Page 147 of Love at First Fright

Meeting Michael… that instant spark of recognition, as if we’d been waiting for each other. The way our hands kept touching when I adjusted his grip. How we’d grin at each other like idiots over simple chord progressions.

That first kiss had happened right here, in the piano room. He’d finally managed to play through the chorus without mistakes, and I’d leaned over to congratulate him, and somehow our lips had met instead of words emerging.

We’d been hiding it ever since. Stolen moments between lessons. Secret glances when his parents brought tea.

“Bat?” Charlie’s tentative voice pulled at the edges of the memory. He’d finished the song.

I pressed my hand to my chest, where the wound throbbed with phantom pain. “Keep playing. Please.”

The memory shifted, darker now. My consciousness guided me towards something I didn’t want to see.

Darkness. The sensation of being underground, the air cold, oppressive.

Pain. Sharp, sudden agony between my ribs.

Blood pouring out of me in a rush, warm and terrifying.

Michael’s voice, screaming my name.

I gasped, my eyes flying open. The wound burned like it was fresh.

“He was there,” I whispered. “When I… when I was… killed. Stabbed? Michael was there.”

Charlie set the guitar aside and rushed to my side on the bed. “Do you remember what happened?”

No. And I could feel it all slipping away like water through my fingers. “I don’t. I know Michael was there. I used to come here every week, to teach him guitar. He saw it, I think? My murder. I remember him screaming.”

“Margery said whoever killed her killed you too.”

I nodded, my throat tight. “Yeah.”

The basement. It had happened down in the basement. I knew it with horrible certainty, even though the details remained shrouded. That locked door Brad had tried so desperately to open—something behind it remembered me. Something that had put this hole in my chest.

“I think it happened downstairs,” I told him. “In the basement.”

Charlie’s hand found my leg, squeezing gently. “Have you been down there since you died?”

I shook my head. “It’s been locked up since I can remember. We all know it needs to stay that way. The seal that keeps it in keeps us out of there.” The awful presence down there pressed against my consciousness like a migraine. This sick, heavy feeling that radiated up from it like heat from coals. “We can feel him. It. Whatever’s down there.”

“Do you think it killed Michael as well?” Charlie said quietly. “Or did he escape?”

I stared at the ceiling, trying to sort through the fragments of memory. “Absolutely no clue. Escaped, hopefully.”

Charlie shifted beside me on the bed. “You know, I can easily use the internet to try to look him up. And… I was wondering if you wanted me to look you up? See if your body got returned to your parents, at least? See if you made the local news?”

I let out a bitter laugh. “I always knew I was destined for great things.”

The weight of it all pressed down on me—years of questions, of not knowing. Of my parents never getting answers about what happened to their rebellious son who visited them a couple of times a year.

“We can do that later,” I said, lying back on the bed and massaging my forehead. “Not now. All this remembering is hard work.”

Charlie mirrored my position, settling beside me on the narrow mattress. I twisted to face him, pressing my forehead against his, so close to him that our eyelashes nearly touched when I blinked.

“Thank you for being here,” I whispered.

“I’m literally being paid to be here,” he whispered back, and I punched his shoulder.

“You fuck. I’m trying to have a moment here.”