Invisible Love

Prologue

I woke up surrounded by black and screaming without a voice. I didn’t know what happened at first. I thought I was dreaming or stuck in a coma, but something inside me knew that was wrong. There was a light inside the black that I followed and when I came out the other end I was standing in my kitchen.

I knew it then. I didn’t feel solid and when I looked down at my hands I could see the floor through them.

My family was never very religious. I didn’t think there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t even think there was anything after life but I at least thought I’d have more time to think about it.

“Mom,” I said. “Mom, I'm scared.” I reached for my chest to feel what I thought would be my heart but I couldn’t feel it beating.

My mom was sitting at the kitchen table staring at a cup of tea that lost its steam. Her dirty blonde hair was unwashed and in a half bun that didn’t keep the hair from her eyes. She didn’t seem to notice.

I didn’t want to move. I thought if I did it would make it more real.

I’ll never forget the way her face looked.

“Mom,” I said again. “Mom!” I screamed so loud that I lost any doubt about being gone. I didn’t feel the strain on my vocal cords or lose any breath. I could’ve stayed screaming like that all day, but a knock at the door made me stop.

My mom didn’t get up. She didn’t even flinch but a man walked in anyway and came up behind her. He slid his arms around her and hugged her tight. She used a hand to grab his arm and I stood there without the anger I thought I would’ve had the next time I saw his face.

This man was my father before he left my mom and me. Barely even recognized him. He had a beard and glasses that hid the creases under his eyes. He was a bit thinner than I remembered and without any real evidence, I felt he regretted what he’d done. I thought I could smell his cigarette smoke but that wasn’t true because ghosts can’t smell. Still, I imagined it surrounding my mom and comforting her the way it did before he left three years ago.

Instead of anger, I felt relief that my mom had someone to hold her.

I hadn’t really noticed I stopped screaming. I enjoyed watching them comfort each other until I fully realized what this meant for me, and the people I was leaving behind.

Memories of May filled me with instant guilt. If this was really happening then I didn’t know how much time I’d have left. If maybe I just had a few minutes to say goodbye and then I’d disappear or move on or whatever. I didn’t know how it all worked, and I couldn’t leave without seeing her one last time.

I left the kitchen to go find her, and that’s when I understood I wasn’t in the same world as I was before. Every step felt like walking on jello. Frustrated, I grunted into my hands and tried to cry but couldn’t. I lowered myself to the ground and leaned against a wall across from our front door. Then, I thought about her. Our last memory is watching a movie together at my house. The way we curled into each other with a big fuzzy grey blanket. How I could’ve fallen asleep but I wanted to make the moment last as long as possible.

When I removed my hands I thought I might’ve reached the other-side but I quickly realized the white I saw was actually May’s eggshell-colored room. If I wasn’t so overwhelmed with shock I probably would’ve thought it was cool, but my only worry was her.

I could see she hadn’t received the call yet. She was playing her guitar which was decorated with random stickers, and attempting to sing 1, 2, 3, 4 by the Plain White Ts. I didn’t know what it would feel like to touch her yet so I just stood there like a creep. Then the phone rang and I really couldn’t move.

I watched it all happen from three feet away. The break in her smile broke through my discomfort. I rushed over to her bed and tried to hold her but she fell through me like sand. All I could do was watch her cry and pretend to take her hand.

In the days leading up to the funeral, I attempted to contact her. I tried everything. The lights, the TV, even her phone were all failed attempts. I phased through them all. Felt like a glitch in the system. Maybe the billionaires were right and it was all a simulation, but the game makers forgot to reset me and now her life was my menu screen.

“Liv, Liv I don’t understand, I don’t… I just…”

I stood behind her and watched her cry in front of a pale grey stone with my name etched onto it for what felt like hours. Everyone else at the funeral had left. Even my parents had said their last goodbyes, but they couldn’t get May to leave.

“I’m right here,” I tried to tell her.

She didn’t hear me, in fact, she cried harder. She kicked some loose dirt at my stone.

“Why now! Why, why did you have to die now? We just- I just-”

“You just what?” I asked, but she didn’t continue. “You just what?” I asked again, but after the third attempt, I gave up, and instead kept a hand hovering her shoulder and hoped she somehow felt me there.

Our only other friend was out of the country and his plane got delayed due to a storm. I was all she had and I was the cause. I hated being the cause of her pain. I just wanted to take it all away. Thought if I wanted it badly enough I could do something. Anything. She was standing right next to me, all I had to do was make her notice. I rubbed my hands together and lowered them while concentrating. I hoped something would happen. If I focused hard enough, but it was like pouring liquid through a sewage grate. If she felt anything it didn’t show on her face.

