You open your eyes, panic still taking the best of you, and you gasp, arms reaching out, but Matt’s not there. You’re back in the room again.

You hadn’t been here in weeks.

You cover your head, trying to think. There’s no pain anymore, just a weird feeling of emptiness. You always feel like that when you’re here.

“Well, that was interesting,” you hear from the door, and of course it’s the kid.

At moments like this.

Matt made you cry. You actually cried, tears running down your cheeks. You felt it.

They fell on his floor, as if you were alive.

“I just…” You start, disoriented. You were talking about Liz, Matt got you upset. You’d defend your friends to death, that’s true. And, yeah… you might be a little dramatic about the whole thing. Maybe you’re dreaming too much.

Maybe your love for them wasn’t that real.

Maybe they didn’t love you back that much.

Maybe all that you’ve seen is the natural reaction to-

“Calm down,” the kid says. Orders.

Of course they’d be sad, you were young, you weren’t supposed to die and-

“Calm down.” He repeats but you can’t help yourself. It’s like your whole world is falling apart in front of you and he just…

The kid snaps his fingers and you shiver, suddenly feeling focused again, it’s like he set everything in order. You don’t even feel like crying anymore.

What the hell?

“What did you just do?” You struggle to say the words, unable to raise your voice, unable to feel something more than apathy. From a second to another one, you don’t understand.

“I’m sorry,” He says, even though he doesn’t look sorry at all.

You try to go back to the situation.

“But I felt something,” you say, “How can I feel things? How can I feel pain if I’m dead?”

The kid looks at you, and you know you’re asking the right questions because he stopped smiling.

“You don’t.”

“I just did,” you assure him. “I felt the tear and blood on my nose, that metallic smell and shit.”

“You don’t, you remember how it felt to feel pain, but you don’t right now,” he says, “Your mind, your soul are evoking sensations, reminiscence. It’s another way for your memories to play out.”

You try to understand. But it feels so real, you know you don’t have a body anymore, you know it shouldn’t be possible, but it still hurts. Not in the same way, nor with the same intensity, but is there.

The pain. The tears.

The reminder you were once alive, not long ago.

You’re so confused. One thing is to die and go walking around like in a fucking movie, but it’s a whole new level if you somehow maintain your capability to do things. To feel them. To intervene in that world.

It’s even more painful, because you’re apparently more like a human than you initially thought, and that’s sad because you’d rather just be a ghost and disappear as soon as they forget you, go straight up heaven or hell, you don’t even care at this point.

“Soo…” The kid says, intentionally interrupting your thoughts. “If that was all you wanted to know, then off you go. I’ve got other matters to attend to, you know?”

“Shut up,” you say, deadpan, “And you brought me here in the first place.”

He stays silent for a moment, considering.

“Oh, right,” he nods, “Well, I had to, hadn’t I? You were going to call everyone’s attention like that. You can’t go around appearing in the world of the living ones.”

You roll your eyes and then frown, catching up.

“You mean I was about to. Appear.” You say slowly, trying out the words and what they mean. You could have… Matt could have seen you. You thought he could see you more clearly, you didn’t thought that you were actually appearing in front of him.

He closes his mouth.

“Does it make a difference? Just don’t do it again, or I’ll get fired.”

“I don’t know a lot about celestial works and how you applied for this, but I highly doubt you’re going to get fired.”

“I’m offended that you think this is celestial and that you think that I wanted to do this,” He says, and this is the first time you’ve seen him any other than calm.

It’s unnerving.

You never actually thought about this… “work”, if he actually wants it, or if he’s got no other choice.

“I’m sorry,” You say, because you don’t know what could make this better. You didn’t want to cause him any trouble. He’s been helping you a lot, trying to make you feel better, explaining you things.

You’re being unfair, just like with Matt.

He turns, exasperated and shakes his head. “Just… go back, okay? Don’t do that again.”

You kind of want to say you didn’t mean to do it in the first place, it was an accident, but you nod anyway. What else can you do?

You can’t help but think that it’s weird you say you’re sorry to him, he’s the kid, but he’s done enough for you, you respect him. He’s not looking at your expression, but you know he knows what you mean.

***

Next time you blink you’re back in Matt’s room.

You check the date in a little watch Matt has on his living room. 

You lost a day.

It’s noon of day twenty four.

You two act like nothing happened again, just like when you two have argued before.

He seems surprised to see you, but not exactly delighted.

So you approach cautiously, he’s on his computer, he’s wearing yesterday’s clothes and you catch a little red stain on his blue hoodie, on his sleeve.

You hope it’s not blood but maybe you suspect it is.

His mind seems to be less clogged with thoughts and feelings, giving you a sense of calm.

Maybe he’s not mad. And you don’t have the energy to be mad either.

When you come closer, you notice he’s scrolling down on facebook distractedly. But… he didn’t have a facebook before.

“I’m friends with Carmen, apparently she’ll accept anyone, even though I bet she can’t remember me from class,” he says, as it means nothing, but if he added Carmen then…

“I can see your profile. Maybe you will be able to tell where Liz is, if they’re coming to class on Friday,” He says and you’re surprised.

This sounds like an apology.

“Matt, I… “

“Don’t thank me,” he says. “It’s the least I could do after…”

I’m sorry I said all those things about you i was mad i was sad i was feeling like

He opens your profile without saying a word and you stare at the screen, reading along with him.

Your eyes hover over the lastest post, one with a picture and lots of emojis. And like one hundred of likes or something.

i miss you so much. I can’t believe you’re gone, i still remember when

I don’t want this

i’m going to miss you

“People from high school, huh?” He says, noticing the uniform in the picture at the end of the post, but your eyes are glued to the screen, confused by a whole different reason.

You don’t…

“Hey… are you okay?” He asks, smile fading as you don’t react, “What is it?”

“Matt…” Your fingers hover over the screen uncertainly the words not daring to leave your mouth.

Because you don’t want to think about the possibilities.

“I don’t remember… Who are they?”

His expression is the only thing you need to notice how wrong this is.

There’s silence for a moment, as you know you two are thinking the same thing. Everything that seemed possible, now it isn’t. There’s still no goodbye and now you don’t have the time.

Which means… which means forget about right moments or right words. You’re forgetting people. People from highschool. And what about Uni? What if you forget them too? You don’t have that much time.

What if you forget Liz?

“Matt,” you say, ask, but you don’t need to hear anything from him, his expression says it all.

Determination looks weird on his features.

“Fine. Tomorrow we’ll go to Uni.”