Winter Wakes

Right before the sky was fully covered by night, the clouds had started to roll in, gorgeous—albeit ominous—fluffy, deep gray clouds. Like mis-dyed cotton candy they seemed to float lightly over head. Thunderstorms? I think not. This was January. It basically confirmed those clouds held only one thing. The funeral home saw a lot more business once those showed up. Power outages and bad driving conditions brought many coffin-bound clients. I couldn’t rightly say if I was more depressed or irritated by it—this time of year was inconveniently hectic.

The last few weeks, ever since I’d met Simon things had seemed to spin rapidly out of control. In the past twelve hours things had escalated to a level I never would have dreamed of. As though seeing a ghost wasn’t bad enough, learning he had been the result of a murder was the one thing I hadn’t wanted or expected to hear. Frankly it hadn’t looked like he had wanted to tell me, either.

Awkward wasn’t a valid term for this silence. The silk sheets that were clinched in my uninjured hand barely seemed enough to keep me from passing out or falling off the face of the earth. How long had I been sitting like this? A while. Neither one of us had been capable of saying anything after I’d asked that one, horrifying question. The only confirmation I’d received was this unending quiet.

“Shouldn’t you eat something?”

Now that’s what we needed; a random, seemingly trivial question to redirect our attention.

“Lost my appetite,” I muttered while continuing to stare at a blank spot on my wall. Nothing makes your stomach bottom out like the talk of murder.

“Really? You haven’t eaten since breakfast. It’s now 8:30 at night.”

“Not hungry.”

At this point the heavy, dreadful feeling in the air wasn’t enough to bother me. I was far more used to this feeling than the awkward, confused one that had been surrounding Simon in the past few days. What a welcome reprieve. Strange how I though that even when I expected what followed:

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. You can willingly eat or I can always shove it down your throat, you know,” He replied, monotone. Of course that didn’t lessen the threat of his words. Not one bit.

I brought my eyes up to meet his, in what I felt was a surprisingly hard glare for myself to muster after this horrible evening of information, “The health of the living matters to the dead, why?”

Why did I ask when the answer was so fucking obvious?

“Because, brat. I have no other link to the living world. Are you really that stupid?”

No, I wasn’t that stupid. I had a feeling something like that was coming. But that never told me why he needed me around, why he needed me as a connection to the living. He surely didn’t intend to seek out whoever had killed him and nearly killed his twin. Even if he did, what could he do? Take over my body once again and extract revenge? Leave me with a life long jail sentence that I had no control over? Frankly I wouldn’t put it past him. Fuck. My. Life.

“Food it is,” I heaved a sigh. Sliding off the side of my bed I tried to contemplate just what kind of food I wanted. Fettuccini alfredo didn’t sound too bad, but I shot that idea down almost immediately. That involved cooking, and quite frankly I didn’t feel like attempting to cook something with one hand. It just sounded dangerous. “Take out.”

“Too lazy to cook?” Simon drawled.

“I’m temporarily handicapped, jackass.”

“Pathetic excuse.”

I bit my lip as I stomped down the stairs, trying to hold back a tirade that included multiple f-bombs. I had already surpassed my quota of those today, I was pretty sure. Dad still wasn’t home at that point, not that I was surprised or anything. That funeral home meant late nights more often than not. I was used to eating by myself, whether it be cooking or fast food. For nights I really didn’t feel like creating a meal, or nights like this when I was in someway impaired I had an entire stash of menus for local restaurants in the drawer beside the silverware. Using my one good hand I managed to sift through the stack until I pulled out the only two that seemed even remotely appealing. I wasn’t going to admit it to Simon, but now that I’d begun to think about food I realized just how hungry I really was.

“Oy, ghost boy,” I stared down at the two menus. “Be useful and give me your opinion on these.”

I felt his cold presence behind me almost immediately, along with some daunting aura. Alright, so maybe ‘ghost boy’ hadn’t been one of my better moves.

“Your stupidity and rudeness have no limits, do they?”

I shrugged, not bothering to glance over my shoulder, “So, which one of these do you think?”

“Capri’s or Little Shogun,” One of his arms reached around me, lifting both menus before setting them back down on the marble countertop. I looked over at him slightly confused. A hint of mirth danced in his eyes, a mock smile tugging at his lips. “What, no 24-hour Mr. Waffle menu?”

I was a bit taken back by his attempt to joke around with me. This was what, the second time? It seemed out of character for the cold, almost anger-exclusive ghost. I swear to god it was hinting at bipolarity.

“Never mind, I forgot most things go over your head. Even jokes,” He was frowning again. And as of now I was fairly certain I was right. The guy was bipolar. “This one.”

He held up the Capri’s menu.

“Thanks,” I smiled, picking the Little Shogun menu up, and pulling out my phone. “You can put that one away, Simon, I don’t need it.”

