Winter Wakes

Facing unpleasantries while I slept was nothing new by this point; if they weren’t induced by Simon himself they surely pertained to him or some way he had affected my life. In all honesty a pleasant dream was far more rare and desired after constant nights of tossing and turning in torment. But these bad dreams had never been anything I couldn’t handle.

At least twice I could recall dreams of my own books attacking me in swarms with piranha like vigor and intentions; although as opposed to teeth gnashing viciously at my flesh their tiny, razor sharp leaflets had laden my skin with innumerable cuts. That was a pain I held to be worse than being eaten alive.

Other nights provided the ghost himself torturing me maliciously with various objects, up to and including a cheese-grater. Let me be honest—waking up from that was enough to make me shudder and distance the pull of sleep from my eyes for a few minutes. No matter what though, I had always been able to fall back into a slumber, if not a restless one.

Tonight though, things were different.

My eyes were trained meticulously on the white wall that usually harbored the jittery shadow of tree limbs just outside my window. The moon had either hid itself behind a barrier of clouds or been blacked out completely due to its monthly cycle. This was actually the second night in a row I yearned for its light to be dancing against my wall. What now plagued me behind shut eyelids was worse than a nightmare; far, far worse. The amount of terror that was distilled in my system seemed more than enough to keep me from sleep; and enough to terrify me beyond being able to roll over and denounce the dream’s abominable contents.

The impossible had already come to be once, in the most obscure of ways. Thus it made something as ridiculous as a dream seem plausible, and beyond possible.

Managing to bite back the strangled whimper that threatened to slide through my lips was far more difficult than it should have been. It wasn’t the possibility of pulling a reaction from my violence prone companion, no. It was quite the opposite. What if there was no one there to get a response from?

The gut-wrenching sensation evoked by that mere thought combined with the recollection of strong yet muddled images from my dreams seemed to make everything involving Darren as of late resemble nothing more than a tiny fleck on my emotional radar. Considering the magnitude of havoc he had wreaked on me both mentally and emotionally, it should have been impossible for anything to feel worse than that, not to mention completely and utterly bogus. Yet I should have known, even in the darkest depths of pain and fear, Simon could endow you with something beyond the reaches you thought were your limits. Holding true to that, the fear that held my body rigidly still and incapable of something as simple rolling over could be traced back to one very liable source.

Still fixated on the dim wall on which my vanity and closet were lined though, I currently found it very hard to feel bitter, or even remotely hateful towards him. The emotion that stemmed from my dark, sleep-robbing dream could only be described as needy. Every other emotionally responsive facility I could have previously laid claim to had either been cut from my life entirely or had become unreliable due to the current situation. It wasn’t as though my father had shut himself out of my life as Chassie or Darren had done, I was the one who had to keep him at bay. There would have been no way to make sense of this inconceivable situation to him.

Flipping through the catalogue of faces in my mind, it couldn’t have been more obvious why my hatred for Simon couldn’t currently be fueled, even to an ember. He—

“So you are awake after all.”

Where his sudden appearance before me, kneeled down so we were eye-to-eye naturally should have made me jump, in a nonsensical manner it actually calmed me down. The familiar white-blonde curls haloing his glowing and semi-translucent features brought an unnatural wave of relief which usually didn’t accompany his presence. None of these things were common or rational things to feel while dealing with Simon Dreyton.

“Or do you just sleep with your eyes open?” His own shining blue irises alight with a piqued curiosity.

“There’s a scar in your left eyebrow,” I stated, noting the barely noticeable line of what would have been flesh in life cutting a small strip through his now raised eyebrow. Consciously he lifted his hand to run his fingers over the small imperfection.

“Well you’ve got a freckle on your lip.”

And it was quite literally on my lip. If I would have favored lipstick it would have been something easily covered. But I had never liked the stuff, besides; it wasn’t something creepily huge and gaudy. Still my tongue temporarily found itself running along the right arch of my top lip and across the spot he was referring to.

I shrugged, “Birthmark.”

“My first lacrosse game, the guy who hit me was Arnold Hoggins. He was the biggest motherfucker I’ve ever played,” He countered. “So just what’re you doing up?”

A small prick of satisfaction hit me as I realized Simon had just engaged me in what could have been deemed a normal conversation. Then I processed the second part of what he had said. I could almost feel my willingness to converse with him clam up and dissipate completely.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Just like last night?” He replied quickly.

A few strands of my brown hair slid in front of my right eyes as we engaged each other in a silent stare-off.

“Nightmares,” I muttered, divulging the half-truth. “How did you know I was awake?”

He didn’t blink, “That’s simple: You stopped snoring.”

“I don’t snore.”

“Oh yes you do, pretty loudly.”

“Fuck off, liar.”

“Me? A liar? You should just be grateful I only shove socks down your throat for the sounds you make when you’re awake.”

I tried my best to only give him a blank stare in return, but I realized no matter how hard I tried it was going to be impossible to maintain. Instead I settled for rolling over, where the darkness of the night couldn’t be denied in contrast with the few white flakes through the January air. It was snowing again, yes. But not near hard enough to add any damage that its predecessor blizzard had left in its wake. This was a calm, peaceful fall.

Peaceful. That was one word I wouldn’t use to describe my life.

“Bitchery doesn’t get us anywhere, Maggie. So why not just tell me what’s got you awake at 4:30 in the morning and in such a foul mood?” His words may have come across as caring had it not been for the slight underlying edge in his tone.

Past experiences had shown starting a fight with Simon was not the wisest thing for me to do, but this was something I certainly held as not up for discussion.

