Ghosted, p.18
Ghosted, page 18
A smile flickers across his face as he fades in and out, his form like mist, transparent and hazy.
“Thank you,” he says.
As I collect my coffee and the pastry, our celebration, I decide I’m going to take the advice I gave Hayley.
27
Yellow taxis swarm Grand Central, darting through the buzzing traffic that permanently surrounds the blocks around the train terminal and the subway below. I hurry through the thick pedestrian traffic, my hot coffee clutched in one hand, the éclair tucked safely in my bag.
Daniel strides next to me, unable to avoid elbows, shoulders, or passing through people as they hustle toward the sparkling beige stone and the towering, glistening arched windows of Grand Central Terminal.
Working on 44th Street near Sixth, I walk past Grand Central to and from work every day, and usually the energy surrounding the terminal invigorates me. Today, I’m glad for the roar of the traffic, the tat-a-tat of a jackhammer, and the thickness of the foot traffic because the roaring buzz matches exactly what I’m feeling.
“Daniel,” I say, pulling his attention from the mirrored skyscrapers rising to the sky behind the stone statues topping the terminal.
He turns his gaze to me, his eyes crinkling, “Did you ever notice, those buildings reflect the sky? You can see the clouds in them.” He points at the drifting blue reflected in the building and the white clouds shifting in the glass.
I smile and shake my head. “No. I never noticed it.” And then before I lose confidence, I say, “Why did you want me to say yes to him?”
Daniel stops at the crosswalk, and I stand next to him, my hand next to his, our fingers entwining. His expression is calm, stone-like, similar to the one he wore when he first learned he was dead and he was hiding his emotions from me.
Next to us, a food cart with a cherry red and sunshine yellow umbrella pumps out the scent of warm pretzels and broiling hot dogs. There’s a row of colorful drinks propped on a plastic shelf, and a towering stack of pretzels coated in salt. Daniel ignores the cart and studies the crosswalk light as it counts down toward zero.
A gust of wind sweeps down the street, tugging at my skirt and flicking my hair across my mouth. I reach up and brush it away, and Daniel catches the motion, his eyes following as my fingers run over my lips.
“Because I’m not alive,” he finally says, his gaze conflicted. “No matter how much I wish it, I’m not.”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” I say, reaching out and pressing my hand to the outline of his chest.
Next to me, a middle-aged woman in a black trench coat gives me a side-eyed glare and takes three steps away, increasing the distance between us.
Daniel notices and nods at her. “It matters to everyone else. You can’t—”
“I can,” I say.
Daniel looks up at the sky, a beseeching expression on his face. “He was a trekker.”
“So what?”
“He has good taste in watches. The one he had on, it was a classic ’62—”
I scoff. “I couldn’t care less. I like men who go shirtless and don’t have watches.”
A man in a navy suit next to me laughs in surprise and says, “Sweetheart, I’ll go shirtless for you.”
“No need, thanks,” Daniel says to him, then the traffic light changes and the crosswalk light blinks in white walk.
We start forward and at the opposite sidewalk, I move away from the crowd of people, toward a less busy street. It’s evening rush hour though, and with the warmth of the spring sun still lingering in the concrete and the brick of the buildings, more people are out than usual.
Daniel picks up where he left off. “He has a good job.”
“Maybe,” I say, noncommittally.
“He was friendly.”
“Yeah?”
“You have similar hobbies.”
I stop walking, and Daniel stops with me. We’re at the entry of a pharmacy, the automatic doors sliding open and then shut and then open again, sensing my proximity.
I take a step away, closer to the long row of carnations, gerbera daisies, and roses positioned in tall red buckets along the glass wall of the building. We’re surrounded by the perfume of flowers, hundreds of blooms, waiting to be wrapped in waxy floral paper and shared with a loved one.
“I want you,” I say to Daniel, my voice breaking. “I don’t want anyone else. I want you.”
