Beetlejuice and Lydia

Climbing into the casket and getting out wasn't as bad the second time. Beetlejuice had to help me out of the casket though, because it was steep. I clutched to him as I got my barrings. We were in a community that looked eerily familiar to me.

"Where are we?" I asked as Beetlejuice pulled away from me and jumped back down into the hole.

"We're in Adam's model." He said, climbing back out with a dark liquid in a glass. He ripped the cork out with his teeth as he began walking down the street, chugging down a large gulp and not waiting for me as I stared in wonder at the model. Sure enough, I could see the attic walls in between the houses. All of the star lights were on overhead, and it gave the appearance of nighttime.

"This is amazing." I breathed to Beetlejuice as I caught up with him. Even the streetlights were on.

"Yeah, yeah. This way." He said. I followed him, towards the model that looked like my house. He started to climb up the hill effortlessly, me following behind him. When we got to the hill, he began to climb up the front of the house.

"Where are we going?" I asked him, huffing as I followed him.

"Towards the roof!" He yelled down to me. When I finally reached the roof, he was laying down, the bottle next to him.

"Want some?" He asked, offering me the bottle. I had never had anything stronger than wine before, and for some reason it seemed like an opportune moment to me.

"Sure." I said, taking the bottle from him. I took a huge swig of it without even thinking about it. It tasted horrible to me at first as I started coughing. I took another swig to ease the coughing fits. It tasted a little better the second time.

"Isn't this amazing though?" I said, looking around the entire town. Somehow, I liked this town a whole lot more than the actual one. There was no bitchy girls from school hanging around the schoolhouse smoking cigarettes, no judgmental gaggle of old ladies in the beauty salon. There was no parents ready to judge me even before I open my mouth to say anything in the house below me.

"I come up here a lot when I need to think. I hope you don't mind, but I uh kind of took your bedroom." He said, giving me a guilty look as he sat upright next to me.

"That's alright." I said, taking another sip out of the liquor bottle. We were silent for a while until I asked what has been bothering me ever since we left the courtroom. "What's your problem with the judge?"

"What? Devora? Nothing. Nothing's my problem." Beetlejuice denied. I smiled.

"Liar."

"What? Why would I lie? How could I have a problem with the judge? Five fucking years is going to take forever to get his damn approval though, you know." Beetlejuice said, taking a swig of the liquor.

"Well, I'm sort of glad." I said, taking a swig after him.

"Why?" I didn't answer right away. Instead, I admired the quiet town a little more.

"You know what? I think I like Adam's model better than the actual town. This towns too judgmental on anything the can't understand. And me? I like what I can't understand the best. I don't get it, these people. Maybe that's why I always feel so alone among the living." I said. Beetlejuice wrapped his arm around my shoulders awkwardly.

"You're not alone, Lyds. Look, you have your dad and Deelia."

"That's not what I mean. They don't understand me. I only have three people that understand me in this world. Well there was four, and they're all dead." I tried to blink back the tears from crying. "Mom's gone. She has been for a while now. Adam and Barbra are on vacation, and I don't know when they're going to be back. Now you're leaving, so I won't have anybody." By the end I was crying. I turned and buried my head into Beetlejuice's shoulder. He hugged me back.

"Lydia, you're drunk, okay? You need some sleep." He said and began to get up.

"No!" I said, grabbing onto his shirt. "I need you, Beetlejuice. I need you to stay here with me."

"Then why the hell didn't you say something back before we even walked into the courtroom? I would have stayed." This caught me by surprise.

"You would have?" I asked, looking up at him in wonder. I was standing next to him now, my head on his shoulder.

"Sure. I mean, yeah. Not necessarily because of you. Well sort of. But that's not what I'm getting at." I giggled.

"You like me." I said.

"What? No. Come on now. You're my best friend." He denied.

"You like me."

"You think I'm disgusting."

"You like me."

"You think it's funny every time a Saturn Worm tries to eat me."

“Oh come on, stop letting it be about what I think. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I've been lying to you about this all along." I said to him. Beetlejuice didn't say anything. He was looking straight ahead, staring at something that I didn't care to look for. Instead I used this as an opportune moment to kiss him. A little to my surprise but not by a lot, he kissed me back. Then he pulled away, his hands around my waist.

"Do you?"

"Do I do what?" I asked.

"Do you...you know...like me by any chance? As more than friends?" He asked me. I giggled and kissed him again.

"Yeah." I said. I kissed him harder on the mouth, trying to get as close as possible to him.

"Come on, Lyds. Let's get you to my room. Then we can talk about it." He said, and walked over to one of the windows in the house. He beckoned me over. I followed him through the bare small attic, down the artificial steps and into my room. Everything was too small in the house, until we got to his room where the ceiling was expanded higher, and there was a step down that my actual room didn't have. His closet door was hanging open, and on the floor covering most of it was a large furry rug. Papers were stacked on a shelf on the other side of the room as well as a few books, with another shelf just above it stacked with bottles of booze. A king size bed was sitting in the mist in all of it, covered in a red blanket.

Beetlejuice helped me over to the bed and sat me down on it. I began taking my top off, and I saw his eyes grow wide.

"Lyds, what the hell are you doing?" He asked me.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm taking my top off."

"You're going to regret this."

"No I won't."

"Do you want to bet on that?"

"Yes."

"Wow. You sound so serious."

"I think I am serious."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Positive?"

"Betel-

"Really?"

"Beetlejuice."

"What?"

"Shut up."

"...Okay."


It's funny, how coming back from the afterlife works. When I woke up next morning, I felt groggy, like I had been hit by a bag of cement blocks. Of course, that could have been the after effects of the amount of booze I drank last night as well. It didn't take as long as I thought it would have in the afterlife, but then again maybe Beetlejuice sucked at keeping time as much as I did.

Beetlejuice.

I remembered falling asleep in his arms last night, and despite myself I smiled. I turned over in bed to face the window behind me, and instantly buried my head into the pillow. The sun was too bright, it felt like someone was trying to stab my eyes out of my eye sockets.

I got up from bed, holding my head as I did so, and walked to my closet to pick out my clothes. What I needed right now was a nice, long hot shower. I stumbled down the hallway to the bathroom, careful to hold onto the banister when I stumbled close enough to it, before I finally made it to the bathroom.

I flipped on the shower to hot as it could possibly go without scalding me alive before I began to strip down, humming to myself as I did so. I was down to my undergarments when I felt my stomach knot up and bile begin to rise up my throat. I quickly leaned down and threw up in the toilet, knowing that Deelia wouldn't like it if I missed and instead messed up her floors.

The first hangover of my life, and I hated it.