“I am just flirting with them,” Elinor corrected him. The secretary’s expression widened in fear. He knew how jealous patients could behave, not only them but clinically normal people, too. He was preparing for a scene coming from Ty. Ty noticed how the secretary became flustered and gave him a friendly smile in order to calm him.

After this incident, Ty and the red haired both went outside, strolling the streets. Many people dropped envious glances at them. No wonder. They looked like two models going on a photo shoot. Elinor enjoyed the spotlight and flipped her hair over while she was pretending to be walking on an invisible catwalk. In the meanwhile, Ty looked for his friend, Zeno, through his sunglasses. Earlier, he called him to meet up at the park, where Zeno was usually walking his dog.

Zeno sounded truly delighted that he got a chance to see the red haired girl again. Ty planned out this meeting in order to test how long Elinor could be corporeal and when she would disappear into nothing. He also wanted to know if Elinor somehow drained Ty’s life energy or if some other mumbo-jumbo magical thing was happening. He did not want to believe that the girl was indeed real but at the same time, she seemed so powerful. He didn’t hear about any ghosts who could make themselves so visible that even their skin on their hands felt like a real skin. Maybe he didn’t know enough about ghosts. He hadn't even bothered about knowing more as he thought he had gotten rid of the ghost way before he got to elementary school. But since she had returned on his sixteenth birthday, he had no choice but to do his research properly. He wasn’t looking forward to it, given the situation that Elinor was almost always with him. Even during toilet breaks! That was one of the many reasons why he genuinely hated this girl.

When they finally arrived at the agreed location, Zeno was waving his hands in the same rhythm as his dog was wagging its tail. Zeno had a six months-old male husky puppy. He admitted to Ty once that he got him in order to attract girls. In which he was succeeding very well, as two ladies had just finished petting the little fur ball and moved on and more females were about to come.

“You have a nice business going on here” Elinor made a remark to Zeno. “Getting girls with puppies is certainly a good tactic. Especially when you love both dogs and girls.”

“No, this is not what you think it is!” Zeno assumed the red haired girl`s statement occurred out of jealousy, so he was trying to explain himself. Before he could say anything, Elinor stopped him with a hand wave. Ty got an idea as he observed them: The easiest way to get rid of the red haired was to pass her onto someone else. He thought for a split second that his suggestion might end up being a bit too cruel on his blond friend but he was desperately in need of a personal space, especially if he wanted to research about ghosts.

“Why don’t you guys go grab a lunch together right now? I am sure you have some things to talk about since the tsunami,” he suggested. Elinor and Zeno both looked at him as if he had just killed the little husky puppy, which was still jumping around in happiness wagging its tail.

“Okay then, bye!” he was about to go when Elinor grabbed his shoulders.

“You are not going anywhere” Elinor suddenly used her usual ghost-like, cold, quiet and demanding voice. She was no longer the lovely talkative girl she was in the therapist office. Only Ty had noticed it. Elinor was getting angry. Her face became paler and paler.

The only thing that a ghost cannot have is blood alright, he concluded while observing her face.

Now if she would just make a tornado, he would have won against her and others would know about her true identity, too.

“I am,” Ty said quietly back to her. They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment.

“Um, guys?” Zeno was feeling the tension between them. “How about telling me how you’ve met?”

Elinor seemed to jump on the idea, as it meant keeping Ty locked down from walking away and immediately transformed back into her chatty pleasant self, telling a half true, half made up story. Ty did not know why both of them were somehow unable to completely lie to people.

“So we are childhood friends,” she babbled. “But Ty went away to a different district –”

“I was always living there,” Ty decided to give her a hard time about the lies. He wanted to let people know who she really was.

“Um, so then I guess, I moved away –”

“You were always there with me.”

“Well, Ty decided to ignore me completely, because –”

“She was a stalker.”

“No, because –”

“She IS still a stalker. A very bad one I am afraid.”

“He is joking. In fact, he was the one, who didn’t let me go in the first place –”

“I wanted to let her go more than anything. She just decided not to go for a VERY long time.”

“Ty, will you just shut up?”

“Why, Eli? Because I am right?”

Zeno did not know whose side to take. His husky was starting to get impatient and peed on his shoes. That made him act.

“Shut it you two, you are both coming with me!” he stopped their conversation abruptly. “I need to wash my shoes and take Jam home. Then we will talk about what’s next!”

“Um,” Ty and Elinor both were trying to talk at the same time in the hope of protesting.

“Resistance is futile!” then Zeno went ahead, not looking behind his back believing fully, that the two would follow him. They did. In the front, Zeno was smiling to himself. He had never seen his friend so energetic and lively before. That red haired woman was definitely doing something to him. Maybe something good, at least, that was how he felt.

The three of them spent the whole day together. Zeno’s main goal at that moment was to ease out his friend’s relationship with the red haired woman. He did not make any remarks which would embarrass the couple but he made sure to act like a prince who was hurt deeply and every time one of them tried to leave he said that they are hurting him. This way, he was able to keep everybody together. Emotional blackmailing? Zeno thought that if it was for a good cause, why not use it? In addition to this, his buddy was a richer guy than him. Ty paid for all of his meals, so there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

Zeno was only pretending to be one of the big cats nowadays, because his family lost a great deal of money and now they were in debt. Obviously, he could not tell Ty about that. They were close friends, but not that close. Telling him something unnecessary would make their friendship seem as if he was only Ty’s friend because of his money. Which wasn’t true. That was one of the most important things he wanted to make clear to Ty since the beginning of their friendship. The second most important thing he wanted to make clear was to make his friend feel better and happier. Zeno thought his buddy had this awfully bitter aura around him most of the time, as if he was possessed by a ghost.

He could not have been more right about that. If only he knew…