“You can be a bitch, you know that right?” Simon growled, slamming the drawer shut after he placed the Capri’s menu inside. I merely shrugged. That had actually been the plan all along, whichever place he suggested, go to the other one. Good news was, I was craving Japanese. It also provided me with a chance to piss him off a little; I wasn’t sure just why I wanted to do that given his violent history. In a way my childish actions made me feel fuzzy inside. There was also a little piece of me that was irritated because I hadn’t picked up on his playful banter in time to prolong his better-than-usual attitude.

“Little Shogun, how may I help you?”

“Um, yes. Order for Walton. I need an order of the teriyaki steak and shrimp, steamed rice and no vegetables please. Extra teriyaki sauce,” I don’t know how many times I’d recited this order in the past, but now it was enough to where I had it completely memorized. You always had to say extra teriyaki sauce otherwise there wasn’t enough to cover half of your meal.

“The total is 11.37, it should be ready for pickup in about ten minutes.”

“Alright, thank you,” I snapped my phone shut. “Coming along, Simon?”

He stood with his arms crossed, leaning back against the kitchen table with a thoroughly bored look on his face, those damn blue eyes seeming to look thru me, not at me. “Might as well. If it’s too far away I’ll get pushed towards your location anyways.”

I frowned, grabbing my purse off the back of the chair beside the table and started digging around for my keys. I hated how those damned things always sunk to the bottom.

“Do you always have to be so negative?”

“Try being in my position and then see if you still have the nerve to ask me that,” He snapped.

I cringed slightly as I slid on my black coat. Admittedly he had me there. In fact the heavy weight of his words were beginning to sink in, I’d almost forgotten our little conversation earlier about how he died. Now it was fresh in my mind once again. My appetite also started slipping for the second time. I hadn’t really taken time to appreciate just how hard if was for him to try and joke with me earlier while I stood there like a mute, unresponsive idiot. Would I have been able to do that if I was the one in his place? My mind was strongly pulling towards no as I locked the front door behind me and walked to my car.
The sky had yet to open up; the only way in the black night to tell clouds even hung above my head was the lack of stars. The biting cold made a promise though that the night would not end without the clouds emptying themselves of their icy contents. I only hoped it would hold out until me and my father got home.

The ten minute drive to Little Shogun’s was quiet, only my XM radio on a very low setting disturbed the peace. Simon was there, in the passenger seat as opposed to the backseat for a change. His attention was focused out the window, probably doing his best to ignore my presence all together. For once I’ll admit I kind of deserved it.

The town lights finally came into view, a gas station to the left, a drug store to the right, along with various other expected factors of any place. The faded neon sign for Little Shogun came into view less than a minute after we hit the town limits. I parked up front in one of the two spots reserved for take out, buttoning up my coat in preparation for stepping out into the unpleasant cold once again.

“Hey, Simon?”

“What?” He remained turned towards the window. A bubble of frustration began to rise in me; it took a long breath in to contain it.

“I—“ I fumbled around for the right words. “I’m sorry for that comment earlier. I didn’t think.”

“No shit, you didn’t.”

I don’t know what I had been expecting, maybe a bit of understanding, something bordering kindness, perhaps? And I don’t know why I had thought maybe there was a smidgen of a heart buried somewhere underneath his cruel exterior. Why had I hoped when deep down I knew that blunt reply was probably all I was going to get? It didn’t stop the fact that it felt like a hard slap across the face, stunning me momentarily before I managed to regain my sense of self.

“Why do I even bother when you’re just going to do that?”

I slammed the door closed behind me, seeing no point in waiting for a response that more than likely wasn’t coming. I circled around to the nearest entrance of Little Shogun, pulling the heavy wooden door open with my uninjured hand. I usually used two hands; luckily my anger caused me to jerk it a little harder than I normally would have. I quickly scampered in, only to be greeted by the odd scent only Japanese restaurants seemed to have. The small Asian woman at the front counter looked up, thick side-swept black bangs falling in front of one of her eyes as she gave me a work-place smile.

“Hi,” I faked a smile as well. “Order for Walton.”

“Ah, Ms. Walton,” She turned to the few orders placed on the counter behind her, glancing at each ticket. She slowly turned to face me, a tight smile replacing the formerly work-friendly one. “It seems it’s not done quite yet. Let me go back and check on it. Why don’t you have a seat?”

With that she hastily walked off, black heels clacking against the floor. I wasn’t irritated, just tired after everything that had happened today. Getting my steak and shrimp, extra teriyaki sauce, no vegetables was the only thing on my mind aside from passing out in my bed shortly after eating.

“Maggie?”

I turned, walking past the figure of Simon who had spoken to me and plopping down on the old leather waiting bench in front of the counter. I glared up at him, not even bothering to reply. What the hell could he want now?

“How’re you and Darren doing?”

“Fine,” I hissed, preferring to omit the small detail of not talking to him for the past few days, actually, almost a week. I didn’t need something else for this horrid thing that I was forced to live with to rub in my face or bash me about. Also, it really wasn’t any of his business. Besides, what was this, another one of his attempts to divert my attention from the real situation at hand?

“Is it just you thinking you two are fine or is it really a consensual fine?”