He closes his eyes, his form flickering in the early evening light, and when he opens his eyes the look he gives me is anguished and wanting. “Jillian, I’m not—”
“I don’t care,” I say.
Daniel reaches forward, his hand passing through the petals of a red rose. “I can’t buy you flowers.”
“I don’t need flowers.”
“I can’t leave the city,” he argues.
I shake my head. “I like New York. Everything I need is here. I don’t need to leave either.”
Daniel studies me, his expression grave. “I can’t promise I’ll always be here. I don’t know why I go.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” I tell him, my heart thumping against my rib cage, my hand shaking on my coffee cup.
Daniel paces down the length of the sidewalk, toward the daisies, and I hurry after him, keeping pace. We’re only three blocks from home.
“I can’t marry you,” Daniel says. “What if you want to get married? You can marry someone like Thomas.”
“I don’t want to marry Thomas,” I say.
“But someday, you’ll want to marry someone, you’ll want to—”
“I want you,” I repeat, moving down the sidewalk, passing early spring blooms planted around a gingko tree unfurling its spring leaves.
“What about children?” he asks.
“If I want kids I’ll adopt.”
“They won’t be able to see me,” he says. “They’ll grow up with me being like Santa Claus, they’ll believe when they’re kids, and then once they’re old enough, they’ll think you lied to them. They won’t believe I’m real. And your family? Your friends? You’ll be lucky if they don’t have you committed.”
We’ve made it to the apartment. I don’t respond to Daniel. Instead I unlock the front door, climb the creaking wooden stairs up the four flights to my floor, then I open my front door, step inside my mirrored apartment, then slowly shut the door and lock it.
Daniel fades through the door and stands in front of me. I lean against the door, my back pressed into the warm wood, the mirrors on the walls reflecting my pale, resolute face.
Daniel presses his hands to the door, caging me in, “Do you still want me?” he asks. “No life. No marriage. No kids. No future. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to help you move on, and then I’ll move on.”
His words are low, hard, and he leans over me, his gaze direct. And if I didn’t know him as well as I do, and if I didn’t understand him better than I understand myself, I’d believe him. And I wouldn’t hear the shaking in his voice when he says, “I don’t know what I was thinking these past weeks. I was selfish. I’m sorry. I forgot that I’m not here to love you, I’m here to help you.”
My cup of coffee slips from my hands and clatters to the floor, the dark liquid spills over the wood, the rich sugary smell rising.
“Daniel?” I ask, ignoring the coffee at our feet.
He nods, holding my gaze, keeping me trapped between his arms, his chest pressed close to mine.
“Did you say that you love me?” I ask, the mirrors splaying golden light through the apartment, reflecting my hope.
He drops his head, his mouth inches from mine.
“Of course I love you,” he says, his voice a low rumble that caresses me, warm like the breeze of his touch. “Me loving you is the only solid thing I have to hold onto in this half-life. It’s the only thing I know is real.”
He shakes his head, then reaches his hand out to brush his fingers down the side of my face. I lean toward the whisper of his touch.
“I love you too,” I say, my voice quiet in the early evening hush.
Daniel gazes down at me, his expression full of yearning, but also denial, “You weren’t supposed to,” he says. “You’re supposed to move on. I have nothing to give you.”
I press my fingers to his lips. “You give me the kind of love that most people only dream of. What more could I want?”
His eyes glow, backlit by the setting sun, and his lips curve into a slow, exultant smile. “You don’t want a living, breathing man? You don’t want someone who can give you a life?”
I shake my head. “I just want you. I only want you.”
At that, I watch all the doubt, and fear, and worry slip away, and the decision Daniel made in the coffee shop, to help me find someone who is alive, vanishes as he leans down and sets his mouth against mine.
28
A conflagration lights inside me, and I finally know what Daniel means when he says, there’s darkness and then there’s you.
Everything before him was the black ocean of space, a vacuum with no sound and no air. With his mouth on mine, his warmth flowing over me—now a blazing inferno—I feel, I see the color of his love, and I hear the song of his heart.
