartment was one of four on the seventh floor of the building. It was very big, bigger than I probably needed, but I had found the rent extremely reasonable and the location was quiet and tranquil - just what I needed after 20 years of complete pandemonium. The minute I had stepped inside, I had fallen in love with it.

Of course, had I known the baggage that came along with it, I'm sure I would've thought twice. But, that's another story for another time.

My living room was my favorite room in the entire place - and it was the most popular amongst my small group of friends as well. It was big and open, several hallways leading away from it, but it was cozy. There were couches, big and puffy and soft and littered with pillows of every shape and size. It was the only thing in the entire house I'd really splurged on, to be honest - growing up, I'd never really had much of a living room, so I wanted the comfiest, coziest and most fantastic living room furniture money could buy. Everything else? Cheap, free or stolen. The coffee table I'd picked up at a local thrift store for five bucks, the television (an old one of Sophie's), the fakest looking jumbo bonsai tree you'd ever seen in your entire life (taken out of a local dumpster - hey, they clearly didn't want it anymore) and four bright, cheerfully colorful but oddly mismatched lamps. Sophie thought it was all junk - I thought it was treasure. Sophie thought the place was too bare, too disharmonized. I thought it was comfortable and quirky.

The north wall of the living area was nothing but windows looking out onto the busy, crowded but fantastically welcoming University Park. The other three surrounding walls of the living room weren't even visible - every inch had been covered with tall, thin bookshelves (that I had made myself from a kit I got from K-Mart - HUZZAH TO DOMESTIC, HANDY HARLOW, HUZZAH.). There was every kind of book you could imagine nestled deep in those shelves - everything from Jane Austen, Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to Harry Potter, the Goosebumps series and the Animorphs, to Anne Rice, Stephen King and Tolkien. There were comic books, textbooks on Freudian psychology, the Bible, books on Marxism. Storybooks, Fairytales - big 'How-To' guides on every different topic, the diaries of everyone from Anne Frank to Bridget Jones and hundreds of biographies, ranging from the uplifting, fantastic life story of Nelson Mandella to the sickeningly fascinating one of Adolf Hitler. There were books of poetry by Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson and Shel Silverstein, and thick, never been used dictionary's and thesaurus'. There was everything you could imagine - everything.

A lot of people - well, to be frank, most people - don't believe me when I say I'm a nerdy, hermity little book worm.

But I'm not kiddin' - I literally curl into a ball six out of seven days a week and read until I go cross-eyed. It's a brilliantly wonderful and horribly presupposed thing, literature. Books have been the only constant my whole life. I had learned over the past 24 years to appreciate them and hold them closer to my heart than most hold their greatest friends.

Anyways, enough gloating about my apartment and book selections - I get a liiiiittle carried away sometimes, you'll have to excuse me. Back to the present situation! The plain but somewhat complacent young woman sitting next to me on the couch (who I referred affectionately to as Chick) was not, in fact, my room mate. She did not pay me monthly rent, but she did not sleep or eat or bathe here either - just simply roamed the halls, everyday, all day. For all the rest of eternity. I had never met her before I moved in, never seen her or heard of her. She sort of ... came with the apartment.

This was the baggage I was talking about. But it was baggage I truly didn't mind holding on to.

"You know, when I was alive, we didn't procrastinate like you do," she said slyly, stretching her feet out comfortably in front of her.

"You were born in the 60's, grew up in the 70's," I sighed. "All you ever did was get stoned - I find it hard to believe you never procrastinated."

"Caught red handed," she grinned. "Either way, get started on that essay or you're going to pay for it."

"I know I know. I'm gettin' on it, I swear."

"That's what you say all the time, yet every time you have an essay due I find you three hours before the deadline going googley-eyed on that stupid computer."

"You're always right, I'm always wrong, I get it, I get it."

She laughed, and moved swiftly and noiselessly from the couch over to the short and stubby hallway leading to my cute, obsessively tidy kitchen. I swear, it was not my cleaning OCD that was behind my spotless kitchen - it was my poor cooking skills and extreme anxieties at attempting anything besides bowls of cereal that was the real culprit here.

"Did you eat yet?" she asked me, swaying back and forth with inhuman grace and silence.

"No," I said, flicking the channels dully. "I'm not hungry."

The comment was met by silence, and I peered over my shoulder at the doorframe. Chick was looking at me quizzically, eyes narrowed and mouth turned down. Her sad, empty eyes bore holes right through me.

"There's some pasta in the fridge," she said slowly. "Pesto. Your favorite."

I shook my head. "I might heat it up later, but I'm not too hungry right now."

She clicked her tongue irritably - Chick refused to believe anyone when they said that they weren't hungry. For the final years of her life, she lived in a state of constant stupefaction. Chick was such a stoner, the details of her own freakin' death are a little bit hazy. She no longer has the need or ability to eat, so she eats vicariously through me, I suppose.

"What, you drunk or something?" she asked, taken aback.

"No, I'm not drunk. I had one beer and like .. two shots of rum. If I were drunk, that would be pretty pathetic."

"You high?"

"No, Chick. I don't smoke."

"I know, your loss."

I laughed as she drifted slowly back over to me, frowning in consideration. I stared back, impassively as I could - it doesn't matter how long you've been able to see spirits, it's always a little bit of a surprise when they do the 'Hover', as I call it.

The 'Hover' is just one of the terms I throw around loosely in the presence of a spirit. Let me explain what it is. The majority of humans that come in contact with spirits always see the 'Hover'. It's the graceful, floating, silent and apparently non-moving walk a lot of spirits do absentmindedly - you can see their legs moving and them getting closer, but there's no sound, no real obvious signs of movement and an airiness that's nothing less than alarming. Simply put, it looks like a silent, drifting mass moving towards you. Hovering, if you will. After much consideration, I figured that that's why most living people who see spirits are terrified - besides the whole unknown, dead person you can see thing, it's the Hover that truly scares them shitless.

The vast majority of spirits don't even realize they're doing it - it's an accidental thing that happens once every couple of years to most of them. Some spirits, the mean ones that actually enjoy frightening the living, do it as often as they can. I asked Chick about it once, and she told me it only happens when they lose themselves in thought - when they're wandering, thinking, dreaming, wishing. Completely immersed in their own forever, sometimes they slip back into the realm of the living, if only for a moment. Like a fuzzy picture on an old television screen, completely unaware of their surroundings, themselves - they're simply going through the movements.

When they forget, when they slip back into our world, that's when we see the 'Hover'. And that's when we truly feel terrified. Hover is just a term I use, it's not a Parapsychological term or an actual definition used in the ghost hunting business. It's what I've simply noticed from my many many years of paranormal gazin'.

Ah, shit. I digress.

Chick hovered closer and closer, slower and slower, until she was mere feet away from me. I glared at her, and she glared back. I hated when she did this. Although she'd sworn she couldn't do it a million times over, sometimes I still thought she could read my mind.

"You're all ... shiny," she said, a tinge of disgust in that flat voice.

"How embarrassing," I said loftily. "I forgot to blot."

"No, Ass, it's nothing to do with greasy face or sweat or any of that," she said, looking contemplatively at me. "It's like a ... glow."

"Oh God, maybe I'm pregnant," I said, averting my eyes away from her and returning to my dull channel clicking.

