Slowly, I look up.
And he’s here.
No.
The thought hits so fast I nearly laugh.
Not because it’s funny.
Because it’s impossible. It’s fucking impossible.
For one insane second I actually think I’m hallucinating or that I’ve died and gone to hell because how is this even happening?
Maybe it was the weird breakfast.
Maybe the knock ’em dead comment conjures ghosts.
Maybe I finally snapped from stress.
Maybe grief is a lot more creative than therapists give it credit for. I almost laugh because wouldn’t that make my therapist give up their job? I can conjure up ghosts. Clearly.
Because the man standing in the doorway died seven years ago. I saw his casket. I stood in the rain. I’m dead. My heart must have stopped from stress. This is impossible and yet…
My pulse stutters.
The classroom disappears.
The chatter.
The fluorescent lights.
The professor.
Everything.
Gone.
All I can hear is the blood rushing through my ears.
He looks older, obviously.
Taller somehow, even though at seventeen he was six four.
Crueler, like life sharpened every smooth edge he used to have and left nothing behind making his jawline impossibly firm right along with every muscle on his body.
But it'shim.
My. God.
It'shim.
The same wavy dark hair, same broad shoulders,
Same full mouth that used to curve into a smile right before he got himself into trouble, which was often. Same lips that used to taunt me every single time he got close and said he was going to steal a kiss one day.
His smell is different and yet it’s still familiar, like he’s using the same cologne but different body wash and I hate that I’m fixating on it, but smell is one of the strongest memories we have and I’m suddenly back in his room, he’s almost kissing me, and then the shots fire. I’m writing the damning words, and he’s getting buried.
My chest tightens so violently I have to grip the edge of my desk; my fingers dig in so tight I’ve lost all feeling. My heart is hammering against my ribs so hard it might burst. I can’t slow my way-too-rapid breathing.
