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That’s when my eyes land on a note on the small table in front of the window. In a handwriting I don’t recognize, the note reads:
LITE CANDL. I WNT 2 TALK AB
I blink.
Say what?
I scope the apartment with my eyes. “West?” I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud. It feels way weirder during the day. “What do we need to talk about?”
Silence is returned. Not even the groan of a distant AC unit touches my ears.
I guess I’m gonna have to do the thing again.
With a sigh, I abandon the closed window and the note, grab a match, then go to the kitchen. After a calm and healthy mental debate on whether or not I really have lost my mind, I finally strike the match, bring it to the candle, and—
“FINALLY!” shouts a voice from behind.
4
All Dudes Are the Same
I nearly jump out of my skin as I spin around, wide-eyed, and face Westley, who has appeared right behind me from thin air. “Damn it!” I cry out. “Warn me, first! I nearly pissed my pants!”
“Sorry! Sorry, sorry.” Westley lifts his hands and backs away. Then he chokes on a laugh. “Actually, that was kinda funny from my perspective. Did you really just piss your pants, or—?”
“Did you open my window?”
“Just a crack. I was just experimenting, seeing what I could do.”
He can open a window an inch, apparently. “Don’t do that. What if someone climbs up the fire escape and sneaks inside? My laptop is sitting right there.”
“Yeah, yeah, won’t happen again. I was just—”
“And was that your note? Why does it look like it’s written by a two-year-old?”
West frowns at me. “Hey, dude, you try to write when you’re a ghost. That shit’s hard! It was difficult enough trying to open the window. I don’t quite have the hang of holding things yet, okay? The pen kept, like, dropping through my hand or something.”
He looks the same as he did last night: plain t-shirt, ratty jeans … but his hair looks a little less chaotic than it did before. Did he actually take a little care to how he looks before I lit the candle? Or is it a coincidence? Or did his big ghost hands find out how to use my comb?
I decide not to ask. “Well, you got and ate a slice of my pizza easy enough last night.”
“Yeah, well … I felt stronger then. I don’t know how it all works.” He folds his arms, then grins. “I’m so glad you lit the candle, bro. I fucking missed you.”
Nice. The barista thinks I’m a dork, and the straight ghost in my apartment is in love with me. What other trick does Halloween want to play on me this year?
“Well, whatever you wanted to talk about, I’m not in the mood,” I warn him. “Today went badly.”
“Oh. The interviews?”
“Rejected. All of them. What is it about me that …” I move to the table and drop into a chair. “… that people hate so much …?”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a ghost, you don’t count.”
“Ouch.” He shoots me a look, then snorts. “Well, there’s your first problem, buddy.”
“What?”
“You’re a sore loser.”
I bristle. “A sore loser …?”
“Yeah. You don’t take rejection well. That’s not an attractive quality, my friend.”
My face tightens. “I’m not your friend.”
“And what if you gave terrible answers?”
“Huh? Terrible answers?”
“At the interviews. What if you sucked? You gotta say the right things or else they won’t hire you. You gotta fucking bleed confidence, bro. You gotta demand their attention, sell the parts of you that make ‘em drool and grab that job by the nut sack.” To demonstrate, he claws at the air and gives it one mighty squeeze of a fist that makes my own legs press together in discomfort. “You gotta be … well …” He chuckles, then shrugs and gestures at himself. “You gotta be more like me.”
“Like you? That’s not happening.”
“Not with that attitude it isn’t. Look, you gotta get a job, because if you don’t, Miss Freaky across the hall is gonna evict you, and where does that leave me? You’re the first living human being who I’ve actually been able to have a conversation with. Most can’t see me … or I do one dumb thing and they go running off. You’re …” He studies me for a second. “You’re the first one who’s not scared of me.”
I give him a onceover. “Well, you’re not all that scary, to be honest.”
“Nah, I’m not. I’m just dead as fuck.”
“Annoying as fuck, too. Remind me, what exactly is the point of all this crap you’re going on about?”
“Damn it, Griffin, this is important!” He comes up to the table so fast, I barely see his legs move. Is that a ghost thing? “You have got to get that job, man, and I’m gonna help you.”