I felt a cold rush, like a sudden gust of freezing air that hit right down to my bones, and I saw Chick turn around in front me. Opaque and distinct as she'd ever been. I shivered.

"F-f-fuck," I muttered. "How many times have I told you not to do that!"

"Sorry," she said, rather unapologetically. "But what's up with you? You look all ... all ... shmeh."

"Shmeh?" I asked, offended. "Well, don't I just feel beautiful."

She glared at me, harder still, eyes boring into my face. "Did you get laid?"

"No," I said blandly. "Leave me alone, Chick."

"Fat chance," she murmured. "Did you make out with someone?"

"No," I repeated, trying to look around her figure irritably. "Please, move your ass out of my way, I can't see the TV."

But finally - for some reason I still to this day can't explain - her face broke into a wide, brilliant smile - she squealed delightedly, jumped and landed down onto the sofa next to me, noiselessly and with the grace of a puma. Man, I wish I could be that elegant without having to be that dead.

"Who's the guy!"

"Oh frick."

"Tell me, Harlow! Who's the guy! Is he cute? Is he nice? Is he young? Where'd you meet him? Details, Harlow. DETAILS."

I buried my face in my hands and shook my head wildly. "You're not getting anything out of me."

"Who the fuck am I gonna tell?" she asked indignantly. "Who the hell is there to tell?"

I peered through my fingers at her. "It's not that."

"I've been dead for thirty two fucking years! I need some excitement, I need to gossip! GIVE ME DETAILS, HARLOWWWWW."

"I don't want to talk about it," I said weakly. "I'm going to jinx it."

"Let me just remind you, that I am a ghost. You might as well just be talking to yourself, because no one else can hear me, see me or communicate with me - you're not jinxing anything, numbnut," she said, her voice dripping with excitement. "C'MON, HARLOW. TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME."

"Okay, okay!" I caved, trying but failing miserably to hide a smile. "His name is Ryan."

With all the commotion of Sophie's serious drunkenness, I had almost forgotten about the truly wonderful highlight of my night - almost being the operative word there. I had willed myself to not think about it, because then I'd overthink or underthink or stress or worry or start to panic or .. or, whatever. Sometimes, thinking is not what you want to do. And in the case of relationships and unexplainable crushes and dirty, some what obscene fantasies about a boy I didn't really know - well, the less thinking the better, don't you agree?

But I didn't kid myself - deep down, I knew there was no hiding this. Not from myself. Not from Sophie. Not from anyone. No less God damn Chick here. I could have all the peace and soundlessness I ever wanted on the drive home, all the tranquility and isolation I needed to forget and compose myself - but the minute I got home and walked through the front doors, Chick would figure it all out.

Can't read my mind my ass. I had been so fucking subtle!

She was right, though. And I could grudgingly admit that. Who the hell was she going to tell? Seeing dead spirits for the most part was totally shitty - trust me on this one. The one good thing about it? When you found a ghost that liked you and that you liked in return, they were like your own personal confidante you know would never - could ever - spill all your deepest, darkest secrets. They were like a diary no one would ever find, a best friend who would never turn their back on you, a second brain you could make sure would remember everything you told it. It was reason one of maybe three (and that's being optimistic) that made this 'gift' not so bad. Everything else? Totally sucked and extremely inconvenient.

"Good, that's a good name - masculine enough without being douchey. What's he look like?" Chick asked brilliantly, crossing her corduroy covered legs. She was always in her brown corduroy pants, deep yellow sweater and bare feet.

A common misconception is that ghosts wear the exact same thing in the afterlife as they wore on the day they died. The fact is, they can wear anything they want. A lot of them choose to wear their death outfit - they flaunt it proudly, kind of a "yeah man, I got stabbed in this jersey" or a "I took my last breath in these pants - what of it, sucka". Chick chose to wear hers, not only because it was what she died in, but because it had been her favorite outfit when she was still alive. "It's comfy and I look disgustingly fabulous in it," she'd said.

"Tall," I said, grabbing a pillow and hugging it close to my chest, my mind forming the image of Ryan very clearly and vividly. "Thin, but not too thin. Lean, I think is the word. Tanned skin, nice skin, big brown eyes. Dark brown hair. Good teeth - great teeth, actually. Fantastic voice, dead sexy Chick, dead fuckin' sexy. He could go places with that voice."

"You know me, I'm a sucker for a good voice. What about the unnatural - tattoos, piercings?" she asked.

"None that I saw," I said thoughtfully, attempting to ignore the mental image of him naked with two nipple piercings. Damn.

"Had you ever talked to him before?"

"No, never. I hadn't ever really noticed him around Campus before, either ..."

"You sure he's not a ghost?" she asked me, smiling shrewdly.

"Oh, ha ha. Hilarious. No, he's not a ghost, he's very much alive and gorgeous," I said confidently. "And everyone else noticed him at the game, so it's not like I was the only one that saw him."

"Is that where you met him? The volleyball game?"

"No, I actually approached him first. Oh don't give me that look, Chick, there's a story behind it. I found his notebook and pager on the ground when I was walking with Sophie," I explained. "I brought it up to class for him."

She frowned. "You guys are in the same class, yet you'd never seen the guy before?"

"Maybe I had seen him, I just didn't remember .. but no, we're not in the same class - he has his own class."

She looked at me shrewdly. "How old is this guy, Lo?"

"He's ... shit, I don't even know," I said frowning. "Didn't really come up."

"I don't know how good of an idea it is to get involved with a professor," Chick said astutely.

"Oh, dear God, no," I said, shaking my head. "He's not a professor, he started his own class! Just like a student led one - he's not much older than I am, maybe a year or two. Three at the most."

"Hm," Chick said blandly. "What kind of class?"

I bit my lip, and looked apprehensively at Chick. She frowned.

"If you say he's like ... the leader of 'Penn State's Reformation of Neo-Nazism' or .. or, or the creator of Penn States Pro Bestiality or something, I'm not only going to be really angry, I'm going to be really concerned with your choice of men," she said honestly, a look of disappointment and embarrassment on that pale face.

"No way, Chick," I denied. "I would never ever ever date a guy that did that kind of stuff - I like mine relatively sane, thanks."

"Then what's he creator of."

"Oh, well ... well, see," I stammered. "He's kindaaa ... sortaaaaa ... well, he's the .. the leader of uhm - by leader I mean he's like .. he's like an entrepreneur, Chick, he like started this whole society on his own and stuff, and like, keep that in mind, okay? .. he like ... he's really making a difference and like .. uhm .. he like ..."

"Oh God, he's totally a fucking Klan member."

"No! No he's not. Fuck, not at all. Christ, Chick, I wouldn't date a KKK member."

"You're stuttering and saying 'like' after every word. You are about to tell me something terrible."

"That's not true," I argued. "I don't say like when I've got bad news."

"Cut it out, just tell me what he does."

I opened my mouth, closed it again, opened it and then closed it again, looking around wildly for some kind of distraction, some kind of disturbance that could get me out of this conversation. Which in all fairness, I sort of knew was impossible. Lets face it: there is no commotion big enough to distract the deceased. Seriously.

It wasn't that I was ashamed of Ryan's line of work. Not at all - I thought it was somewhat inspirational. But I knew how Chick would feel about it - knew how the mass majority of spirits feel about it, in fact. And the bulk of them would rather be damned to the deepest parts of Hell than come in contact with a paranormal investigator. Why?

