The Illusion of Separation

The phone rang at five thirty-two in the morning.

Usually I'm all for talking on the phone. I don't really text because I feel like it's impersonal and there are way too many times I've heard about where there were misunderstandings because you can't really see someone's expression through texts, emoticons or not. So for the most part if you want to reach me, you have to actually call me because I'll ignore any texts. But at an ungodly hour like five thirty-two a.m., especially on a school day, I was ready to raise hell. Oh yeah. Whoever was on the other end of the phone was going to fucking pay.

I rolled over under my blanket and groped around blindly for a little bit until my hand met my phone. Out of habit, I had memorized where the Talk button was and pressed it, bringing my phone to my ear, although as the person on the other end connected I noticed I was holding it upside down. Feeling stupid, I turned it the right way again.

"Yeah?" I asked. Forget fucking pleasantries.

"Oh, hey." It was Chris. Now you'd think I'd cheer up and sit up and daydream about the two of us in a field of flowers kissing and cuddling and watching the stars. And that would be all good and nice, but there was that one crucial fact that it was way too early in the morning for me to even think about being civil, Chris or not. I don't care if the fucking president is on the phone, I'm not going to be agreeable that early. Especially not on a school day when I knew I was not going to get back to sleep. "Hey, Hannah. Whassup?"

Was he drunk? No, he couldn't really touch solid objects and he had no real need to eat or drink as a ghost. He couldn't be high. Could he? God, it would be just like him to get high, and just like Carter to let him after lecturing him a little.

So like the master of subtlety I am, I asked, "Christofer Drew Ingle, are you high?"

He laughed a little. "Maaaaybe."

"Oh my god." I hung up the phone and let him wade in his own stupidity for about four minutes before I called back, too concerned about where he was to leave him alone for too long. Chris did stupid stuff when he got high, and if he wasn't constantly supervised he could get in some deep shit. Yeah, he was at Carter's, but Carter's house wasn't protected by a force field or anything. Chris could still get out.

"Done being an asshole yet?" Chris asked before I even had a chance to say anything.

"Christofer, shut the fuck up. I'm not being an asshole, okay? You're the one that decided to get high even though you have no clue what it could do to you. You don't know what anything could do to you so you have to be careful about these things. And what if you got high and somehow it made people able to feel you and you went outside and ran into someone on the street, huh? How would you explain the fact that they just ran into an invisible teenage boy?"

"Awh, Hannah. You don't mean that."

"Uhm, yeah, Chris, I do." He really was high. He wasn't even listening to what I was saying by now. "Truth is sometimes you have to grow up, okay, Chris? Sometimes you can't just do stupid things because you want to. Sometimes you have to think about the consequences of your actions, but wait, you won't do that because you're Mister Christofer Ingle. You're all havin' fun up on your high horse and you think you can do anything. You're irresponsible, Chris, you know that?" I hadn't meant it to be a rant and I certainly hadn't meant to get mad at Christofer, but come on. There was such a thing as having too much fun.

"Well, shut my mouth," he said in an exaggerated Southern accent. There was a laugh behind his voice, like he still thought I was kidding.

God, I hated him right now.

It wasn't even that I didn't like him having fun. It was that he couldn't have it all the time like he wanted. Life wasn't a game like he treated it as. Sometimes you had to fucking man up and look at where the hell you were gonna be in a few years if you continued down this path. We needed to find a way to bring Christofer back and pass him on, as painful as that would be, and here he was getting high and calling me at five thirty-two in the fucking morning.

I sighed. It was all I could do; there weren't words to explain how I was feeling.

"Cheer up, sunshine," he said quietly, and I could just about imagine him sitting there on my bed, his finger gently lifting my chin up. I swear I could see those eyes and the affection in them for me. I don't mean to sound like a repeat of every cheesy romance movie you've ever seen, but that's how it is when you're in love.

I let myself smile a little and traced the patterns on my blanket with a finger. "Y'know I can never stay mad at you."

"I know. Hey, I'm coming over, okay?"

"Yeah, sure--" I started, but was interrupted by him having a coughing fit. "Chris? You alright?"

"Shit, must be catching a cold," he muttered on the other end of the line.

"Chris?"

"Yeah?"

"Dead people don't catch colds. Get the fuck over here right now. Actually, no, have Carter drive you to school. I'll meet you in the bathroom or something." I didn't even wait for him to say anything back; the phone was already hung up and I was racing to get dressed. This was definitely a problem. I may not have been a parapsychologist, but I knew for certain that ghosts were not supposed to cough or catch colds.

Things just got a lot more serious.