“Why do we always have to talk when you want to, huh?” I snapped. “It’s not fucking fair I have to tell you everything but you—you don’t tell me a goddamn thing unless you feel like it. You are the most selfish, hypocritical bastard I’ve ever had the displeasure of coming in contact with.”

The words that so maliciously rolled off my tongue were the only thing I could think of on a moment’s notice to possibly shut down Simon’s train of thought, or at least derail it for a while. Right now I was willing to deal with a pissed off ghost if it meant surpassing a discussion of what was bothering me. With open arms I would even greet hell-fire and brimstone as opposed to that.

“Alright, fine. Have this one your way,” The tell-tale traces of anger in his voice didn’t slip past me. “But Friday night things will go the way I want. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. I’m sure that’s not too hard to understand, is it, Maggie?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Friday night held absolutely no meaning for me. Trying to recollect if anything came to mind in relation to it, I could only draw blanks. There was nothing particularly significant about that day, was there?

“My, my, Maggie. You’re really not a good friend at all, are you?” His taunting words struck the chord they probably were meant to as he stepped into my line of vision once again; this time he remained standing up, leaning slightly against the edge of the window. His arms that were capable of touching and supporting, but unable to receive such treatment were firmly crossed over his chest, hands nestled in the crook of the opposing elbow. The white walls around him dulled in comparison to his ivory, lucid skin.

The negative emotions I had been desire-less to channel towards him minutes before suddenly began to bubble angrily in my chest, “What did you do, Simon?”

I had come to learn that sometimes when Simon was pissed, the haughty-yet-calm-due-to-satisfaction look would appear on his face. This meant there was probably some kind of obligatory action I was going to be forced to take thanks to something he did without my knowledge. How right I was.

“Because of the horrible weather we’ve had, the Delta boys had to postpone their beginning of the year soirée,” He tossed the statement out as though it was of no consequence. We both knew how false that was. “Katie’s extremely glad you decided to go with her.”

“Delta boys” had been enough to set me on edge; I despised fraternities just as much as I did their whore counterparts in the sororities. Idealistically I would have preferred to keep the same amount of distance between them and myself as I would have between someone infected by the black plague. Both carried deadly diseases, just one was venereal while the other was airborne. Still though, I’d prefer not to take my chances.

From the sound of things I’d be risking my health without any say whatsoever.

“How does ‘Hell fucking no you sleazy ghost bastard’ sound?” I inquired calmly.

“It doesn’t sound like you said anything, actually. What part of ‘you don’t have a say in it’ does not process for you?” The soft, deadly tone I had become rather well acquainted with began to rear its head again, along with an icy glare that was colder than the world outside my window. Perhaps Simon and I were reverting back to square one.

“Maggie, this is of significant importance, this party is not going to be missed, nor are you going to treat it as such a light matter. I hope you can at least process that much,” Simon’s tone had switched as suddenly as a clear July afternoon could become a vicious hail and lightening filled death-trap. The only difference was how serious he sounded as opposed to cold and distant moments before. It was enough to make my shoulders tense beneath the navy silk. The implied significance he seemed to be giving this fraternity bash only helped to usher forward the thought that maybe this wasn’t just about him wanting to relive his glory days as a fraternity boy through me. Now that most of the hazards left by the snow-storm had dissipated it seemed we were finally going to be able to get back on track with the real situation that tied us together. At least the idea behind attending parties while I attended Brown University was beginning to take shape, no matter how much I disliked it.

“Was that your fraternity, Simon?”

“A little more than that, actually,” The bitter smile that turned up the corners of his lips could only be matched by the dark glimmer in his eyes. “I died in their living room.”

The inclination I’d had of the situation may have involved seemed to verify itself with that revelation. I wondered just how similar our trains of thought were right now, did he think someone in that house could have been his killer? The idea that someone I may meet in that place could have it in them to take another’s life left my head spinning slightly. I had unknowingly and unwillingly signed up for this.

“Did they have something against you that would make them want you dead?” I whispered.

Simon moved then, walking over to my bedside with a few quick steps. He knelt down again elbows resting on his thighs as he fixed me with an unreadable gaze, “I was the dean’s son, Maggie. Everyone hated me.”

My throat seemed to tighten then; pity, panic, and worry flooded me all at once in a tidal wave that threatened to temporarily carry away my sanity. Students of the Ivy League caliber with intentions such as this were not something I would have been able to fathom had I not been thrown into this situation. How truly vicious were these smart, gifted students that tromped around the same campus I did every day?

“Get some sleep now, Maggie. You’ve got class tomorrow remember?” Simon chided quietly. I nodded once before memories of why I was up in the first place came rushing back. They prompted the next words to fall from my mouth without as much as a second thought, partially due to this horrifying conversation we had just engaged in. I had to ask, otherwise it would eat away at me until I did, despite my fear of what the answer may be.

“Simon, when we find your killer, what happens… to you?”

The room became silent for a moment, the ghost’s face pensive as my words hung heavily in the air. Gently one of his hands came up, a cool sensation brushing against my cheek as he pushed a few strands of my dark hair away.

“Sleep, Mags. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” The softness in his words offered no consolation though. I could only watch him warily as he stood and retreated to the window seat.

Things were changing; neither of us could deny that. But one thing that neither Simon nor I could predict was in what ways this party was going to propel us towards the answer to the question he had denied me the answer to.

One thing I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt though, I couldn’t take it if Simon, the egotistical, violent, yet secretly caring ghost vanished from my life. Then, the black hole left by my mother’s death years before certainly would consume me.