Page 49 of The Ghost of Exes Past

She pokes her head around the door – just her head, body hidden. I can tell she’s partly nude.

‘How do you know what’s me? You’ve been dead for ten years,’ she says flippantly, a little sterner now. ‘Anyway, we still have two exes to go.’

I shoot her a look. ‘Come on, Belles. I know you.’

I know her voice … I could almost hear her narrating in my head when I first reached the in-between. I’d see things and hear what she’d think of them: ‘Jake, you idiot,’ she’d say monotonously after I spent an afternoon testing which wall thickness I could walk through. ‘Shit, huh,’ she’d say bluntly, when I looked out at a sunset and it was all grey. Then all high-pitched and squealing excitedly, when I realised I could literally go anywhere and do anything, for free. This voice now, though, it’s too considered. All formal, polite. Like a bad actor playing a receptionist in a C-grade movie.

She’s shooting daggers at me now, her brows furrowed. ‘You knew the old me, Jake.’ Her hand clutches the doorframe.

‘Yeah, Belles, the real you. The one who isn’t totally covered up. The one who acts like a human and not a robot.’

She slips back into the bathroom. ‘Says the literal ghost.’

I sit up now, talking to an empty doorframe. ‘Are you denying there’s a difference between the person you are while we’re in this manor, and the person you are when we’re away from here?’

‘No,’ she shouts back.

‘Okay, good. So why won’t you take my observation on board?’

‘Because it’s unhelpful! There’s a lot to organise.’ She sounds breathy, like she’s flapping around. ‘Sometimes I have to put a face on when there’s a lot going on, that’s all. I’m not always like this.’

When stressed, the Belle I knew would get even more sweary. Her voice would crack, and she’d pause, she’d get a little emotional, ask for a hug. Not fall into the tone of a robotic sales assistant. Does Timothy also get the sales assistant, or is that just for me?

‘Is Timothy always the way he is?’

‘No,’ she snaps bluntly, quickly.

‘Then is the wedding fake?’

I hear rustling, then heels clicking on tiles, and her head pokes around the door again.

Oh, she’s mad.

‘What? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Shut up, Jake, I need to get ready …’ Her voice trails off and the bathroom door closes so loudly, it makes me jump.

I think I touched a nerve there. I’ve just been getting weird vibes. Seeing her in this hotel, it seems like an act, like she’s trying too hard. Smiling a little too forcefully for photos. Posing just a little too much. And even if time does change you, your wedding weekend should be when you feel your most at ease. You’re surrounded by people who know the real you – who have picked you to be in their life because you’ve made a connection – and marrying the person who knows you inside out, knows your flaws, your quirks, knows when you’re not being yourself. Has Timothy even seen the real Belle? Has he even noticed that she might be a little thrown tonight? That she’s been distracted? I look at my hands again, push back the cuticles of my bitten nails.

The bathroom door opens and out she walks, hands in her hair, as a strap slips from her shoulder. She’s wearing a dress that stops me in my tracks. If I weren’t dead, my heart would have skipped a beat. I almost feel the thumping of blood through my veins.

The dress is a pale pink, a blush, like the start of a sunset, but after ten years of grey it might as well be neon. I’d forgotten that colour could do this. So vivid, so full of life. Then my eyes skim her curves, her bust, her face, cheeks slightly flushed.

She looks drop-dead gorgeous.

‘Help me zip this up, will you?’ She walks in front of the bed. I swallow and stand, towering over her. She turns her back to me, hands still holding up her hair. My fingers graze against her soft skin as I push some strands of her red hair from the base of her neck.

I breathe in her perfume. If I leaned down, just slightly, I could kiss her neck, could feel the warmth of her skin under my lips. I pause, taking the zip in my fingers at the base of her spine, one hand to her waist to hold the dress taut. I zip it up, slowly. I try to staple this moment to my memory – the curve of her hips under my palm, the freckles on her back, the silvery downy hairs on her neck. She’s so beautiful I have to remind myself to keep moving and not just stand here with my hand on her waist like an idiot, as my hairs stand up across my arms.

All I can think is: Timothy, that fucking guy – does he even have any idea how lucky he is?

‘Thank you.’ She smooths down her dress and walks over to the mirror, reapplying some lipstick and patting it in with her fingers, and I realise I haven’t moved an inch. I watch her catch sight of my reflection behind her before she looks away again, going straight back to the lipstick. Did my hand on her waist do anything for her or was that just me?

She nods, ready. ‘Let’s go down. You’ll see I’m not that uptight,’ she says, fiddling with her earrings, marching to the door.

I follow her out and down the long staircase, watching her hips sway as she walks. What’s a guy to do? Ignore the beauty in front of him? If this is my last night on earth before whatever the next step is – heaven or hell or just nothingness – I might as well take the memory of a beautiful woman along with me.

Two more after this, then Timothy. Then Gabe takes me and she walks down the aisle and I … I press my hands deeper into my pockets.

As we re-enter the hall, everyone cheers. For Belle, not for me, obviously. I wonder if I’m being picked up as an orb in any of the hundreds of pictures being taken of Belle right now. I leave her twirling in her dress, Timothy and her family applauding, and scope out the room. Someone has somehow managed to turn this Grade II listed manor house into Fabric. Impressive. The ancestral portraits hung on the far walls are now vibrating with bass and sass.