"You sure it was anonymous?"
I stare toward the door, where through the glass I can make out Carla sobbing with her hands over her face. "I thought so. But I might have been wrong."
_________________
Shannon, our chipper neighbor, comes to the door that night. She's wearing a pink dress and a high ponytail, the picture of suburban wifery.
"No baked treats this time?" I ask, trying to make up for my earlier lack of social grace. "Your cookies were really good."
"No, not this time. I'll keep you in mind for next time, there's a lemon cake recipe I've been wanting to try," she says with a warm smile. I like how down to earth and relaxed Shannon is.
"Are you here to see my dad? He'll be home soon."
I notice she's carrying a shoebox under one arm, and she waves her other hand. "No, actually, I'm here for you. I can't stay long until I have to dash, but I wanted to bring you what you asked for. I couldn't find my yearbooks, but I searched through all of my boxes and found a couple of photos."
Intrigued, I lead her into the living room where she sits on the couch and lifts the top of the box, taking out two photographs. She hands them to me, one on top of the other.
The first is a family picture like at one of those cheesy portrait studios, complete with a stylized, cloudy blue backdrop. Two smiling parents and their three cheerful kids. The eldest two look like they were middle school age, the youngest a preschooler on his mom's lap. A spray of freckles covers his face and he has his mom's bright red hair.
"That's them, the Mosses. You could never imagine it, right?" She makes a tsk noise with her teeth. I'm confused, though. Aaron doesn't have any freckles now, and his hair is brown.
I flip to the second photo and my heart stops. It's Aaron—at least, it looks just like Aaron. I could have taken this picture yesterday. It's a candid shot, outdoors, in the middle of the day, and his serious face is framed perfectly. The only difference is he's not so pale, he actually has color in his cheeks. He's even wearing the same damn brown sweatshirt.
"Crazy, isn't it? Seth looks like such a handsome, normal, All-American kid."
But that's not what's crazy.
"That's Seth," I murmur, my thumbs framing the photo. It's not a question, I just need her to confirm it. My vision's going blurry and I might faint. I have to force my hands to relax so I don't bend the photos.
The boy I have a crush on is Seth, accused murderer—not Aaron, his innocent brother. Seth…who disappeared ten years ago.
She glances up at my face, her brow creasing in confusion. "Are you okay?"
I look up at her, startled. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry. You're right, it is crazy. Thank you for bringing me these."
She checks her watch. "No problem, hon. Like I said, though, I need to get going." I follow her to the foyer in a daze, still staring at the photos in my hands. I try to hand them over to her, but she declines.
"You can keep those." Shannon cradles the box under her arm. "I felt spooked having anything of his in my house. Silly, I know, but still." She glances up at the ceiling and shrugs her shoulders. "At least this way, it's like they're home."
As soon as she's gone, I bolt upstairs to my bedroom. Painful sobs resound inside my chest as I try to keep myself from falling apart. Why wasn't I paying attention to the signs? How he didn't want to meet my dad, how he always played it secret.
I kneel in front of my bed with the photos on the mattress, and glance back and forth between them. I tug at my hair with my hands. There's no doubt about it, it's the same guy. I know the truth in every hard, unrelenting beat of my heart.
"You know, don't you?" comes his voice from behind me. I swallow hard and look up at Aaron—Seth—standing with his jaw clenched. His eyes burn into me, his voice soaked with bitterness and resentment. "Did I finally scare you?"
CHAPTER 15
I back away from him toward the dresser, keeping my wide eyes fixated on him. Fear urges on my heart and my pulse beats in my ears.
"Most people would be scared of having a murderer in their room," he says, taking a cautious step forward.
"You told me you were Aaron."
"It was the first name I thought of. He's my little brother. I didn't want you to know who I was, at the time." He runs his tongue across his lips. "I haven't seen him in ten years, and I knew he wasn't coming back."
He's moving now and I realize I'm trying to shift toward the door and he's matching my movements. But he's not closing the space in between us. Our eyes remain locked in a duel and I feel like I might get swallowed by the pull of his dark irises.