This felt odd. These questions felt odd. Simon’s attention as he leaned on the archway to the part of the restaurant that served sushi felt really odd. He wasn’t looking at me as he spoke; he was looking at something in the other room. My gut instinct didn’t like it. There was a small voice in the back of my mind posing a dangerous-feeling point: Wasn’t Darren’s favorite food sushi?

“Honestly, this doesn’t look like you guys are fine to me,” Simon’s voice was starkly serious. His eyes shift their focus, opting to meet mine as opposed to continuing to stare into the room. They were riddled with something unusual: pity.

“Ms. Walton?”

I jumped, refocusing my attention on the woman behind the counter, a white bag sat before her. “Here’s your order.”

My legs felt shaky for the umpteenth time that day as I stood and managed to make my way to the counter feeling slightly dazed. I handed her my card, not really paying attention to what was going on.

“I think you need to take a look, Maggie,” The ghost stated.

Turning my head was more than a challenge, my skull felt like a bowling ball attached to my neck which strength-wise resembled a twig at the moment. I looked at Simon first, settling on him with a pleading stare only to be greeted by the same look of pity he’d given me thirty seconds before. The pale skin of his face and gleaming blue eyes vanished as he turned his head, my gaze shift in the direction I believed his eyes were now focused.

In the room before us people were scattered sparsely at a few tables, but there was only one couple settled in my direct line of sight. I recognized the mop of chestnut hair against the tanned skin immediately. The smile on his face was one familiar to me as well; that was the smile he had only shown to me in the past few years. That was my smile. But it wasn’t directed at me. Instead it was directed before him, to the girl with the bouncy strawberry-blonde hair before him. But for a second my heart lifted slightly. I was prepared to ignore it; there was no way something was going on with those two.

That was, until Darren’s strong tanned hand circled around the back of the girl’s head, pulling her face in towards his. Her strawberry blonde locks blocked the actual kiss from my line of sight, but I felt it all the same. I felt the impact in my chest, like a car hitting a wall at a dangerously high speed only to completely blow up on impact. One of the few remaining seemingly stable parts of my life just self-destructed before my very eyes.

“Ms. Walton? Here’s your card.”

I couldn’t look away; I felt the girl slide the card as it bumped my finger tips. I also felt a cold hand fall lightly on my shoulder, even through the warmth of my coat.

“I think we should go now, Maggie,” Simon’s voice stated softly. I managed a nod, heaving a ragged sigh as I turned to the counter to grab my dinner. Somehow I managed not to look back in that room although I desperately wanted to. I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t even mutter my thanks to the hostess as I left. Blinking a few times as I approached the heavy doors that led to the bitter cold outside I realized my lashes were wet, tears clinging to them.

“You need to make it home before you do that. Do you think you can hold it in until then, Maggie?”

I felt an angry sob forcing its way up my throat as I slammed my door shut behind me before starting my car engine. How dare he ask that of me right now? Somehow I managed to strangle the cry to silence as I pulled out of the parking lot, gripping the wheel fiercely. I wanted something stable in my life right now. I needed something stable with all of this chaos surrounding me. But that idea had been dashed away in the blink of an eye just now.

“He was probably just looking for some action or something,” Simon’s voice cut in on my frustrated train of thought. “She looked like your typical easy bimbo.”

I couldn’t hold it in, “Did she now Simon? Well that’s fucking great because that ‘easy bimbo’ also looked exactly like my best fucking friend!”

Saying that out loud made it all too real. Two people I trusted more than anything were doing something like that, with each other. Chassie and I had been best friends since elementary school.

“How could they?” The warm tears were now coursing freely down my cheeks, my breath hitching in my chest with every sob. “How fucking could they?”

The aching in my chest burned. Betrayal by one person you cared about was bad, but by two? That was a cruel pain beyond your worst imagination. If they could do that to you, did they really care at all? Had they ever cared?

My car came to a halt in my driveway, tears still rolling. Why was this happening to me? What had I done to deserve this?

“We need to get you inside, Maggie. It’s starting to snow,” Simon spoke gently. I felt my seatbelt undone, the keys removed from my ignition. Somehow I managed to pry myself away from the steering wheel, stumbling to my front door through the flurries that were beginning to fall. My eye sight was blurred from the tears, making it even more difficult for my fumbling fingers to get the key in the front door. My Japanese food was long forgotten in my car. I couldn’t eat.

I wore my coat up to my room, not bothering to remove it or my boots as I collapsed on to my bed, still crying. The only thing I could manage was curling up into a ball. I didn’t want to exist; if possible I just wanted to disappear.

I didn’t feel the bed shift; all I felt was a cold presence beside me. All I felt were cold fingers gently running through my hair over and over again.

“You don’t deserve that, Maggie,” He stated quietly above me. “It’s going to be okay, though. I promise. It’s going to be okay.”

I cried. It was all I felt like I could do then, just cry. I couldn’t get it through my head that it was going to be okay. How could it be okay? How could it be okay?