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“No. That’s okay. Stay,” I said. “I trust you.”
His facial features relaxed, a faint light twinkling in the depths of his blue eyes. I didn’t understand how, but light from the lamp hanging above us still reflected in his pupils. He slowly rested into the bed, lying next to me in the place where Dave used to sleep.
I eyed Jamie’s socks once more. They were those woolen socks which look as itchy as they feel.
“Okay, so, what’s up with your clothing?” I asked, changing subjects. “Don’t theydofashion in heaven?” I gestured toward his long socks. Not that I was a fashionista or anything—far from it—but those socks made Jamie look like a dude out of the 1950’s. “Someone should’ve stopped you before they let you out of the house with those things.”
“You don’t like my socks? Pfft. Alright, then, I’ll change.” He smirked, then lifted his arm straight up and snapped his fingers. Instantly, the socks disappeared, and he now wore bright green, fluffy slippers. “Better?”
My chest shook as I started cracking the fuck up.
“What the hell, Jamie!” I said in between laughing fits. “Not what I had in mind. But to each his own, right?”
He shook his head in amusement, snapped his fingers once more, and the slippers disintegrated, burning away into little flicks of light around his feet. I glanced at his pale toes before looking back at him.
“Cool, that’s acceptable,” I said. “Barefoot is better than 1950’s Jamie and maybe-he’s-wearing-a-onesie Jamie.”
“Maybe-he’s-wearing-a-onesie-Jamie?” The lines around his smiling eyes crinkled as he rested a hand against his left ear, propping up his head so we were at eye level. He lay on his side. We stared at each other silently, his jovial expression never dropping.
“God, even your slippers looked real,” I said as an afterthought. “Almost like I could touch them.”
“Go ahead, you can touch them if you’d like.” He snapped his fingers once more and brought back the bright green, fluffy slippers.
I hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether touching his goddamn slippers would be crossing any boundaries, but then I placed the tip of my finger on the outside of his big toe. Soft threads tickled my fingers.
“Holy shit,” I said. “I mean, I thought that spirits wouldn’t feel as real.”
“Ha. Same, I guess. Not that I knew what it was like or believed in spirits until I croaked.” He grinned. “In any case, yeah, you can feel my clothes like I’m actually wearing real clothes. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to say the same for you, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I, uh, would go right through anything physical, pretty much. Except… well…” His face reddened as his words trailed off.
“What? Just tell me, for Christ’s sake. You already read my mind. What else could you tell me that would be more personal than that?”
He shrugged. “I think I’d better just show you. Can I, uh, touch your pant leg? Near the bottom, so you know I’m not trying to get fresh or anything.”
I rolled my eyes. “Jamie, I know you wouldn’t be trying to get fresh. Yeah. Go ahead. Touch my pant leg.”
He lowered his hand over top my pants, hovering just enough to demonstrate his point. The bottom of his palm went right through the material, making Jamie’s spiritual form (his hand, anyway) appear translucent in the spot where his palm touched my blue sweatpants.
“I go right through,” he said sadly. As if he didn’t want to accept this reality.
Then, he slowly reached out a finger and touched my hand. I felt his finger against mine as if a real finger touched me, just as when his hands held mine before, and he didn’t go through my flesh the way he had gone through my pants. A tiny amount of warmth shot through me at the simple touch, though I quickly squelched that feeling.
Jamie pulled away with his head down.
“So, you can touch me… but not my clothing?” I asked.
“Not your clothing. Not the door to your house. Not the keys to your car. Not any other Earthbound soul in a physical body. I can only touch you.”
“But… why?”
He smiled. “That’s a story for another time.”
We watched each other for a moment, saying nothing. Me wondering why the fuck Jamie had the ability to touch me and nothing/nobody else. Him probably wondering why he’d mentioned anything at all.
“She seems like a nice person,” he said out of the blue, obviously wishing to change subjects.