"Why did you come back now?"
"I never left. I never ran away like they said. I've been here the whole time."
I try to ingest his words, but my thoughts are racing and my head seems overfull. "How? How is it that you still look so young? You don't look like you aged a day and it's been over ten years. You must be almost thirty."
He stops moving, his eyebrows knitting together. "You already know the answer to that. I know you do, if you really think about it."
My lips have gone dry and my head is fuzzy.
"Stop lying to yourself, Ash. That's the only way you didn't realize it." His voice is soft and soothing now, his hands at his sides. I feel like he's very far away even though he's right in front of me.
How he wears the same outfit every time I see him. How he doesn't have a smell. How he just appears out of nowhere, and no one else seems to have seen him.
I want to kiss you, but I can't…
"You're dead?" I whisper, my voice cracking.
He nods slowly and look down, then back up at me through his lashes. "I never made it to thirty, or twenty five, or even twenty. I died when I was eighteen, that same night as my parents and Lauren."
My emotions explode from my core. "That's crap!" I shout at him, angry tears prickling my eyes. "You're not a ghost, you're full of shit!"
He doesn't react angrily, his voice soft and sad, his eyebrows puckered up. "You want proof?"
I'm speechless as he crosses to the dresser, where a pencil cup sits on top. He yanks one of the pens out, uncaps it, and jabs it swiftly into his neck.
I shriek and cup my hands over my mouth. He didn't even flinch. He stares at me blankly as he slides the pen out and recaps it, putting it back in the cup. There's no blood. Not even a mark on his neck.
"I didn't even feel that. I don't feel anything." Now irritation is creeping back into his voice. "I can use myself as a pin cushion if you want, but it's not going to change anything."
"How? How is this possible? You touch things, you—"
"Yeah, I can touch things. But I can't touch people." He looks at me pointedly and his expression is tortured, pressing his hands against his temples. "I can't touch
you
. And I can't hurt you even if I wanted to, which I never would."
Silent tears run down my cheeks as my hands fall to my sides.
"I didn't kill my family, Ash. I don't think you'll believe me, but it's the truth. And I would leave, if I could." His sad tone crushes my chest like a rock. "But I can't. I swear, you can trust me."
"How can I trust you?" My voice cracks again, almost hysterical. "You've been lying to me from the start!"
He sighs, his shoulders dropping. "I had to. But I won't bother you anymore."
He disappears right in front of my face, evaporating into thin air. One second he was here and now he's gone. I drop to the floor, tears still rolling down my face even though I feel numb and cold. I clutch my arms, shivering. I feel like I might crack. Maybe I already have.
CHAPTER 16
Seth doesn't come back for a week. October is drawing to an end, and Halloween is days away. The decorations I see through town as I'm driving to and from school every day, especially the ghosts dangling from trees like wilted, white flowers, remind me of him.
I take his boxes out and carry them downstairs, stowing them in the hall closet. I can't have them in my room anymore. I pull one of the poetry books out—the Lord Byron book that he got the phrase on the window seat from. I almost keep it but toss it back in and shove the door shut.
As I'm sitting up in my room, I hear the guitar playing its mournful tune. I go to the window and stare out into the night, listening to each note. I don't know if he's playing for me or himself.
I throw my earphones on and crank up my music, blocking him out. He's right—I don't know if I can believe his words. But if he's a killer, I can't let him in again.
_________________
We find out from idle gossip that Carla's out of school for good. I follow Oliver to his locker after class on Friday.
"Just watch your back, that's all I'm saying. Obviously I have experience with this," he says, shoving his books onto the top shelf.
"I will, don't worry." I lean back against the lockers. "If she shows up at my house again I'll have the cops there before she has a chance to play any tricks."
"Good." He pauses and licks his chapped lips as we continue down the hall toward the exit. "You want to maybe go see a movie tomorrow? There's a new horror out I wanted to catch. Plenty of blood, just in time for Halloween."