I'll explain later.

Because right now, my mind was going a mile a minute, trying to come up with an easy, pleasant way to break the news to Chick. I could avoid it all I wanted, but the truth was going to come out eventually. Better tell her now than lie about it, right? I'll tell ya, these spirits - shit can they ever be spiteful.

Just as I opened my mouth to speak, I caught sight of something - someone - very familiar out of the corner of my eye. Not in my apartment, no - on my television. Oh Jesus, in my channel changing haste, it seemed the clicking had halted on channel 20. Or, better known as the Arts and Entertainment channel - A&E.

I felt the breath catch in my lungs, the words die in my throat, my whole body go cold. This time it wasn't because Chick had walked through me - it was because I had just caught sight of the television screen, and on that big, beautiful 42 inch plasma TV, was a big, beautiful, all too familiar face. My stomach tightened - well, I guess this was sort of a distraction?

"Harlow!"

"Him," I managed to choke out, pointing to the TV.

She looked over quickly at the screen. There he was, still handsome as ever and in high definition too. Good God, he was so fuckin' yummy.

"Up from what, the basement?" Ryan asked, surprised.

"Yeah," the woman responded timidly.

The show cut to a shot of the basement, and the PRS crew heading down there behind the woman and her teenaged daughter.

"I don't like the basement. I want whatever's in the basement gone. This corner over here is where someone's crouched all the time. Almost like someone underneath the stairs hiding. That's what it looks like."

"And also when we first moved in," the girl said softly to Ryan. "The door would rattle. Like you could hear it rattling. It sounded like a silverware drawer being thrown down those stairs. It's like chains."

Ryan looked with clear concern over at the woman and her daughter and nodded.

"Him?" Chick asked. "That guy, the brown haired guy? On the television? That's the guy?"

"Yeah," I said quietly. "That's Ryan."

"What's the show called?" she asked evenly.

"Paranormal State," I responded.

She turned her hard, piercing stare back on me, and glared menacingly at my surely snow white face.

"So," she said, contemplatively. "He's a ghost hunter."

"Paranormal investigator," I corrected softly.

"Same thing," she said sourly. "So he started a class about ghost hunting."

"Paranormal investigating," I said, cringing slightly at the bitterness in her voice. "And it's not a ghost hunting class, he does it because he wants to help people. Just ... give them information, help them kind of come to terms with things. Embrace the paranormal, not be terrified of it."

She gave me a rough, formidable look. "That's what they all say, and then they go and sit on their asses with their little recorders and ask us how we feel, what it's like to be dead, how did we die, are we in Hell, are we lonely, who do we miss, can we move that shoe, can we click this button, can we turn on that lamp, can I wipe your ass, can I prove I exist, can I shit solid bricks of gold, can I suck your - "

"I get it," I sighed. "I know how you feel about them."

"You can't even begin to understand," she said, voice dripping with hostility.

"No," I agreed. "I can't."

"You're alive, you're free, you're naive," she said bitterly. "I'm dead, I'm imprisoned. I'm here forever. I'm miserable, I'm sad, I'm completely fuckin' alone. No one understands that."

"That's what he's trying to fix, though," I argued timidly. "No one understands it, everyone's afraid of it, every ... every person has these misinterpretations. So then when they pass on, they're equally confused and scared as when they were alive. He's trying to fix that, Chick. He's not going to these homes and trying to aggravate you, he's trying to find out why you're here and why you can't pass on - he's trying to make people understand and not be fearful."

"Which is just what I need," she snapped. "More assholes to try and contact me and talk to me and get me on videotape. I'm dead, for fuck sakes, why can't they leave me alone."

"Human nature," I said softly. "We're just people. The unknown is what terrifies us, and makes us question things and ourselves and our beliefs. As long as there are questions, there are going to be people looking for answers. What Ryan is doing is trying to find these answers out for us. With as little intrusion and aggravation to you and other spirits."

She looked at me, glaring. "I thought you hated being a medium."

"What does that have anything to do with this?"

"Why in the fuck are you getting involved with a guy who deals with precisely what you despise?"

"I don't despise the paranormal," I said firmly. "I despise having to be in contact with it all day, every day, of every single day in my life."

"What, and dating some whack job with a tape recorder is going to make you dislike it less?"

"Paranormal investigator. And no. But if I base my choice in men on who will positively or negatively influence my ability to see you long deceased, bitter assholes, then my choice is extremely, excruciatingly limited."

I hopped off of the couch and stormed towards my bedroom door. I couldn't hear her, but I could feel Chick's presence floating along angrily behind me.

"Don't spazz on me, Harlow Vincent, you're going against everything you've ever talked to me about, everything you stood for, everything you believed in. Just because you wanna bang some ghost tracker - what happened to believing in leaving spirits to rest, or not bothering the things that aren't bothering you, or .. orr, whatever the fuck other lies you spewed out!"

"I'm not interested in him because of his job, or because of this fuckin' psychic curse I've for some reason been 'blessed' with. And if you think I want to date him because I want him to help me 'hone in' on my mediumship or because I want to be famous or because I want someone to understand my own fuckin' angst, then you're seriously fucking mistaken! I'm interested in him because he's a nice guy, he legitimately gives a shit about what I have to say and what I do, he's extremely attractive and has one hell of an ass. His line of work is so far below my interest level, it's not even funny. The only reason you're pissed off about this and are quizzing me about him is because you're worried he's going to storm in here with his team and shove a microphone up your ass. He's not going to, Chick, alright?"

I threw open my bedroom door and whirled around to face her.

"He's not going to because I don't intend to tell him any of this," I said furiously. "I've spent the past 10 years of my life trying to ignore and hide this. You think I'm going to blow it all on some guy just because his line of work kinda, sorta coincides with the worst curse any person could ever get ever? No. You're fucking wrong! You, the old angry man up on the twentieth floor, the young bell hop down in the lobby, the female jogger that circles this building everyday, all the thousands of spirits that walk through Penn State campus, and everyone else are going to remain a horrible, deep dark secret in this fucked up, unbelievably unlucky mind of mine. Ryan will never know, no one will ever tell him, and I will never, ever, ever tell you anything ever again for fear of you jumping down my fuckin' throat."

I slammed the door, hard as I could, and plopped down on my bed. My eyes were hazy with tears, my face red with embarrassment and mind completely enveloped with anger. Who the fuck did Chick think she was?

Right off the bat, before I had even walked in the front door, I knew this was something I shouldn't tell her - Chick, like a lot (most, to be honest) of other spirits, was strongly opposed to people like Ryan. Paranormal investigators, people that made their living off exploiting the dead. Psychics, investigators, mediums - they were less than liked in the world of the paranormal:

they were despised.

And I didn't blame them. Maybe it was because I had always been sensitive to them? But the bulk of them (spirits, that is) respected boundaries between the living and the dead, and they didn't overstep it. If they could show that kind of respect for the living, then why couldn't the living show them that kind of respect right back?

