Page 3 of The Ghost of Exes Past

Jake, who was not just my first love, but the worst heartbreak of my life.

Jake Marleigh, who died ten years ago.

Ten years of carefully folded grief comes undone in a second.

Somehow, here he is, glowing faintly, his statement smile sweeping across his face … But he’s supposed to be dead.

I stare. He stares back. I run through a list of things this could be, because it can’t possibly be what this looks like.

Is it someone who looks like him? A secret twin I didn’t know about? Except … it can’t be, not all six foot four, with that jaw and those eyes and that infuriating smirk.

Maybe he didn’t die? Was there a mistake? A mix-up at the hospital? I’ve heard it can happen – I saw it, a whole documentary … Except, I helped identify him. I stood in that room and identified him, confirmed what clothes he had on, and there was absolutely no way I was wrong. What in the Sabrina the Teenage Witch is going on? Is this his ghost?

I turn and stagger backwards, voice caught in my throat, while simultaneously grabbing for anything to help protect me from my supposed-to-be-dead ex-boyfriend standing in the bridal suite in which I’ll be consummating my marriage, in just over a day’s time. Am I losing my mind? Is the stress of this wedding causing me to hallucinate? Did my sweet little grandma secretly poison me when she kissed me goodbye?

I trip, heels caught in my dress, and crack my head on the nearest post of the four-poster bed. I crumble to the floor and rub my head. Please don’t be a lump, please don’t be a lump. I don’t want to walk down the aisle with an egg on the back of my skull. What if Timothy feels it during our first kiss as husband and wife? What if it means my updo won’t sit properly? What if I’m actually losing it and spend tomorrow in a padded cell instead of at the altar?

But when I reopen my eyes, he’s gone. It’s just me reflected in the mirror, sitting on the floor, rubbing my head and looking very much like someone who’s just seen a ghost.

I look up at the wall where Jake would have been standing and see only the fireplace, the brass poker hanging crookedly off its stand. One of the velvet armchairs is pulled very slightly forward from where it was before – or was it already like that? I can’t tell. My hands are still trembling, shoulders quivering, and the tips of my fingers frozen.

I was just having a moment.

It’s this room. It’s Whitby, with the whole gothic, brooding, 800 years of vampire-soaked history. I’ll be okay. Someone played a prank, and my mind went into overdrive, but I’m okay! I just need to take a deep breath and think happy thoughts: Timothy, dream wedding, his speech, my first kiss with Jake— I sit bolt upright.

What is wrong with you, Belle? You’re fantasising about your first love and mistaking shadows for ghosts. I may love a horror film, but I’m not about to discover I’m clairvoyant on the eve of my wedding. I move my hands to dust myself off, and something catches my eye: a hand outstretched next to mine. The nails bitten down, a small scar across the palm from clumsily cutting an avocado while making me brunch that one time …

My eyes bolt upward in terror, and there he is, with those hands I loved reaching out to help me up.

‘This can’t be real,’ I stammer and everything goes black.

CHAPTER TWO

Jake

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my psychopomp gave to me: an ex-girlfriend out cold in a haunted manor house.

I feel weird. Exposed. A little bit naked, even. This is the first time I’ve been seen in ten years. Years of invisibility, loneliness, and no one but a grumpy angel of death to keep me company – and this is my welcome?

I stand here for a moment, shuffling and waiting for a fanfare, another sob, anything. And nothing comes, at least not from Belle, who’s out cold.

The thing is, I’ve had ten years to feel things, and I’ve not been able to, which seemed fine until about thirty seconds ago.

It’s not like I haven’t tried to connect with my emotions. I’ve tried a lot of things: revisiting the scene of my death, listing out all my regrets (there weren’t many – mainly swapping my shiny gold Charizard Pokémon card for a tuck shop Twix at school), experimenting with extravagant, ghostly pranks on family members. But none of it worked. It turns out that it’s really hard to knock things off shelves and flicker lights on and off. Gabriel says it can take centuries to learn Poltergeistology … Ah, yes, him.

Gabriel would like to be introduced as my spiritual guide or soul chaperone. Still, he’s really just a super annoying life coach (or, rather, inter-life coach) who likes to pontificate about purpose and missions in a really cryptic way that feels more frustrating than encouraging.

I blame him for my ten years of purgatory … Okay, technically, not the actual purgatory. I’ve been in the ‘in-between’, as Gabriel calls it. Which I always thought was purgatory, but apparently not; there’s another in-between bit. This bit. It’s something I still haven’t fully got my head around.

I’ve spent ten years waiting to cross over to the afterlife. But, apparently, before I can do that, I have to have a nice little chat with my ex – who is currently regaining consciousness after passing out at just the sight of me – and explain why I’m here. I must have been really bad in my earthly life to deserve this kind of torture.

So here I am with Belle. Belle, with her perfect life, her perfect family in this perfect manor house, and that perfect face, which has hardly changed.

Focus, Jake. Can’t get distracted. I need to get this over and done with quickly so I can move on to whatever comes next – preferably, a version of eternity without her in it.

‘Jake … Is that you?’ she asks, groggily.

‘Hi, Belle. It’s me. The ghost of your ex-boyfriend, Jake Marleigh.’ I resist the temptation to add a ‘woOOoOOooo’ on the end. There’s no easy way to say it, is there? I look around. ‘Cool room,’ I add. ‘Scary as fuck, though. Loving the plague bed.’