Hello, Can You Please Stop Haunting Me?

“Ellie, Eliza. What do you think you’re trying to do?” Jeremy hissed as Eliza kept ignoring him over the past 5 minutes. “We were in a middle of a very serious conversation. It’s very rude…to…call out a dead person’s sister to…do whatever you—what do you want to do anyway?”

“Eliza?” Mia said, snapping Eliza out of a trance. Eliza was sitting on the front lawn, observing the space where the ghost yakking next to her probably played in countless of times when he was alive.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling. “It’s just that there’s this…annoying voice, playing over and over in my head.”

She surreptitiously shot a glare at Jeremy.

“You’re an idiot,” Jeremy said. This time, he wasn’t in his joking-around-manner. No, he was really pissed off. “You didn’t think this through, did you? You think you can waltz into my…my former neighborhood, drag my sister out of the house and then what? What do you really wanna do, huh, Eliza? Some sort of a fucking confrontation?!”

Mia jumped and looked around frantically.

Whatever Jeremy was going to say next, he didn’t as the both of them looked at Mia, panic-stricken.

“What did you just do?” Eliza muttered under her breath.

“I swear on my father’s grave, I don’t know.”

“I thought your dad’s not dead yet?”

“I know. I wish he was.”

“Who are you talking to?” Mia suddenly said, the same hesitance and doubt written all over her face as if she was contemplating whether going out with an eccentric, complete stranger who seemingly talked to herself was a bad idea or a horrible idea.

Maybe it was a horrible idea, Mia thought.

Eliza licked her dry lips nervously. Oh, Jeremy was right. She didn’t think it through. She didn’t know what she was doing there except with the idea to ‘help Jeremy’. But what if she caused more pain by just telling Mia that yes, her brother’s dead but he was hanging out with Eliza a lot and it was still a freaky thing to experience, just saying?

And what if Mia believed Eliza? Then what? Would Mia ever be able to let go of her brother?

“This is not happening right now,” Jeremy said, his voice quivering. “I’m leaving. See ya.”

“No, wait!”

Eliza looked at Mia, her heart beating faster than before. So she could hear him?

“No, wait…?” Eliza trailed off, beckoning Mia to explain. Which was pretty difficult, she assumed, considering that Mia looked very much confused. Mia got up, looked around as her eyes were shrouded with fear and confusion at the same time.

Eliza wondered if she looked like that the first time she met Jeremy too.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “I must be out of my mind; I keep hearing…this person’s voice.”

“Amelia?” Jeremy said, disbelievingly but for some reason, Mia didn’t hear him then.

Eliza smiled warily. “You might think I’m weird, but you could say I’m hearing the same voice.”

“That’s okay,” Mia nodded, shrugging. “I already think you’re weird.”

They caught each other’s eyes and a moment later, laughed. As soon as the laughter died down, Eliza regained her confidence back and she began to talk about how a couple of weeks ago, nearly a month now, she encountered a person called Jeremy Pike.

And so it began. The disbelief in Mia’s eyes, the nervous giggles and then the awkward silence as her brain was trying to process everything in. But somewhere in between, there would be always the flicker of hope portrayed in her eyes. The hope – almost begging – that Eliza wasn’t a complete lunatic and that Jeremy was in fact, beside her, looking at his sister with a heartbroken look that tore Eliza’s own heart.

“So…so what is he trying to say?” Mia said awkwardly.

Eliza smiled, feeling the overwhelming emotions thrashing in her veins. And just like that, Jeremy cooperated with Eliza, accepting the new fact that the girl could be a tremendous amount of help than he could’ve ever imagined. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Jeremy is saying that he misses you a lot. He went down the wrong road, he regretted letting you down. And more than anything else, he wishes that you won’t choose the same road either.”

She shook her head, hugging her legs and resting her chin on her knees. “Never.”

“Good, at least I know you’re smarter than I am,” Jeremy said and Eliza repeated his words. Mia chuckled lightly, rubbing her nose.

“I’m always smarter than you, big bro.”

“He’s sorry for leaving you alone,” Eliza said gently. “He really is,” she added. “He says, even though you broke his computer a couple of months ago…and after that you broke his PSP – nice, by the way – you’ll always be the little sister that he would forever cherish. Even if he isn’t…” she trailed off.

“No. I’m sorry,” Mia whispered. “I should’ve known something was up. I should have,” said Mia. “When…I mean, that day. That day before he…jumped, I mean. He went to my room and he hugged me before saying that he loves me very much. And then he just left. I didn’t give much thought of it, I just thought it was him being random again. But…I could’ve stopped it—”

Eliza shrugged. “I don’t think you could have.”

Mia looked at Eliza, her eyes filled with tears. “What?”

“He’s a pretty stubborn kid. Determined, if you must. He made up his mind on that day, Mia. You didn’t know. No one knew, not even his closest friends in school. He made up his mind.”

She moved closer to Mia and hugged her. “You look like someone who really could benefit from a hug right now,” she said, patting Mia’s back as she cried.

Mia didn’t do anything but cried that day, blurting out everything to Eliza. And by the end of the day, Mia did get hurt in the end but by telling everything to Eliza, the burden that she had been carrying around on her shoulders felt lighter somehow.

For the first time in the most excruciating years she had ever experienced, Mia felt relieved.