Initially, when I moved into the apartment, I ignored Chick's presence, thinking that that's what she wanted out of me. To be left alone, isolated like so many of those spirits crave. Days in, however, I suppose she began to realize that I could in fact see her. And could, in fact, talk and communicate with her. She didn't seem disgruntled or annoyed - although skeptical at first, she eventually grew to trust me and respect me, and vice versa. Slowly, she even began to sorta like me. Love was a strong word. But our mutual feelings about the majority of investigators and psychics brought us closer. She appreciated the fact that I wasn't there to exploit her - I was just a girl with an unfortunate gift.

Chick was like my couch potato, free-loadin' room mate. Born in the late 50's, deceased in the late 70's. How? Choked on her own vomit after raffing out in her boyfriend's van. Why was she still here? Frankly, she dug this place. It was home, it was familiar, and it was comfortable. Besides the date of birth, date of death and cause of death, I didn't really know much else about her. Her real name wasn't Chick, that was a fact. She never told me what it was, and I never really came out and asked. It was a mutual understanding between the two of us - even the dead had secrets.

Chick is the only person in the world that knows everything about me. More than Sophie. More than any sibling I ever had. More than any boyfriend, best friend, psychologist, teacher, more than anyone. The truth is, when you've got a history as terrible as mine, sometimes the only person you can really trust is a person that no longer walks this Earth with two solid feet.

My confidante died thirty years ago, and she held my secrets beyond the grave only because I told her beyond the grave.

Besides Sophie, Chick was the most stubborn person - er, spirit - I'd ever met in my life. She never caved in an argument, even when she was wrong. She never admitted defeat. She refused to acknowledge any other person's point of view that wasn't her own. And to be honest, why would or should she back down? She had all the time in the world to argue.

So my feeble attempts at defending Ryan, I knew, would literally take me nowhere.

Honestly, dealing with spirits is the most frustrating thing you will never do.

I pulled my legs up on my bed, and pulled a pillow over my face angrily. Now, lying down and no longer in the heat of any moment, I could feel the exhaustion creepin' up on me. Everything hurt. My legs, my arms, my face - places I didn't even know existed ached and creaked. Physically, I was done. Mentally, I was completely drained. Between the five weekly volleyball practices, five hours of class a day and even longer amounts of time spent tapping away on my laptop, I had little to no time to be by myself and just veg. I craved it more than you will ever know.

I yanked the pillow off of my face and peered over at the clock. Sitting on the edge of my bed was Chick, looking roughly down at me. I nearly jumped out of my fucking skin. What'd I tell ya - it doesn't matter how long you've been able to see ghosts. Sometimes, they still fuckin' sneak up on you.

"I didn't hear you come in," I said dryly, attempting to hide the fact that I nearly shit my pants.

"That's because I'm dead and floated through the door," she responded flatly. "And I don't have soild limbs, so I can't turn a doorknob. Nor can I knock."

"I get it," I muttered.

"Listen," she started. "I know you're pissed - "

"You can't make me listen."

"Yes I can, I'm a ghost, I can go anywhere you can go. I'm pretty sure we've covered this."

"Fuck you."

"Another time. Listen. I know you're pissed off at me. That's fine. You're allowed to be. I'm an easy person to be pissed off at, I fully understand and appreciate that fact."

"As long as you know."

"I do. And since you're being honest, then I will openly admit that the thought of you dating some ghost hunting lunatic disgusts me."

"Lovely."

"Not quite. But .. if you like him, then you like him. There's nothing I can do, or say or whatever .. so .. fuck you for going with the ghost hunter and not the Klan member."

I glared down the bed at her. She glared back.

"He's not a bad guy," I said finally, letting my head fall back into the pillow. "He's really not."

"That remains to be seen," Chick said smoothly, rising from the bed. "But if he makes you happy, then by God, go jump his bones."

"I would have with or without your permission," I said snottily.

"I don't doubt that," she sighed, floating right back out through the door.

I frowned, pulling off my sweater irritably. Some people are born with the ability to contort their bodies every which way. Some are born with birth defects that make them the life of the carnival. Some are born genius', some are born athletes. Some are born rich, some are born famous. Some are fantastic writers, some are simply born business savvy.

Me? I would have settled for a normal, boring ol' talent. Like being a really good baker. Or having 20/20 vision. Or being able to draw straight lines without a ruler.

Did I get any of those? Nope.

I got to be a Medium. Awesome.

I shoved my head into my pillow and kicked my feet furiously.

"FUCKKKK," I screamed as loud as I could into the soft pillowcase. "GAHHHHH! I HATE DEAD PEOPLE, FUUUUUCK! "

"Yeah, well they're not too fond of you either, bitch," I heard her mutter behind the door.

I'd kill her, but what would the point of that be?

(Sergey)

"How do you think he's doing?"

"One of two ways," I said thoughtfully. "He's either doing superbly - just fantastic. Everything is going well, he's being suave and charming, she's impressed with his intelligence and compassion - and so on and so on."

"And the other, more likely way it's going?" Eilfie asked, grinning.

"It's already long over, he's blubbered like a baby about how pretty she is, he's accidentally spilled all these dark, childhood secrets. Perhaps he's lost control of his bowels? Perhaps his bladder. Perhaps he's in the back of a squad car right now because he accidentally death clawed her boob."

Elf and Josh roared with laughter, and I smirked a little guiltily - Ryan was my best friend. I loved him to death. But I couldn't help it - sometimes, the jokes about him just wrote themselves.

"Oh, I don't know," Eilfie said, wiping a tear from her eye. "Maybe we don't have enough faith in him. Maybe things really are going well? They sure are taking a long time .. "

"Well, it's not a quick process, bailing a likely bosom groper out of jail - Heather and Katrina have their work cut out for 'em," Josh said, and the peals of laughter began once again.

The three of us were sitting in mine and Ryan's living room. Our house was one of about twenty side-by-side duplexes in a row - we rented it out together. Roomies for-eva! Or, at least until one of us got ourselves a steady girlfriend, that is (and let's face it, paranormal investigator and techie - I think we were gonna be here for quite a while yet). We'd been leasing this place out for the last five years - the same year I came to Penn State. In all honesty, we really were ideal roomates - we were both relatively tidy people, we had respect for each other's things and we had unsaid but well known boundaries between one another.

The duplex wasn't huge, but it was spacious enough for the two of us to live together comfortably. It was large enough for all of our stuff to fit in there, and to keep the two of us out of each other's hair. Which was a big 'must' for us. Ryan was like my brother, but even I don't want my brother to be in my face all the time.

We'd figured out a steller living arrangement though, and for that we were thankful. You wouldn't even believe the amount of college kids that live in shitty dorms with roommates they absolutely despise. We'd really hit the roommate jackpot.

The only thing Ryan really brought along besides himself, his bed and his xBox, was his dog, Xander. Some people would find that hard to deal with - personally, I freakin' loved it. Growin' up, I'd lived in a small apartment with my parents. The biggest, flashiest pet I'd ever had was a goldfish named Sparkles. What's that you say? Gay name? Shut up, it is not.

Xander was and will always belong to Ryan - but I sorta liked to think of him as my dog too. When Ryan was away, I took care of him. Fed him, took him for walks, played with him. I loved him like he was my own.

Next to me, Xander was lying comfortably on his back, dozing in and out of a deep sleep. Absentmindedly, I scratched at his pale tummy and gazed out the window. It was well after midnight now, the streetlights were dull and glowing, the streets empty and cold. Every now and then, the occasional pulse and dim of headlights filled the room, but none had driven by in nearly an hour.

