Hello, Can You Please Stop Haunting Me?

“You alright there, buddy?” a fellow classmate, Douglas Lee asked Zach who was clutching his head. Zach could only nod weakly before poising his hand over the canvas. His fingers gripped the black paintbrush harder, almost splitting them to two pieces. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that he had no idea what he was doing.

“I know someone who sells weed here. I can introduce him to you if you want,” Douglas whispered, winking. Zach looked at him, horror-stricken.

“Um, I’m…fine, thank you.”

After the bell rang, Zach was the last person left in the classroom. His fingers were smeared with an assortment of odd colors. Their theme for today was something quirky, after all. It gave him a reason to not care much of what he was painting and if anyone were to ask, he would just tell them, “it’s okay, I’m an artist.”

“Hello?” A voice echoed around the room, startling Zach. More surprisingly, the voice belonged to Eliza. He stopped shoving his paintbrushes into his bag and looked around the empty room awkwardly.

“Um, Mrs. Clark has already left.”

“Actually, I was searching for you,” she said, closing the door behind her. He continued packing up his art supplies, the sound of her footsteps made a shiver of anticipation ran down his spine. He began to wonder what on earth Eliza wanted to say.

The sound of footsteps stopped abruptly and out of curiosity and trepidation, he turned around and came face-to-face with Eliza, who was for some odd reason, studying his features with an innocent look on her face.

Even though he was still feeling a bit piqued about everything around him, the face that Eliza made was making him slowly smile, even if he didn’t want to.

She leaned closer till her lips were next to his right ear. “I want to apologize.”

“Me too,” he whispered back, holding her shoulders firmly. “I snapped. I shouldn’t have. But it’s just one of those times where I lose my temper and lose sight of my patience. It shouldn’t happen in the first place but I just got so angry and…” he trailed off, feeling his ego taking a hit.

She shook her head. “I didn’t even consider…I just forced these problems of mine down your throat and expected you to help me and that was selfish of me,” she said, a soft chuckle escaped her lips. “I hope you can find a place in your heart to forgive me.”

“But the thing is I want to help. It just gets…overwhelming at times. And school’s been stressing the shit out of me,” he muttered, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ve always been told to ignore the sort of supernatural stuff since I was a little kid. And I’m afraid that I’ve crossed this invisible line somewhere.”

Eliza nodded silently, not sure of what to do next.

His finger lingered over a lock of her hair before tucking it behind her ear.

“You won’t push away this time, will you?” He said, sounding cautious and self-conscious. Eliza couldn’t help but to laugh before shaking her head ‘no’. She closed her eyes and felt his warm thumb caressing her cheeks. He pressed his lips lightly on her forehead, to her nose before grazing her upper lip.

Right at that moment, Eliza remembered something.

“I’ve something to tell you,” she murmured under her breath but Zach hushed her with a kiss.

“Damn it,” he suddenly hissed when he looked at her.

“Um…not really the reaction I expected—”

“No, no! It’s not that!” He laughed before showing Eliza his hands. She slowly touched her cheeks with the tips of her fingers.

“You painted on my cheeks!” She exclaimed, laughing too.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m an artist.”

They laughed a bit more before he wiped the paint off of her cheeks with his sleeve. Zach then took her hand in his and walked with her out of the classroom.

She closed her eyes once more, trying to calm herself down. She felt as if everything was moving too fast for her to comprehend. Eliza squeezed Zach’s hand. Her heart was pounding so fast that it made her feel light-headed.

Yes, they had a lot to talk about still. And she was sure that neither one of them knew where their relationship might be heading and what the future had in store for them. She wasn’t as bold as Zach when it came to the opposite gender.

She glanced at Zach. There was…a sense of warmth growing inside her stomach. It was tingling, almost ticklish. Eliza always tried to ignore and keep quiet about the odd feeling, mostly because she had more concerning things plaguing her mind i.e. a dead boy haunting her.

“We really need to talk about this. The kisses. Everything,” she said.

He nodded in agreement.