My knees buckle and I grip the door to stay upright. Before, Daniel’s touch was a butterfly wing brushing over me, the lick of a warm breeze, now it’s the rushing of a river, cascading over naked skin.
“Jillian,” he says, his hands running over my face, the heat of his fingers sparking over me, an electric flame.
When he presses his mouth to my throat, and my pulse drums in response, I throw my head back and let him send starlight over me.
“I love you,” he whispers, and the words are so quiet I can barely make them out over the wind rattling the window, the hum of evening traffic, and the murmur of the heater fanning dry, hot air over us.
I lift my cardigan over my head, tug off my camisole, and slip off my bra, freeing my breasts. Daniel closes his eyes, sends up a prayer of hope and thanks.
He runs his hands over my nipples and at the light, teasing breeze, they pucker and peak. A heaviness settles in my breast, and travels lower, growing into an aching heat as I unzip my skirt, and slip it free, kicking off my thong. Finally, I stand before Daniel in my black heels and nothing else.
His gaze sweeps over me, and everywhere his eyes light, my skin responds, glowing and humming. He smiles at me, his eyes bright and thankful.
I know he’s thankful, because it’s the exact way I feel right now. I’m so grateful he found me.
He flickers in the fading light, as insubstantial as mist. I reach out and run my hand over his chest his muscles tightening in response. When I touch him, he comes back into focus.
His blue eyes are the color of dark sea glass, shining in the sun, his sandy-brown hair curls over his forehead and brushes his jaw. His stubble is the same dark next-day dusting that I imagine feels rough and enticing as you run your lips over it. His wide shoulders tense as I stroke my hands over the lean muscles, tracing the surface of his skin, trailing my hands to the line of his abdomen, down to his hips, where his jeans dip.
He makes a noise in his throat, low and sweet.
“Lay down,” he begs. “Lay down and I’ll love you.”
I give him a smile full of happiness and love, and then I saunter to the red-carpeted platform, my heels clicking on the wood floor. I climb onto my bed, the soft blankets rustling beneath me, brushing across my skin.
Daniel watches me, his eyes following my movements.
“You love me,” he says.
I nod and kick a heel off. It clatters across the wood floor.
“You love me,” he says again.
I nod and kick off my other heel, sending it skittering across the floor.
Then I lay back on my plush blankets, my curly black hair fanning around me, the light from the golden candelabra washing over me, painting my flushed skin in gold and rose.
I stare at the mirrors on the ceiling above, I’m spread out on the bed, my lush hips rolling, my legs opening, my breasts full, my nipples rosy and puckered. My green eyes are dark, the wet leaf color now a blazing emerald green. I look like a Rubenesque sex goddess.
Daniel stares down at me with an awe-filled gaze.
“You may love me,” he says, his voice full of longing, “but no matter what happens, never forget how much I love you.”
Then he reaches out and touches me. Not touch-touches. But touches me with his soul, which is the only way I can describe it, because suddenly my whole body lights up, and I’m vibrating with need. I tilt my hips, arch my back, dig my feet into the mattress, and ride the warm pulse building in me.
“If I were here,” he says, his voice rough, “I would taste you. I’d taste how sweet you are.”
I grip the sheets. “You always want to taste everything,” I say, my cheeks flushing.
His eyes light at that, and then he says, “After I tasted you, I’d kiss the spot where your neck and shoulder meet, that delicate space where your skin looks so soft. And I’d run my hands through your hair. I’d finally learn whether it’s as soft as it looks. Is it?” he asks, his eyes raking over my hair spilling across my pillow.
I swallow, my mouth dry, and nod. “Yes. It’s soft.”
He smiles. “I thought so.”
I reach down and stroke a hand over my thigh, goosebumps rising at the scrape of my palm over my skin. Daniel’s eyes catch on my fingers resting near the juncture of my hips.