"Guys," I said thoughtfully, scratching at my beard. "You don't think he actually got arrested, did you?"

"Naw," Eilfie said, shaking her head. "I mean, we know he's a bit of a dope around Harlow but frankly he's so much of a dope that I don't think he'd even manage to pull off the whole sexual assault thing."

"And secondly, even if he did grope the ol' boobies, I'm sure he'd be so embarrassed and he'd be crying so hard that Harlow wouldn't have even bothered pressing charges," Josh said fairly. "She's probably feel to bad for the poor ass."

Eilfie snorted. "God, can you even imagine? If that's the case, I'm pissed I didn't go! I would have paid great money to see him latch onto her boob, let go and then just like .. burst into tears."

"Nevermind seeing him after that," Josh argued. "I'd pay every cent I've ever earned in my life to see Harlow's face!"

Eilfie burst into laughter, and just as she opened her mouth to speak, there was a faint click, and the front door swung open.

Standing in the doorway, pale and lookin' a little mentally challenged, was Ryan. He blinked a couple of times, and staggered into the front foyer. He looked completely disheveled. His hair was ruffled, jacket falling off. His face was relatively expressionless, paler than usual. Xander bounded off the sofa next to me and ran over to Ryan, snuffling joyously. Eilfie, Josh and I exchanged looks.

"Drink a little bit too much, buddy?" I asked, standing up to try and assist him.

"Or grabbed a little bit too much," I heard Josh whisper to Eilfie.

"I .. no," he muttered, trying and failing miserably to kick his shoes off.

I grabbed onto his arm, and he looked at me blankly. "Thanks Serge," he mumbled.

"No problem," I said, steadying him with my hand. "Come on bud, what happened?"

"What didn't fucking happen!" cried a voice from the door, and moments later I couldn't help but laugh as Heather and Katrina piled into our already cramped front hall.

"Is he drunk? Is he alright?" I asked them, slightly concerned at Ryan's completely stupefied mug.

"Not drunk, no," Katrina chirped, turning to the dazed Ryan and yanking down his coat zipper. "But I don't think he's quite alright, either."

"I think he's in shock," agreed Heather cheerfully, pulling Ryan's arm gently out of his coat. "But who can blame the poor turd?"

"I'm fine," Ryan muttered, a dopey smile flitting across his face. "Fine, just fine."

"He looks .. dumb," I said, rather helplessly.

"Did she taze him?" Josh muttered quietly from behind me.

"Taze?" Katrina asked, frowning. "Who?"

"Harlow," Eilfie and Josh responded, and I heard Ryan give a slight girlish giggle right next to me at the mention of her name.

"Why would Harlow have tazed him?" Heather asked, pulling the jacket completely off of him.

"Oh, Harlow," sighed Ryan wistfully, another even more ridiculously dopey smile spreading across his face.

"Oh God," I cried, half amused half concerned. "He's been date raped!"

"He hasn't been date raped," Katrina said, rolling her eyes and ruffling up Ryan's hair benignly. "God, you are the biggest drama queen in the world, Sergey."

"Drama king," I corrected irritably.

"Whatever," Heather laughed. "But no, Harlow did not taze sweet little boss man. Did she, Ryan!?"

She thumped a hand joyfully on Ryan's back, and he stumbled forward slightly, catching himself on the wall. "Oh, Harlow, Harlow. Beautiful Harlow. I like her, Serge. I like her."

"You sure he hasn't been drinking?" I asked, frowning.

"He had one Corona, that's it," Katrina said.

"It was her Corona, she gave me one," he said proudly, wrapping an arm happily around my shoulders. "Oh Serge, we shared Corona's."

"What's he talking about?" I muttered, completely confused at this new, slightly handicapped best friend of mine.

"God, we should've made him wear a helmet," Eilfie sighed from the couch. "What happened, did he get hit in the head with the dumb stick?"

"More like he got caught in a forest of dumb sticks," Josh muttered. "And was hit by every single one on the way out."

"We told you, he's not dumb," Katrina said testily, who seemed to suddenly decide Ryan was officially not safe standing, and she proceeded to steer him over to the living room. "He's in shock."

"Why is he in shock?" I asked, pulling up a chair from the dining room table.

We all moved over to the living area and took seats in a semi-circle around Ryan. Katrina plunked him down on the cushy armchair in the corner, the simple smile still prominent on his face.

"Well, that's his news," Katrina said fairly. "I don't think I should be the one to - "

"He's going on a date with Harlow on Monday!" Heather squealed, hands balled into fists and shaking with excitement. "Our dopey little boss! He got himself a hot date with the Lo-meister!"

"Tad, that was Ryan's news!" Katrina snapped angrily.

"What! It's not like he's going to be talking anytime soon," she said defensively, motioning to the dumbfounded Ryan. "God, you're right, Elf, it does look like he got hit with the dumb stick ..."

But Eilfie didn't hear Heather - neither did I, or Josh. We both stared, completely horrified and shocked, at the happy, blank faced Ryan on the couch. Him? And Harlow? On a date?

"It's gonna be - " Heather started excitedly.

" - a complete disaster," sighed Josh.

I hated to admit it, but Josh was probably right.

"It is not going to be a disaster!" snapped Katrina. "Heather, Eilfie and I have four days to teach him all we know about first dates! Right, Eilfie!"

"Don't drag me into this," she muttered. "I've known him longer than you - he's a lost cause, Kat."

"Fine, don't help then," Katrina sighed. "Heather? You'll help me, right?"

Heather was seated on the coffee table in front of Ryan - a huge, wondrously happy smile plastered across her pretty face.

"Guys, guys ... watch," she said brilliantly, and with an audible - POKE - jabbed Ryan hard in the forehead. He blinked, smiled dreamily and closed his eyes.

Heather squealed with delight. "He's like the special needs hamster I always wanted!"

"Then it's up to me," Katrina said solemnly, marching over to where Ryan and Heather sat.

She plunked down on the coffee table next to Heather and grabbed Ryan's face roughly in her hands. His eyes flickered back and forth from her face to Heather's to the ceiling.

"Look at me, Buell," growled Katrina.

His eyes turned blearily to hers.

"I am going to assist you in becoming a non-creepy, confident, suave and charming guy by Monday if it's the last thing I do," she said sternly.

"Harlow," Ryan mumbled.

"Yeah. I am going to teach you how to behave properly and with class on your first date with her," Katrina said clearly. "I'm going to help you learn all the basics of being a charming, well-liked date, so you a), don't fuck up completely and b), don't get a restraining order put on you for drooling and accidental sexual harassment. Got it?"

"Okey dokey," Ryan slurred.

POKE

"Heather, stop that."

"Ah, you ruin everythin'."

(Harlow)

"You're actually a lifesaver, Lo, I don't know what the fuck I would do without you."

"Keep it up, Kiss Ass, I'm about as excited as you."

On a brisk but sunny Friday, a mere two days after my less than friendly encounter with Chick (we were still barely talking), I was seated in the plush passenger's seat in Soph's Bentley. A car worth more than my entire house, belongings and savings. God, I friggin' hated rich people. She was driving fast (likely way above the speed limit, good ol' Sophie seems unable to read speedometers very well) and slightly recklessly along the Pennsylvania interstate towards the rich and ridiculously snooty city of Villanova. A bunch of too rich, too drunk and too fantastic for their own good old people who back in their day, had been at the top of every business venture you could ever imagine. Of course, this is where Sophie was born and raised - much to her dismay.