Instead, her phone rang, and it stopped me. She wiped her eyes and stared at the screen a moment before putting it on speaker.

“...Hello?” her voice shook even with one word.

“You ok?”

The voice at the other end made me so angry I yelled out loud, “Not him!”

She must’ve felt my anger or maybe she knew I wouldn’t approve, either way, she hung up the phone. I didn’t feel the way I thought I would, though. Didn't feel relieved. I felt broken, because she was broken, and I wasn’t there to fix her.

Chapter 1

I let her shadow hold my hand a moment before we cross the street. She doesn’t look back at me as I struggle to keep up with her. I dodge lines of people and keep my eye on her long red hair. Her heavy boots are smacking against the cement but my feet practically sink through. Even before I was like this she was the one who could stop a crowd with her walk and I trailed behind looking like an injured ice skater.

She has a single suitcase and a couple of other bags inside a large backpack.

She didn’t ask her parents to go with her. They had a huge fight a week before I left her, but she never told me what it was about. They weren’t speaking by the time I found her. Although, I could tell her dad wanted to try during the funeral. He took her hand but she pushed it away.

I died at the end of July. I can’t remember how it happened or why. I think everyone forgets how they died. It’s simply too traumatic, like how babies never remember being born.

I look down at my faded image. A T-shirt with a wavy hem, bootleg jeans, and no shoes. The no-shoes thing really made me wonder what happened. Part of me thinks that if I find out what happened that will flip a switch and I’ll beam up or disappear or…possibly start over, but I’m afraid of leaving her.

We enter the building through a row of glass doors and there’s a big welcome sign with a bunch of staff handing out flyers. It makes me wish I at least made it to my first day. There’s also a bunch of parents with their kids hugging, crying, and everything in-between. I look over at May and I can see she’s biting back a few tears. It can’t be easy doing this alone. I hover my hand over her shoulder and hope she feels something, but I can’t tell.

She glances down at her phone searching for her room number.

“Can I help you?” asks a broad-shouldered boy with a mustache that is desperately asking to become a beard.

“Yeah, I’m looking for…”

I glance down. “Room 202.” I wait for a response like I’m somehow involved in this.

“Room 202.”

“Great, the elevator is straight ahead, just push for two. He smiles and I don’t need mind control to know what he’s thinking, but I try anyway. I sort of hope this gig comes with some superpowers, but all I get is the sound of May’s squeaky wheel making it over to the elevator. She turns when she’s in the elevator. I follow her in and pretend to link my arm up with hers.

“I’m Jack by the way,” he says as the doors are closing, but she doesn’t answer or smile back.

She reaches her apartment and I follow. I attempt to avoid the door forgetting that it doesn’t matter anyway. She stares at the entrance like she’s waiting for me to follow.

"I'm right here," I say, trying to grasp her hand. The same thing happens every time. It phases through, and I try again, nothing, again, nothing. She grabs our necklace. “I’m here…I promise.”

She sits on her new plastic bed that takes up most of the space in the room. The room is oddly shaped but sort of good for privacy. It’s rectangular with two beds positioned at either end and a third in the middle. There’s a lot of light, which is good, May hates the dark. Even though we were never going to the same school I still feel guilty for not taking up a bed.

I sit next to her and pretend to lean my head on her shoulder.

My world feels like it’s underwater. Sitting on a bed is like sitting on a sturdy flotation device.

She pulls out a framed picture from her bag and stares at us. It’s from this summer. We’re laying down in our spot in front of the old water tower. She has her freckles out which she would normally hide with makeup, and two braids. My hair is chin-length short and platinum blonde with pink tips. (I guess one of the plus sides to being dead is never having to do a root touch-up again.) We look high, but not so high we couldn’t also be tired. I look like I’m trying to grab the camera but we’re both smiling.

The next thing she pulls out would bring me to tears if I had any.

For my birthday, before he left, my dad got me a Polaroid camera. May and I have used it every summer since. We take as many pictures as we can to fill up a bunch of scrapbooks. I didn’t know my mom let her have it, but I’m glad she did. She takes a deep breath, fixes our necklace, and holds it out,

*

“Say community college.”

“Oh my god,” click, “I’m not proud of it you know?”

“I know but you got waitlisted for FIT there’s still time, and if not one year at community, re-apply, and you’re golden.”