“Then what?” I ask.
His eyes flick back to me, full of heat. “I’d breathe you in,” he says. “I always imagined that you smell like violets opening in a spring rain”—he smiles—“with a dusting of sugar. So I’d breathe you in, and…do you smell like spring rain?”
I shake my head, mesmerized by his description. “I have no idea.”
“You do,” he says confidently. “Then I’d touch you, all the places I’ve longed to. The curve of your neck, the sensitive palm of your hand, the soft skin of your hip, the upward curl at the edge of your lip, the softness of your eyelashes, I’d touch every single inch of you.”
“Do you know,” I say, “you could do that now, you could do it vicariously through me.”
Ever so slowly, Daniel smiles in response.
I touch all the places he wants to explore. I run my hands over myself, brush my hips, my lips, every sensitive inch, and as I do, his eyes fill with that hungry longing.
“Where else?” I ask, my body flaming from the heat in his eyes.
“You know where,” he says.
I do.
I reach down, touch the warm heat of myself, and when I do, Daniel lets out a hungry noise.
“After I tasted you, and touched you, I would press myself over you, so we were touching everywhere, and then I would take your hands—”
“And?” I circle my fingers over myself, envision him spread over me, the weight of him pressing me into the soft mattress, the mirror above reflecting his naked back and his muscled legs, his mouth taking mine, our breath mingling.
“Then I would push inside you, slowly, because I already waited an eternity to be with you, and I want to savor every moment for as long as possible.”
I slip a finger inside myself, imagine it’s him.
“Then?” I say, my voice breathless.
“Then you’d hold me, your hands clutching mine, your legs wrapped around me, your heat gripping me, holding me inside. I’d slide in, until I’m so deep in you that I don’t know where I end and you begin. And you’ll say—”
“I love you,” I say, slipping another finger in, rolling my hips to the rhythm of his words.
“I love you,” he agrees. “And you feel so good, I feel you everywhere, then I start to move. I pull out—”
“And I don’t like that,” I say.
“So I thrust back in,” he agrees. “And I want to stay in you forever.”
I tilt my hips higher, as he says, “I kiss you, I hold you, I stroke you, and when you tighten around me and cry out, I can’t keep going slow and easy.”
“No,” I agree.
“No,” he says. His eyes light on my flushed chest, my hand working over myself, then he leans over the bed, reaches out to hold my hands, and sets his mouth over me.
And the warmth that was building at the base of my spine, the liquid heat pulsing and growing, as soon as Daniel’s mouth hits my clitoris, every needing, aching ball of warmth explodes outward, rolls over me, carries me up, up, to receive his kiss, and when he gives it, I cry out, carried on the light rolling through me.
I float in his kiss, slowly descending to earth, a shooting star falling to the ocean, and when he looks up at me, his eyes the color of the vast sea, his smile tells me that he felt everything that I felt. More.
He brushes a hand over my naked hip, caresses me softly. “You’re sure about this?” he asks solemnly, the evening shadows finally falling. “You’re sure about this love?”
I smile up at him, my limbs heavy, my heart light, and say, “I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”
He smiles at that. “I’ll always love you,” he promises. “Thank you for seeing me.”
I brush my fingers over his hand, not sure if he means thank you for seeing his heart, or for seeing him as a ghost. I don’t ask, instead I say, “Will you stay the night?”
He smiles down at me sprawled naked on my bed. “I’ll stay every night.”
Later, I fall asleep, the streetlights shining through the curtain, Daniel standing at the window, watching for the silvery glow of the crescent moon high over the towers of the city.
He’s nearly translucent in the moonlight, like a dream there on waking but soon forgotten. I try to keep my eyes open, keep him in my sight, but my eyelids sink heavily shut, drifting into sleep.
In my dreams I feel him brush a hand over my cheek, and I hear him—
“Jillian—”
“I can’t—”
“Jillian, you have to—”
When the morning light wakes me, Daniel is gone.
29
