Chad

Having Jacynda wrap her arms around me felt good—comfortable. When we were together, it just felt right. But when she started to freak out on me in her bedroom, it made me question her sanity. It would be my luck to find an awesome girl like her, only to have her end up being a basket case. But even then, they do have medicine for that.

One minute I was waiting for her to get clothes out of her closet and the next I was pinning her to the bed… and not in a good way. When I saw her backing out of her closet, I knew something was off. Her eyes seemed to be vacant, reminding me of my old college roommate who had a habit of sleepwalking. I’d always know if he was awake or not by his eyes.

When I approached her, she started hitting me… hard. I held her arms down, holding her against the bed, trying to bring her out of whatever kind of episode she was having. It even crossed my mind that she might be having a seizure, especially when she started to throw up over the side of the bed.

“Jacynda, what's wrong?” I yelled her name, again, as worry flooded me, drowning me with unease.

“Please.” When she opened her mouth to talk, she gagged. “Just kill me. Please kill me.”

What? “Kill you? Why would I kill you?” I yelled for the others to come and help me before turning back to her and holding her face. “Jacynda, it's okay. It's me.”

When help finally arrived, Jacynda started yelling again. “Help me! Get him off me!”

Me? She was acting like I was the one who’d attacked her, when she was the one who threw the first swing.

Once she had snapped out of it and had somewhat calmed down, we all took a step back, trying to give her some breathing room, anxious as to what might happen next. She looked from one face to the next, as if begging one of us to tell her what had happened, while everyone else continued to look from me to her like they were begging for the same thing.

I slowly walked towards her, wanting to hold her and let her know everything was okay but, to be honest, I wasn’t sure if everything was okay. Being a paranormal investigator, we’d come across some crazy shit, but nothing we’d ever experienced compared to that.

When she calmed down enough to tell me what had actually happened—what she’d thought happened—I was stunned. I knew, right then, that I couldn’t let her live there. I cared too much about her to risk not only her sanity, but possibly her life. Whatever was here was obviously stronger than anything we’d ever thought possible.

On the way home, she told me that she wanted to sell her house. I was elated, to say the least, and thoughts of her moving in with me danced around in my mind. It wouldn’t take much to rearrange a few things and give her the spare bedroom, if she’d rather have that over sharing mine with me.

I couldn’t believe I was even thinking about that, especially since I’d only known her a week. Then again, strangers move in together all the time. Some even run ads in the paper, picking people at random to be their roommate, which was just asking for trouble. And it wasn’t like I was going to propose or anything. I mean, we weren’t even dating… yet. It would just be a platonic sharing-of-living-quarters type of thing. Not that I really needed a roommate. But it had been nice having her around this week, even if she did almost bleed to death in my living room and practically ruin my couch in the process. I hated to see her go… and maybe she didn’t have to.

Before I could even ask, she looked at me with a big smile and asked, “Do you want to go house hunting with me? Maybe bring some of your ghost-detecting gadgets with you?”

I’d never been one to jump the gun about things. I lived life methodically, planning everything in advance, right down to what I was going to wear the next day. Asking Jacynda to move in on a whim would’ve been anything but methodical. It would’ve been downright stupid and haphazard.

I took a deep breath that was laced with relief, thankful that she had inadvertently saved me from a potentially regretful proposition. “Sure. I’d love to.”