Page 7 of See Through

She’s quiet for a few moments, taking deep breaths before she brushes past me and grabs a towel, drying the plate I just washed.

“We’re playing cards before bed.”

“Sounds good, Aubs, but I think cards require pajamas first. What do you think?”

“I like the way you think, Atwater.”

“I’ll finish this.” I nudge her with my elbow. The use of my last name makes me spin as soon as it’s off her lips. “Go get comfortable.”

“Did you bring a change of clothes?”

I nod. “You know I always have a bag in my car.”

She swipes my keys from the pocket of my scrub pants before I finish rinsing the utensils, and I can barely say two words before she’s out the door, headed to my car to grab it for me.

If I’m not careful, I’d think this was going to be something we do forever. If I’m not careful, hope will start blossoming through my body at how intricately she knows me and lets me exist in her space. Sure, I could go back to my apartment tonight, but I’d rather be here with her, celebrating her accomplishments and falling asleep on her couch, as I often do when we hang out.

I’m glad I can do this again. I felt uncomfortable doing it when Shane was still around, but Aubrey never told me what happened between them. One day, he was here, and the next day, he wasn’t. That was it. She never wanted to talk about it, and I never wanted to press, because watching her love someone else already felt like I was getting stabbed a hundred times.

But now, we’re back to how we used to be. We’re friends—best friends—and I’m still stopping myself from reaching out to her every second I’m in her presence.

If given the chance, I’d show her how much I love existing in her space, how much I love being around her, how much she deserves someone to love her. If she gave me a chance, I’d love her right.

Every time I hear the word friend from her mouth, part of me dies. That’s not her fault, though; it’s mine, for falling in love with her and being too afraid to ruin what she’s already given me.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Can you move it a little to the left?” I speak through the walkie.

“How’s that?” Dean says after shifting it.

“Perfect.” We’re setting up for our investigation before we lose daylight, and already, this place is already giving me the creeps. Every time we do one of these, I swear, I can feel the weight of all the spirits still lingering. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but I have an inkling tonight is going to be great for content. I always wonder what awaits us when we’re investigating, and a lot of the time, nothing too crazy happens, but we’ve had some luck capturing noises and voices. “Come back, and we can go over the game plan.”

We’re at an old hospital tonight, and it’s still been raining a little bit on and off, but tonight, there are finally some clear skies. The sun is about to set, the air has a slight chill to it, and I think tonight is going to be a good night. I have a few new things up my sleeve that I want to try to get the ghosts to be more lively, and we’re almost finished setting up, just in time for the sun to set for optimal working conditions.

We always investigate at night. Not only is ghost activity more lively at night, but the tension between us and them is thicker as we walk through the darkness, waiting to hear a sound, a thump, a voice. It’s all just so much fun, and I still can’t believe I get to call this a career.

The current owners gave us permission to investigate two sections of it—the old emergency room and the operating floor. It is a huge hospital, so we wouldn't have been able to do the entire thing anyway. The owners are super nice, and apparently, they plan to renovate it and make it a working hospital again. But since that takes a lot of money and paperwork, they allowed us in here. Apparently, no other paranormal investigators have come here yet, which means Dean and I are the very first ones.

“Hey,” he says as he jogs towards me, his hair in that same bun as always. I’ve told him to try and keep his hair down, but he’s always afraid it’s going to get caught in the shot and ruin it. I have to crane my neck to look at him, and the way he stares down at me sometimes gives me chills. He always looks so serious when we do these, and I might think he was scared sometimes, but I don’t think that’s it. He doesn’t believe in this stuff anyway. “How are we looking?”

“I have everything we’ll need in my bag, and since the cameras are set up, all we have to do is wait for it to get a little darker, and then we’re good to go.”

“Perfect.” He checks to make sure all his batteries are fully charged. “The recorders are already rolling in the spots you wanted them. Should we go over our path one more time?”

“So, we’re starting by the entrance of the old emergency room doors. We’ll head inside there and start looking around first. There are a ton of rooms to go through, so that will take us a second. Then, we’ll head up to the floor with all the operating rooms. I figure we can do a few of those. I did some research on certain ones. Apparently, a blacklisted surgeon did an off-record surgery in one of them and killed the patient and his entire staff.”

“How the hell did he manage to do that?”

“Nobody knew why, but he started acting funny in the middle of surgery. He killed his staff and the patient before himself. The papers called it a freak accident, and then they shut the hospital down.”

“Wow.” He takes a seat on the edge of his truck. “I’ve seen some fucked up stuff doing radiology rotations at the hospital, but never something like that.”

“I know, right?” I say, my eyes and tone a little too cheery talking about this stuff. I can’t help it. Researching old buildings and walking around the inside, knowing the history, gives me a rush I couldn’t emulate anywhere else if I tried. “I think it’s dark enough now. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Alright, let’s do the intro while we’re out here.” I grab the equipment I carry with me through investigations as Dean gets the night vision on his camera ready. I have my audio recorder in case I hear anything, my EMF reader to monitor energy spikes as we walk around, and my usual journal attached to my hip, where I take notes.