Sophie's parents were at the top of the wealthy elite in the entire state of Pennsylvania - her father, William Kapor, a self-made multi-millionaire. He was in some kind of advertising business, the co-owner of an extremely successful and famous agency. They'd explained it to me over dinner one evening, but I kinda spaced out about two minutes in. You know when you're in class, and you know you should be listening, but instead you're just kind of staring and nodding and singing reallllly loudly in your head? Yep. That was pretty much every dinner I ever had with Sophie and her family. Mute them out, nod, nod, laugh when everyone else laughed, nod, nod again, smile when I was smiled at. I was very good at pretending to care, it's quite a gift, people, not gonna lie. Her mother, Alexandra Kapor (nee Schmidt), was the only heir to the Schmidt mining fortune. On their own, the two of them were millionaires. Together, more than likely billionaires. I'm so poor, I can't even afford a coffee from Starbucks on the best of days. The Kapors? They could more than likely buy out every Starbucks franchise in all of America.

God, I hated rich people. Did I mention that?

At this moment in time, every single person on campus knew of Sophie's ridiculous wealth - but it was not her doing, trust me on that one. Sophie had done everything she could to keep her fortune a complete secret - but unfortunately, some things just get out regardless of how hard you guard them. Don't get me wrong, to say she was ashamed of her wealth wouldn't be entirely true. She definitely enjoyed the luxuries of a never-ending bank account - c'mon, who wouldn't? But the price that went along with the fortune is what she despised the most. It was a price all the money in the world couldn't save you from. The fact is, when you're as wealthy as the Kapors, you could never really trust anyone. It was hard to decipher between who was there for you and who was there simply for the benefits of you. Oftentimes I wondered if that's why Soph's so hard to get along with. She's built up her walls so high, it's nearly impossible to get in.

Sophie was an only child - she'd been doted on for years and years. Not by her father, who was far too busy to pay attention to his young daughter. And not by her mother, who's climbing social status proved to be much more important than her own young child. But by several live-in nannies that raised her nearly from birth to the time she moved out.

It was the this reason (and honestly, likely many other ones as well) that Sohpie had a serious chip on her shoulder. The majority of people who met Soph disliked her almost immediately - you had to give her time to open up to you, but most people don't have the time or the patience to wait on a new friend. She was a very private, angry person, and it came as a surprise to everyone who met her. Most blamed it on being the heir to a nearly billion dollar fortune - with money, comes attitude. But in actuality, it was nothing like that at all. You all know the saying, 'Money can buy you Happiness'. When I was young, I believed it more than anything. Growing up in complete poverty and with the family I did, it seemed like no truer words had ever been spoken. After meeting Sophie, I realized just how false that saying was.

Sophie was the richest, one of the most beautiful and well put together people I'd ever met in my life. But underneath that beautifully abrasive and tough as nails exterior, there was a very small, very broken and very lonely little person. I had only seen this side of her once or twice in our short friendship, but I'd seen it. Money can buy you a lot of things, but it seems the one thing it can't buy is the most important thing of all -

Love.

From the tender age of one, she'd been shuttled between one nanny to another, never really getting to know her mother or father. Her dad was a busy man, he'd never been in the picture and Sophie never really blamed him. Her mother had always had the chance to be there, yet she never was. It was only when Sophie began to get older, mature a bit more, that Alexa really felt a need to connect with her. By then, it was too late. Sophie's bitterness had accumulated for over 14 years - there was no fixing the relationship and no fixing the person Sophie had become.

Soph could've gone anywhere in the world for University. She could've had the best education. She could've been a Yale student. Fuck, she didn't even have to go to school if she hadn't wanted to. But she'd made the conscious decision from a young age to attend school, to do exactly what it was that she wanted to do. Be exactly the person she wanted to be. She didn't want to worry about money, about what her parents wanted, about any of that. This was her time for rebellion - she wanted an out, and she got an out. An out in the form of Penn State.

Her father was indifferent - her mother, furious. A Kapor, attending such a public, easy entry college? It was a horrific shame, a terrible travesty - she simply wouldn't - couldn't - have it. She was prepared to call all of her connections. Fay Yearwood from Yale, Glenn Overton from Harvard, Jill Prescott from Brown. But Sophie didn't want any of it - her mind was set.

So she came here, alone and outcasted from day one. So did I, just as lonely and rejected as her. It's funny how the forgotten seem to find each other, huh?

Sophie came from wealth and privilege. Me, from poverty and hardship. We had seen ourselves in each other, and we'd clung to that. Lonely was only lonely when you were one - we had found each other.

"It shouldn't be that bad this weekend," Sophie said confidently, long and thin hair blowing behind her. "Bitch is having a dinner party on Saturday night, so she'll be pre-occupied with that. And she'll be drunk off cocktails, so there we go."

"Where's your Dad?" I asked, resting my arm lazily on the window.

"Probably in New York again," Sophie shrugged. "I didn't ask."

I smiled at the thought of Sophie's dad, William. The small flicker of resentment I felt towards him for abandoning Sophie so young was barely there anymore. Deep down, I knew he truly was a warm hearted guy and had he been able to, he'd have spent a lot more time with Soph than he did. He was a tall man, solid, with wide shoulders that could ram a door down if need be. He radiated strength and masculinity. He rarely smiled, but he wasn't a cold man. He was just too busy to smile - there was too much work to be done. He and Sophie were nearly identical - in his younger days, he'd had dirty blonde hair (it was now closely clipped iron grey), his skin was pale and eyes small, sharp blue.

When I had first moved into my apartment, he'd sent a huge flower bouquet down from Key Largo - it barely even fit in the front door. I'll always remember that - I didn't have any family at all, no distant relatives or even any other friends. It was my only and the best housewarming gift I could've ever asked for. I never had a real father of my own, and I imagine if I'd had one, I'd have liked him to be in many ways like Mr. Kapor. He was the main reason I think Sophie kept in contact with her family. Somewhere deep down in the cold, black heart of hers, she loved him and she longed for some sort of relationship with him - however distant it may have been.

Alexandra Kapor was a different story. She bore Mr. Kapor scant resemblance, except that she also was attractive. She was tall and sleek, quick and loose. Her wide, plump lipped mouth and immaculately conceived black hair were her prizes. She was a cold woman, judicious and calculating.

"Your Mum didn't say anything about him being away?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No. Frankly, Lo, he could've been standing right there next to her and she likely wouldn't have even noticed. Drunken twat."

I rolled my eyes. "Try to be a little positive, Soph. She does love seeing you."

"She loves cocktails, appletini's and Valium," Sophie responded dryly.

"But she also loves your dad and you," I argued.

"It's just a shame that she loves us in a way she learned from her therapist," Sophie muttered coldly. "Fuck her, though, Lo, we gotta spend the next 2 days with her. Next subject, please."

I laughed, and propped my feet up on the dashboard. "Hnnyesss, next topic - well, what are your feelings on the Iran crisis? You think Imperialism has played a key factor in it? Whatsay-youuuu? Hmmneh?"

"God, shut your hole," Sophie said, with a grin. "Only you, Harlow."

