Hello Brooklyn

Brooklyn sat on the couch, staring at Alex while he watched TV. It was quite creepy to have a ghost in the house, but it was better than being alone. Alex’s laugh traveled to her ears and bounced off of the walls. It was a very distinct laugh.

“How are you not laughing? This is hysterical!” He glanced her way and quickly focused back on the screen.

“I stopped watching Dragon Tales when I turned eight.” Alex rolled his eyes and waved the comment off.

“You’re never too old to enjoy this stuff.” Brooklyn wanted to point out that he couldn’t in fact age at all, so it didn’t matter how old he was… but she let it slide. “Wheezy is so funny.” His joyous smile brightened the room, despite the fact that he wasn’t actually all there.

The door bell rang, forcing Brooklyn to jump out of her thoughts. She stood up from her couch and cracked her back. The door bell rang once more. “I’m coming!” She looked out of the peek-hole to see a boy with skunk hair and skinny jeans. She had no clue who the guy was, or why he was ringing her door bell obnoxiously.

She opened it up and the boy looked at her, confused, “Can I help you?” she asked, also a little befuddled.

“Are you one of Alex’s hook-ups or something?” Brooklyn raised an eyebrow and placed a hand on her hip.

“Excuse me?” She looked at him agape.

“Where is the man whore anyway?” Skunk-boy pushed her out of the way and walked into the house.

“Whoa… what the hell happened in here? Alex remodel or something?”

“Okay stranger… For one, who the hell are you? And secondly, Alex is-”

“Hey! Jack!” Alex called, now at the top of the stairs, “Long time no see!” He walked down quickly. It might seem funny if he ran down and there were no foot step sounds to match it, “You got out?”

“Yeah, thought I’d come visit you,” Jack tried to approach him, but Alex backed away subtly.

“That’s great brah. Can you give us a second?” He made a hand motion between Brooklyn and himself. Jack nodded and walked into the kitchen.

“Love the new countertops!” his voice rang out.

“What the fuck? Is he dead too?” Brooklyn hissed.

“No… remember he was in rehab? He doesn’t know that I’m… you know.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t anyone tell him?” You’d think someone would want to know if their best friend had passed on.

“They thought it would affect his recovery,” Alex shrugged and gave a ghostly sigh.

“You better go tell him!” Brooklyn waved Alex on encouragingly.

“I’m going to wait. I don’t want him to freak out terribly,” Alex had a slight point, but it wasn’t like Jack wasn’t going to freak out anyway. Boys can be so stubborn.

Alex avoided Jack for the rest of the night. Brooklyn looked on as they caught up. Jack told Alex about how he had gotten a job at a coffee shop in the heart of the city. Alex lied to Jack and told him that he worked at Chuck E Cheese. How creative…

“So what’s the deal with you?” Jack crossed his oh-so skinny legs and leaned back in his chair, staring Brooklyn down.

“I'm uhmm,” she struggled to find a lie about her reasoning for being here, “Alex’s girlfriend. Yeah… that’s it,” She looked over at the ghost on her recliner and saw that his eyes were wide in shock. Alex knew that if he had blood, he’d be blushing bright red.

“Whoa-hoa… now we’re getting somewhere,” Jack bobbed his eyebrows up and down. Brooklyn rolled her eyes- she’d been doing that a lot more since Alex started showing himself three days prior.

After discovering his presence, Brooklyn had been more agitated. She turned back to the television set and stole the remote from Jack, "What are you doing? I'm watching that!" he whined.

"But Jack, we've been watching Blue's Clues for three hours now, I want to watch my soap opera. This is my T.V.."

"Nuh-uh."

"Yeah-huh."

"Nuh-uh," he said defensively, crossing his arms, "This is Alex's."

She sighed, ready to smash her head into the wall, "Alex's television broke, so I brought mine over since I'm here almost all the time," She leaned back to look at Alex, who was standing in the middle of the room, "Right hunny-kins? I practically live here."

He looked angry. She smiled, satisfied and turned back to changing the channel, "Am I interupting something?" Jack asked innocently, pointing back and forth at them.

"No," they both chorused.

Putting on her soap, Brooklyn leaned back into the sofa. She noticed the silence after twenty minutes. Looking over, she saw Jack on his stomach on the floor, his head propped up by his hands. He was the picture of relaxation as he kicked his legs lazily in the air, "That Stephano is a bastard," he muttered as a commercial came on.

Alex looked equally relaxed on the chair on the other side of the room, "I know," he said, "That guy, he just never dies."

She gave them skeptical looks. They watched 'Days of our Lives'? "I know someone else who never dies," she murmered looking at screen.

She felt eyes burrowing into her head from two different directions. Looking at Jack, he was confused and then turning to Alex, who was angrily glaring at her, she threw her hands in the air, "What?" she cried.

Jack turned to the screen, afraid that he'd do something wrong. Alex shook his head after a few moments then turned his attention back to the soap opera.