I start making shapes with my hands, “Easy for you to say, Miss. MIT.”

“Well, I’m not going there, remember?” May makes a bunny and I chase it with a crocodile.

“Why?”

“First of all I’m not leaving you, and second I got a full ride to The New York Institute of Technology and my parents want me to go there.”

I sit up first and start playing with the grass. I looked up at the giant water tower and tried to imagine climbing to the top. I wondered what the view might be like from there. The sun melting into the treeline and the perfect summer breeze. May sat up and put an arm around me.

“What’s wrong?” she said in her poor lonely Liz tone.

“I don’t want you to give up on such an incredible opportunity just because I’m stuck here.”

“It’s not just for you. My family wants me to stay here as well to help them out, and I’d rather go to the city. It’s our thing, but I’m not just doing it for you ok? So cheer up kid,” she said squeezing me so hard I felt her half of the necklace digging into my skin.

“Ok, ok. You can stop bear hugging me. I’m good now.”

“Good.” May lay back down and made a snow angel in the tall grass. I laid back down with her letting the moment keep me from worrying about the future. I took a handful of grass and threw it into the air. “I swear when I get out of this town I’m never looking back,” I scooched into her shoulder and let my head rest in it.

“You’re so dramatic,” she giggled, “The city is like an hour train ride.”

“Yeah,” my thoughts started to spiral. Her in the city without me. Living her life, and making new friends.

“You’re gonna come with me you know? I’m gonna need my best friend to help me move in, and then you can stay for as long as you like,” I couldn’t help my smile, “I wouldn’t leave without you Liz,” she pushed my arm.

“Pinky promise?” I took her pinky with mine.

“Cross my heart.”

I looked back up at the sky and watched a plane pretend to be a star against the partially lit sky. I pointed out the big dipper and May pointed out a random constellation and called it the little dipper, but I didn’t correct her.

I took a moment before I asked it, “How’s the hubby?”

May rolled her eyes, “Why do you call him that?”

I sat up, “Because he’s practically married.”

“Divorced is not married, and he’s twenty-seven so it’s not like he’s that old.”

I gave her a look, “Just because you’re eighteen now doesn’t mean you can go around sleeping with geriatrics.”

“Would you stop?” She was serious.

“I’m sorry,” I admitted, “I wasn’t judging you. It’s just…You’re so pretty and you date these,” I picked at the grass, “Weirdos..”

She sits up, “Weirdos with amazing weed.” She took out her lighter and lit the joint we gave up on an hour ago.

“Fair point.”

We finished the joint and laid back down. She stretched her hand out and let her fingers trace my palm. I was frozen, partly from the weed, and partly because she smelled like roses and smoke, and I wanted to remember that smell. Then she took my hand and kissed the back of hers.

“Let this moment never die, even when we’re old and gray with diapers and can’t remember our own names. I decree that this memory will stay intact. What do you say?” She dropped my hand and got up to look at me but I stayed down.

“If the queen decrees it then it shall be so,” I said with my eyes closed.

“Good,” I couldn't see her but I knew she kept her eyes on me for a moment before she laid back down. “I love you, Liz.”

“Love you too kid.”

We stayed there until the sun rose. My mom wasn’t home for a week and May decided I shouldn’t be alone. She slept over every night. If I had to die I don’t think I would’ve cared that night.

*

When the picture comes out I half expect my face to be next to hers but there’s just an empty wall where I should be.

She gets a call and I swallow the pain when I see the caller ID. I watch as her face changes back to the day she got the first one.

“Hey yeah I just moved in…No I wouldn’t have expected you- No really it’s fine…When…” I really hope she’s not doing it. “Saturday?” She’s doing it.

“May listen to me,” I kneel on the bed and get as close as I can. “You. Do. Not. Have. To. Go…Would you listen!” I try to grab the phone out of her hand, but I’m useless. “This is your first college weekend. You shouldn’t miss it,” I trail off at the end and give up.

“Hello? Hell- Ugh, stupid connection...”

If I didn’t know any better I probably would’ve gotten excited, but these new iPhones aren’t the best with reception.

“Hey yeah, I think our connection was lost or something but I can be there this weekend. It depends on the train times, but it shouldn’t be too long. Great, see you then.” May hangs up and grabs our picture, “I’m doing this for you...I hope you know.”

“I don’t want you to!” I imagine the lights going out like in the movies, but life isn’t like the movies, and I guess death is no different.