She swerved right, and a blare of horns followed the move - she flashed her middle finger out the window and kept at the 100 MPH speed. I clicked my tongue irritably and gave her arm a hard poke.

"Stop driving like such an asshole," I said angrily. "I hate being in the same car as you."

"Coming from the girl who drives about twenty clicks on the freeway," she sighed. "I find myself not really caring."

"I'd rather be in a low speed collision than a high speed one," I argued.

"Since we're on the topic," she said easily. "I'm taking you shopping on Monday."

"Since when were we talking about shopping?"

"We weren't, but since we are now, you are in dire need of some new Boho skirts," she said, grinning.

I rolled my eyes. "I don't even own any Boho skirts."

"My point exactly."

"Well I can't on Monday," I said, trying to be as casual as I could. "Busy."

"You are not," she said loftily. "School all day, then volleyball, but we'll go after that."

Oh Jesus, the time had come. I had been avoiding this moment for the past 48 hours, and here it was - it had creeped up on me and I was not in the slightest prepared for it. Please Toyota Corolla behind us, rear end this car, for the love of God, please ram us.

"I .. I can't," I stammered, so horrifically unsubtly my face reddened. "I'm busy."

She frowned, and I could see her eyes narrow behind her thick aviators. "Busy with what? Another paper due?"

See, I could've lied. Easily. She was giving me an easy out, and if I was a smart person, I would've taken it. Clearly, I am not smart. Fuck.

"No, not a paper," I said uneasily. "I'm going out after volleyball."

"With who?"

"Just a friend."

She growled irritably. "Stop being so vague, Harlow. What the fuck are you doin' on Monday night?"

"I'm going out on a date," I said (er, more blurted out loudly and rather incoherently), with a seriously failed attempt at nonchalance.

Her head whipped around and I squealed in fright as she swerved manically along the right side - "SOPH, THE ROAD!"

"Who!" she exclaimed excitedly, whirling easily back into her lane and ignoring the multiple honks fired towards her. "Harlow, you gotta keep me updated! God, to think I almost didn't know."

"I was going to tell you," I lied, my heart nearly pounding out of my chest. "I just didn't know when .. "

"Who is it?" she asked me, about a million times more cheerful than she'd been twenty seconds ago. "Is it Mark Adams, that friend of Chris'?"

"Who?" I asked, actually considering saying yes to that - God, I couldn't even image her reaction when I told her who it really was ...

"The really good-lookin' Spanish one," she said. "Don't even answer, I'm guessin' it's not him."

"No, not him," I said uneasily.

"Is it a football player?" she asked eagerly. "Wait, no, that doesn't even make sense .. you don't like Jocks. Hm .. oh! New art guy that just transferred here - in your Sociology class. Hot one, with the black hair - "

"It's Ryan," I blurted out, before I could even stop myself. "I'm going on a date with Ryan."

"That's his name? He looked more like a Mark to me," Sophie said thoughtfully. "Well, whether it suits him or not, he's a good lookin' guy. Not too - "

"No," I said, and I felt guilty at the tinge of misery in my voice. "Ryan, Sophie. Ryan Buell."

The quick turn onto the main street of Villanova was a silent one. The faint click of the engine and the repetitive rolling of the wheels on the ground were the only noises I heard. Sophie was frowning still, but I noticed her eyes were very focused and alert on the road - more than I'd ever seen them, actually.

We clipped along, only a couple numbers above the speed limit, through the beautifully landscaped and tall, immaculately charming houses. The Kapors lived in Tuxedo, the gated community on the west end of the city. About five minutes away from the interstate turn-off. I'd driven down these roads a million times, marveled at their beauty and exquisiteness. But it all seemed dull now, I barely even noticed.

I didn't know what to say, what to do - should I change the subject? Should I keep talking about him? It was terrifying that she had this much of an influence over me. I literally didn't know what to say, I was terrified of saying the wrong thing, something to set her off. It ashamed me that I had let someone have this much power over me ... but Sophie, as wonderful and lovely as she was, was a bit of a loose cannon.

"If you want to get out of it," Sophie said slowly, carefully. "I can help."

"What?" I asked, confused - I was taken aback by the softness and concern in her voice. "Get me .. what?"

"If you're doing it because you feel bad, or because he coerced you into it, Lo, I can get you out of it," she said again, very seriously.

"Coerced me into going?" I repeated. "What ... no, he didn't coerce me to go on a date with him. I want to go - I insinuated it."

"You want to go?" she asked me, voice dripping with a mix of shock and slight repulsion.

I felt my face burn, the second time in only a few days. "Yeah, I do."

Her jaw was locked, and from years of knowing Soph I knew it was a sign of extreme displeasure. She was angry. No, no .. that wasn't fair. She was displeased. Surprised. Perplexed.

"Why can no one I tell be happy for me," I muttered.

"Who else did you tell?" she snapped furiously.

Fuck.

"No one," I lied through my teeth. "I just mean .. no one is going to he happy for me. That's all."

She eyed me suspiciously, but turned her focus back onto the road, a slight vein in her forehead throbbing. I let out a silent sigh of relief - that was the first time in over ten years I'd almost let something slip.

"When did this happen?" she asked coolly.

"Night of the Kegger," I replied, leaning back into my seat uncomfortably. "After you had disappeared, I saw him and we hung out."

"Why was he there?" she asked, nose slightly crinkled.

I frowned. "I invited him. He and his two friends came to the game, and I invited them."

"Oh," she said blandly. "How nice."

I sighed, my blood beginning to boil. "Thanks, Soph."

She shrugged her thin shoulders. "I don't think he's right for you, Lo. Sorry."

"How would you know," I said irritably. "I don't even know."

"Best friend intuition," she said calmly, turning into the Tuxedo compound.

"He's a great guy," I said, more to myself than her. "He's smart and sweet and thoughtful ... "

"And a ghost hunter," she said acidly.

"Paranormal investigator," I said angrily. "Why does it matter?"

Sophie sighed, and looked over at me morosely. "Really, Harlow?"

"What?"

"Look," Sophie sighed, slowing her speed in the residential area. "Harlow .. you're practically University royalty. You're top of your class, you're athletic, the captain of a University league volleyball team. You're beautiful. You're bright, you're nice, you're well-liked. You're top of the University hierarchy."

I rolled my eyes, and shifted gloomily in my seat. "Ryan's smart, sweet ... he formed his own class, for God's sake. He's handsome and he's so fantastically kind, you don't even know. He's a wonderful guy, Sophie."

"Ryan .. okay, fine," she said exasperatedly. "Maybe he is a nice guy. He's not ugly by any means, I'll give you that. But he's a ghost hun - fine, fine, paranormal investigator. He's the lowest of the low on the totem pole of College. He's better suited for someone that likes the kind of stuff he does. And you? You're better suited towards someone that likes the kind of stuff you do. You belong with a pre-Med student, or a Law student or a PSU Lion or something. Someone successful, and that can support you in the future and that .. that you can actually see yourself with long term. What I'm trying to say is .. you are the best of the best, Lo. He is ... he is a paranormal investigator. I'm sure he's a great guy. But his kind of great, is not your kind of great."

I shot her a furious glare. "This isn't high school, Sophie. It's not about cliques or popularity or .. or whatever."

