He, My Ghost

“It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t. Would I lie to you?”

His voice came through my ears like a puppet’s string, and I nodded. He was my ghost. He loved me.

“Then you can come with me.”

I flinched when he put his hands on mine. I always did; that was my weakness. My ghost would profess his love, I would answer in turn, but when he touched me, I would hide like a mouse in its safe hole.

“I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!”

I breathed in my hands to warm them and put them in my pockets. The season did not matter; it was August, and I was wearing two layers of jackets. My ghost did not like the cold. He always felt cold, he said.

“Shh. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. You don’t have to come with me. Just let me go on my own into the night.”

I sobbed into his chest. He embraced me tightly: a white coat of frost was growing on me, sinking under my jacket and over my heart. He was so gentle, my ghost, and always so cruel.

“You can’t ask that of me,” I whispered, and it came through him as if he was not real. “I’ll go with you. I will.”

Even though I tried to sound resolute, he laughed in that soft way he used before he became mine.

“Yes. I’m sure you will, my love. I trust you.”

He was so honest that it made me bite my tears back.

How could I not? I knew my ghost his whole life, from his birth until after death. He lived a few blocks down the street. He was a distant kid, a smart one - always knew what to say but never said more than he felt like. Never had many friends. On his eighteenth birthday, he packed his things and left a note I never read.

It was a cold December that year.

On Christmas Eve, I ran away. With his note to my chest, I ran to the park across the street. I shivered while I was tearing the envelope with my name, breathing through tears lest I froze to death when he shushed me.

“Don’t. I’d rather tell you this in person.”

I cannot remember how he looked in life, but in death, he was breathtaking. Hair like snow, eyes like crystals, touch cold like death.

We talked until he let me go. Perhaps it would have been more merciful to chat until our breaths became one. Perhaps he needed me to follow him of my own will.

---

I asked him, my ghost, just once. Why did he leave? Why did he come back?

“Death and Love are brothers,” he told me. “Thanatos and Eros. If someone is truly loved, their soul cannot pass on because lovers can’t be separated.”

It sounded like a blessing. I told my ghost as much.

“Eros loved a woman. When she died, he asked his brother to keep her by his side. But she grew to loathe him because he enjoyed the warmth of life while she was alone in the cold. So, he cursed all lovers to be betrayed by death like he had been by his own brother.”

“Did he let her go?”

“He went after her just after he cast his curse.”

On whose behalf was he here? He did not answer.

I could not stay far from my ghost after that. I wanted to; I had to let him go, but he whispered my name in my ear, invisible to anyone but me. I covered my head under the covers, hated Eros for being in love, hated Thanatos, the girl, and myself for being unable to break the curse.

Then I would put on my jackets and flee to the park. If gods died for love, what could I do?

“I saw you in this park,” my ghost told me.

I nodded. Whenever my ghost spoke, I could not respond. Something sweltry would always fill my chest instead of air.

“You looked beautiful. I wanted to talk to you so many times.”

Another nod. I could tell the next line by heart.

I was too much of a coward to tell you I loved you.

“But now you can be with me forever.” He took my hand, and I, for once, could almost feel his touch. “You will, won’t you?”

I closed my eyes. My head fell until I looked like a hanged man.

“Then you can let me go, can’t you?”

I saw him through my fingers. My ghost was smiling. Cruelly, as if he expected this answer.

“I can’t.”

---

He was growing colder, my ghost. Weaker.

“It’s the season,” he said. “December makes me sick.”

He wouldn’t go to the park anymore; he hated it; his presence would leave me if I ever entered. I would run through it as fast as my legs would let me because I was frightened that he might not be on the other side.

At times, he vanished, as he had done before, and would be slow to return. Seconds, hours, and then days passed before I could see him again. Those prolonged days were painful; I slugged through them like a snail, weakly deflecting any questions. My old friends called; I did not answer. My family was worried; I fled. I could not bear to be around other people without the guilt pounding in my chest.

My ghost only came one night as I sat alone on the park fence. Outside. The falling snow was pecking my skin, but I had tossed away my jacket. It all felt too hot – as if I was blistering under it. Even my shirt was starting to hurt me.

“You are going to be my death,” the ghost taunted me. “Do you hate me so much that you will make me die twice?”

He smiled, but it did not feel like a joke.

“I don’t. I love you too much.”

“Does it mean you’re ready to choose?”

I nodded. I could not bear to live with my ghost gone. I could not hurt him anymore, either.

“You finally trusted me.” My ghost embraced me. For the first time, he was warm. “Just like Eros trusted Thanatos.”

Love trusted death. I wanted to laugh, but my sadness would have choked me.

“It’s not trust.”

“What is it, then?” My ghost sat next to me. “Hope?”

“Maybe.” Our hands were pressed together, and he was more real than ever. “Maybe it’s regret.”

It was just the two of us on a cold winter night. And under the pale light, we talked on forever, waiting for a morning that would not come. Not for us.