"I'm not a huge fan of horror." Especially considering the ghost of a murderer haunting me. "But yeah, it would be nice to get out of the house." I think about it for a second. "This isn't a date thing, right? Just friends?"
He laughs. "Yeah, of course. I'll pick you up tomorrow."
I know it's time for me to be social again. But I can't help but think of the contrast between how I feel with Oliver and the depth of emotion I felt with the boy who isn't Aaron. It leaves me hollow.
_________________
Dad gets a call from grandma's care facility on Saturday afternoon. I stand by and watch his face get more and more gray as they speak.
"Apparently, some kind of stomach flu's been going around the home. She's got it and she fell down trying to get out of bed to get to the bathroom. Now her fever won't go down." His face pinches together and he begins to sob, taking off his glasses and holding the side of the counter for support. "I can't take much more of this."
My nose stings and I push back tears myself. I don't know how to react, but I hug him awkwardly.
"I don't know how to do this without Liz," he whispers.
"The only way you can," I whisper back. "Just by doing it."
He pulls back and wipes his tears away, putting his glasses back on. "They want me to come up there, and even if they didn't I would want to go," he explains.
"That's fine, I can take care of myself. Go." Part of me regrets that my last conversation with my grandma was so many weeks ago. What if…but I'm not going to let myself think about what if right now.
"You really have grown up well," he says, and smiles at me before heading upstairs. He hurriedly packs and leaves the house, telling me he has no idea when he'll return.
I watch his car take off and turn down onto the main road. The sun is setting on the horizon and I stand on the porch as the sky bleeds red.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. It's Oliver. Oh shit, I forgot about our movie plans. I try to think of a valid excuse, but Oliver's faded green Malibu rolls into the driveway.
"You ready to go?" he asks cheerfully as he gets out. I'm dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, but I grab my coat and follow him to his car. This should be interesting.
CHAPTER 17
The movie theater is packed and we wait in a line that extends to the doors. We chat about music and books and manga, interests we have in common.
"I have no nerd cred," I admit. I glance around and cup my hand over my mouth, whispering, "I've never seen Star Wars."
"How is that even possible?" he chuckles.
I shrug. "I dunno, I just wasn't ever interested. Whenever I mention that I like manga and watching anime, I get quizzed up and down by fanboys. Same with games. I never felt the need to learn every detail about my entertainment to be entertained."
"Some of us just get obsessive, I guess," he says vaguely. The line finally moves and we buy our tickets for what he explains to me is the slasher flick. We get popcorn and wait inside the dark theater, watching trivia questions roll on the screen.
"What got you so interested in serial killers in the first place?" I ask, tossing a buttery kernel into my mouth.
"My aunts used to let me watch Friday the 13th and the Freddy Krueger movies when I was only like 6 or 7. I didn't get really into it until I was about ten; I bought all the DVDs. I even have a collection of murderbilia."
"What's that?"
"Memorabilia, only for killers. Mostly just books and stuff though, but I do have a pair of shoes that used to belong to Seth Moss."
"Really?" I raise my eyebrows, realizing that my skin has gone cold.
"Yeah." I can see his eyes glitter in the dark. "He's a personal hero of mine."
He's never mentioned that detail before. "A hero?"
"Well, you know, he's interesting," Oliver backtracks.
"So that's why you knew so much?"
"You could call me an expert." He shoves a handful of popcorn in his mouth, chews, and follows it with Sour Patch Kids. "You know, everybody thinks of killers as these animals and monsters, but they're usually smarter than all the other normal people around them. Ted Bundy was really intelligent and super careful, he used to study how police investigations were conducted so he could reduce the chances of getting caught."
The lights go down and the movie starts. Six college students find themselves in the woods during a vacation, the standard set up. I abandon my popcorn midway through as the blood begins to spray and bodies pile up. Nobody survives.
Afterward, we head out. It was the last show, and all the people who were in line are swiftly pulling out of the parking lot as we stroll down the street, finishing our drinks.
"So, where's your mom, does she live back in Indiana?" He guzzles through the straw of his oversized Pepsi.