"No, no it's not," she agreed. "But it's life. It's preparation for your future. And it's the time you go out and meet new people, people you want to be with and that can positively influence you and your future. People you can see as prominent figures in your life."

"I do want to be with him," I argued. "I do want him to be a part of my life. You're focused solely on what he does - you don't even know him, Soph."

"Neither do you," she said softly.

"No, but that's why I want to get to know him," I said in exasperation. "I want to talk to him, and hang out with him and be his friend and just .. learn about him. He's done so much in the short time he's been alive - I want to know about him."

She glared ahead, eyes intent on the road. "The only positive thing about being with a guy like that is the fact that he has a television show. Socially, he's a bit of a - "

"Naturally, that's what you're focused on," I said acidly.

"Don't pretend the fact that he has his own show on some network isn't a little bit of a turn on," she said condescendingly.

"It's not," I said indignantly. "I've never even seen the show. I'm not trying to 'date' him to get on TV, or to get a cut of his money or any of that. If that's why you think I'm interested in him, then clearly four years of being my best friend has taught you nothing about me."

"I didn't say that," she said simply.

"You insinuated," I said angrily.

"Whether I did or not, I think you're making a huge mistake," she said loftily. "And come Monday night, you're going to regret it."

"Fine," I said irately. "Fine. It's nice to know where you stand on the topic."

"It's just my opinion," Sophie said defensively. "By no means am I stopping you from going on a date with him. Go for it, give him a date he'll actually remember and be proud of."

"You're such a fucking bitch," I fumed. "Seriously, Sophie. Just .. forget I fucking mentioned it. Don't talk to me about it anymore."

"What," she said tiredly. "Don't be mad at me, Harlow."

"Just shut up, Sophie," I muttered. "I don't know why I even mentioned it."

Sophie was quiet for a minute as we continued slowly down the block. The houses in this neighborhood were huge. Some were four, five even six stories. It was the gated community of the rich elite of Villanova - the farther back you got in the compound, the bigger the houses, the larger the yards and the taller and wider the houses.

Normally, the drive to their house is a somewhat comical one. Sophie makes fun of me for gawking at all the mansions littered around the streets, I make fun of Soph for being a rich twat with no idea of the privileged life she had. This time around, the car ride was silent. You could've cut the tension with a knife.

I knew how Sophie felt about Ryan. And as much as she denied it, she had been brought up to think the way she did. No matter how hard she fought it, how hard she tried to rid herself of it, she would always have an aristocratic outlook. There was only good and bad. Rich and poor. The strong and the weak. And in her eyes, Ryan was all the negative. Maybe she was just tryin' to look out for me. Maybe she was just being a snob. I didn't know, but I didn't care.

It hurt my heart, I'm not going to lie. To have my best friend in the entire world feel so negatively about a guy I really - well, as far as I could tell, anyways - cared about. That was now two people - the only two in the entire world who's opinion actually mattered, actually - that thought this was a bad idea. I glared out the window, my face more than likely stony and angry. Inside, my heart felt like it was breaking in two. God damn best friends.

We pulled up to the broad, wrought iron gates of Kapor manor and Sophie slowed her car down to a full stop. She rolled down her window and pushed the small silver button on the intercom. The entire manor was surrounded with brick walls - there was no getting in (or out, really) without assistance from the inside.

"Kapor residence," a voice sounded from inside the box, a tired and irritable one. "How can I help you?"

"Sophie Kapor," Soph said blandly.

It was silent for a moment, but a faint buzzing sounded from behind the fence and the front gates creaked and slowly opened. A voice, much friendlier than the last sounded from inside of the intercom: "Welcome home, Miss Kapor."

Sophie's brow furrowed, and she proceeded to drive through the gates down the main cobblestone driveway. The driveway leading up to the house was a beautiful, picturesque one. Regardless of how I felt, I had to appreciate it. I glanced over at Soph, and even through my anger, I felt a pang of pity for her: this was not her home. It never had been, and it never would be. The lines set so deeply in her face told a story very different than the ones she spoke of to me. Her tough exterior had shifted, and for a moment, the little lonely Sophie I knew existed deep down shone through vividly. Even rocks crumble sometimes.

"You'll be fine," I said softly, before I could help it and against my deeply set irritation from only seconds earlier. "It'll be fine."

She nodded, and shot a very guilty look over at me. "I know. I'm sorry, Harlow."

"I volunteered to come," I sighed, looking out the window into the sunny, flawlessly kept grounds.

"Not for this," she said. "Well, yeah, for this. But .. for the other thing, too. Good luck, Lo. Call me as soon as you're done on Monday, lemme know how it went."

I nodded solemnly, and unbuckled my seatbelt as she came to a complete stop. The manor was visible now, tall and beautiful, nearly five stories tall. The rustic mansion was intimidating but familiar, the many butlers and assistants running out to greet us even more so.

"Fuck my life," Sophie muttered.

"Fuck both our lives," I agreed, flinging my door open before they could beat me to it - I hated it when they did that.

I caught a glimpse of a small, stocky man on the far edge of the lawn, hovering by the large elm trees at the entrance to the back grotto. He was limping, his tanned clothes splotchy with dark brown smears and face crumpled and scratched beyond recognition. He sniffled and grumbled, pacing back and forth, staring Soph and I down with intense curiosity. I'd seen him everytime since I came here, he always walked along the west walls. I'd never spoken to him before, or acted as if I had seen him, but I had heard his screams long into the night. Painful, piercing and hopeless.

"I think I'd rather be dead," Sophie said bitterly, as the brigade of the estate's employees stormed towards her.

"Trust me on this one," I said grimly, wincing from the gruesomely despondent howls piercing the afternoon air. "I don't think that's such a fabulous idea."

---

AUTHORS NOTE:

Hello! Before you yell at me and give me shit and throw things at me and kick my sorry ass, let me apologize! I suck, I know, I'm sorry! I had this chapter all planned out but it seemed like everytime I went to write something or finish a sentence or try and do anything at all on it, it turned out super crappy. I would literally be like " and then the - GAHHHHH THAT IS SO STUPID EFFFFF!?!?!?! ahfisafhasfjhjshfksh?!?! " Serious writers block, even though I knew exactly what I wanted to happen. I'm sure all you other writers know the extreme frustration I was feelin'. FML. I swear, I'm going to try and update quicker this time (y'know, within two weeks of this, haha). I LOVE YOU ALL, AND I'M SORRY I'M SUCH A TERRIBLE UPDATER. You guys deserve the best, and I am far from that. SO, I have some fabulous people I wanna thank for their even MORE fabulous reviews!

SurriB: I just wanted to let you know, you're dead sexy and your reviews always make me crap my pants in joy. Just a fun little fact, I hope you enjoy the mental image that goes along with it ;) BAHA. Thank you thank you thank you for the fantabulous review!
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Goody God, six reviews, you guys actually make my life. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Because I did not enjoy writing it. But next one will be better, I swear. I adore you guys, thanks so much for your reviews and your awesomeness, it really truly did make my week. UNTIL NEXT TIME (which I swear, won't be like 3 weeks again, honest!)

LOVE: Ellah!

PS: If this author's note made no sense, it's because I'm hopped up on Nyquil. Turns out someone has a sick sense of humor, and giving me a cold one week after H1N1 was the best idea they've ever had. BLAHHH.