The Darkest Part(4)

Then he’s gone.

Since he first appeared to me, three days after his funeral, I’ve researched every book in the college library, and Googled every phenomenon I could on life after death. It became an obsession.

When he started coming to me, I was frightened. Freaked out. But overwhelmingly happy, as if somehow everything that happened prior was just a bad dream and he was back. I was scared to try and touch him. Scared of what it would mean if I could . . . Scared of the returning heartache and feelings of loss if I couldn’t.

Then one day I worked up the courage. My hand passed right through him, and it was like he died all over again.

The day I heard his voice, I nearly shattered. It was the most beautiful sound, and I discovered that if I talked back, he would respond. We could have conversations again. I locked myself in my old room of my parents’ house and didn’t sleep. Didn’t eat. Didn’t leave, afraid that he’d leave, or that he’d forget me.

Eventually, my parents sought help. They’d given me, what they felt, was sufficient time to grieve. They thought it was time for me to go back to classes, at least, if not back to living on campus. I had to go on living, they said. Tyler would want that.

Would he really?

According to Tyler, that’s not true. He missed me, and he needs my presence to anchor him to this . . . whatever new reality between life and death where he exists. I hadn’t been there that night. I hadn’t been there for him. Maybe if I had been, he would still be alive now.

He needs me.

It’s what he always says. And if being here for him helps, then it’s what I have to do.

After months of arguing with my parents about school and life, and all the other bullshit they felt I should be doing, I cracked. I told them the truth. I can still see my mother’s shocked expression, feel it like a mallet to my gut. I terrified her.

So this is life now. My talking to Tyler when he appears, living every second of my day just waiting to hear his voice, while my family copes with having a nut-case as a daughter.

That’s okay, though. Because I have a plan again. It’s just been altered some. But I have a purpose. A forever. And if I can still somehow have that forever with Tyler—I’ll take it.

Whether in life or death.

“Sam!” my mother calls from downstairs. “You have a visitor.”

Shit.

Spinning, I glance around, searching for an escape or an excuse out of seeing whoever it is. I’ve effectively avoided all our friends from school and my best girlfriend Leah. And it’s probably her. She stayed with me the first week after Tyler’s funeral, but once I realized other people drove Tyler away, I started making excuses to be alone.

Like I do now.

“The shower?” Tyler materializes and points toward the glass-encased walk-in.

“Good idea,” I say, smiling. “Want to join me?”

A slow, sexy smile hikes the side of his face. “You know it.”

I turn the dial and then strip off my clothes. Probably not a bad idea, anyway. The musty smell of body odor and faded detergent engulfs me, and for a second, I’m embarrassed at how I’ve let myself go. But since I spend most nights awake with Tyler (his presence is strongest at night), I’m just too tired to be bothered with all the maintenance crap.

Sliding the glass door open, I fling myself into the shower with a yelp, and quickly adjust the temperature to warm. Tyler laughs. “Sh-shut up.”

As the water rains down in a wide spray drenching my hair, Tyler appears before me. I’m tempted to reach out and caress his stubbled cheek, the way I always did when we took showers together. But my hand halts mid-air. I fist my fingers and drop my arm.

I just wish he could touch me.

He must sense my frustration, because his brow wrinkles, pain etched in the lines of his face. But true to Tyler, he doesn’t allow those emotions to own him. He purposefully scans his gaze over my body, a smile replacing his frown.

“You’re beautiful,” he says. And with a subtle movement, he lifts his hand toward my face.

I close my eyes and summon the memory of his touch.

“I want to see you content . . . satisfied, Sam.” My eyes snap open. Content. “Be my hands. Touch yourself where I touch.” His translucent fingers skim my arm, working their way down.

I nod and close my eyes again.

“Look at me,” he says. “Don’t shut me out.”

I do as he says, and when his hand moves across the sensitive skin of my hip, my fingers trail it. Roaming lower, I caress myself, working my body into one pulsing heartbeat—mine and Tyler’s combined.

And when the cresting pleasure takes me, I stare into his eyes. I fall against the tile, shaking. As always, after the release, the tears come. The shame. It never used to feel this way with him.