No matter what I say, Aiden won’t let me go with him to the cemetery. He sets off again by himself, this time armed with flowers and directions. I return to my apartment and watch through the window as he hurries off into the growing darkness. I’m a little curious about why he was so determined to go alone, but then again almost everything about Aiden makes me curious. I can tell he’s keeping a lot from me. I’m certainly keeping a lot from him.

But what was I supposed to say? Don’t worry, Aiden. Kasey may have died, yes, but she’s still here. Literally.

Kasey and I know that something paranormal is happening, but we’re not sure what exactly, at least not yet. We’ve been doing a lot of late-night internet research that’s turned up very little in the way of helpful answers. At first, we thought that she’d become a straightforward ghost: she’s dead, for one thing, and she fades in and out of existence when she feels like it. She’s also transparent, in an opalescent kind of way: you can’t see through her, but you can tell that she isn’t entirely solid. Based on the experiments we’ve run, I’m the only one who can see, hear, or in any way detect her, which feels like a ghost thing. Her outfit appears to be stuck on what she was wearing when she died: flowing, high-waisted red pants with a blue button-down tucked into them, a shiny grey jacket over that. She can remove items - we tested it with her jacket - and they simply reappear when she wants them back. Ghosty, we both thought.

On the other hand: she can still touch and move things, which is un-ghostlike. She can also taste and feel things, which (according to movies, at least) is not in line with ghost behavior. When she first died, we were frantically trying to get our hands on information about what earthly forces could come together to cause whatever this is. We were terrified that she would vanish after the funeral. Now that the time crunch has revealed itself to be a non-issue, we’ve relaxed a bit. Kasey doesn't feel like she’s going anywhere. We’ll figure out what she is, and why she became this. But I don’t want to do anything that could offend whatever gracious force of the universe gave me back my best friend before I could even hear about the accident that took her away from me.

Every time my mind starts to drift towards actually processing the accident, something sends my train of thought barreling back towards safer territory. No need to worry about that right now, it reassures me. We’ll come back to it later. This weird inability to feel sad about what happened is starting to worry me, but it keeps feeling like a problem for the me of tomorrow.

Besides, it’s hard to grieve over Kasey when she’s sitting across from me at the kitchen counter, holding my phone and criticizing my Spotify playlists.

“I wonder what Aiden is going to do at your grave,” I murmur, staring out of the window with my chin on my hand and my elbow on the table. “I hope I gave him good enough directions.”

“He’s there already, I can feel it,” Kasey answers, not bothering to look up from my phone.

“What? What do you mean, you can feel it?”

“I don’t know. I just can.” She turns my phone around to face me. “Angie just texted you to ask if you’re going to the party next weekend?

“Uuuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh -”

“You should go.”

“I made that noise because I knew you were going to say that.”

“Dude, you have spent every day since I died just going back and forth between the flower shop and the apartment and nowhere else. I know that it’s due to the amount of supernatural research we have to get through, but everyone else is going to start worrying that you’re going into a depression on my behalf.”

“Are they, though?”

“Yes. Show your face at the party, please. Even if you only go for a little bit.”

“That stuff feels so unimportant right now.”

“You know I’m gonna win this argument, so do you want to have it anyway, or can we skip it?” Kasey asks, setting my phone down on the table and fixing her critical gaze on me instead.

“I just don’t want everyone looking at me like they’re sorry for me. What? I just - oh, no. Now you’re doing it.”

“Will you please just go? As a favor to me?” Her voice drops some its usual edge, softens. No no no. She knows that using that voice is cheating and she’s doing it anyway.

“Fine. Fine. Fuck! Fine. I take it from your phrasing that you’re not going to come with me?”

“Nope.” She looks at me fondly. “Besides, if I went, I wouldn’t get to hear you tell me about everything later. You always make it sound more interesting than it was.”

Kasey suddenly pauses, glancing up as if a bird had just flown over my head or something.

“I feel weird.” She presses a hand against her stomach.

Normally I would make a joke here, but I’ve been afraid of her saying something like this. I have no idea what’s still connecting Kasey to this world, and for all I know, the thread could be thin. I’m more scared of losing her now than I was when she actually could die. I find myself getting up to my feet too quickly, sending my chair sliding backward. Kasey starts and looks up at me. She holds out a calm-down hand.

“I’m okay, I think. I just feel different. It was like someone was pulling on me, if that makes sense. Wait - it stopped.”

“Kasey! You’re freaking me out!”

“You’re freaking me out!” She sets both of her hands on the table, breathing slowly. “Okay. I’m fine. I don’t know what that was, but I’m fine.”

“Well, we should probably try and figure it out, right?” I ask, hesitating. “Maybe I shouldn’t go to the party, it sounds like we should focus-”

“Oh, my god, Jamie, you’re so annoying. Here.” She scoops up my phone. “I’m just going to text Angie for you and that’ll be that.”

“You can’t, remember?” Apparently she’s not tangible enough for her fingers to register on a touch screen. We discovered that on day two of our experiments with her new form.

“Then save me the misery and just go,” she sighs, dropping the phone back onto the table.

“I will, but only because I love you so much.”

“Poor poor Jamie, forced to attend a party. As if it’s going to be so bad.”

“I’m sure it’ll be the same as always,” I answer, and Kasey smiles.

~~~~

From outside, at least, it does look the same as always. There are some drawbacks about living in a town the size of Ketterbridge: if you want friends who are your age, they’re almost all people you know from high school. If you want to attend a party, they’re almost all thrown in the living room of someone you know from high school (or in their basement, depending on your high school experience). And what will you do at the party? Sip mid-range beers with people you know from high school, until it gets late and the people remaining get very drunk.

Super fun.

Needless to say, there is a certain kind of person who enjoys this type of gathering. I’d say the rest of us are neutral about them. You go because it’s something to do, and if you’re me, you go to maybe eavesdrop on some drama and bring back saucy details to share with Kasey. I decide to go over when the party’s been going for a few hours. This is usually when they start to get interesting, anyways.

Angie is hosting tonight’s event, and she’s hosted many before. Her house has a wide backyard with a grill, two picnic tables, and some lightbulbs on strings. In Ketterbridge, this is enough to make your place a main attraction. Even I’ll admit her house is the best for these gatherings. The backyard has two huge, gorgeous trees, and she lets her huge dog run around greeting the guests, and she has a huge cooler that’s usually overflowing.

The crowd has already thinned a bit, but the back yard is still well-populated and the house is pretty full, too. I should probably have come another hour later. The first signs of the late-night shift are starting, though: the people still here are all starting to get fucked up. Light drinkers have left the scene.

“Oh, Jamie!” Angie is leaning out of the back door of her house, waving. “Hang on, wait right there, will you?”

She turns around and shouts something that I can’t make out over the music spilling from the house. A moment later Sancho comes bounding out with a big golden retriever smile on his face. He follows at Angie’s heels while she crosses the yard towards me. She gives me a huge hug and then pulls back, chewing her lip.

“I didn’t realize you were coming!” She sounds a little flustered. “You never texted me back.”

“Oh, right. I’m sorry, I forgot.”

“Okay. Well, I have some big news.” Angie tips forward conspiratorially, rocking onto the balls of her feet. “Like, you’re not gonna fucking believe this.”

“What? What happened?”

“Aiden Callahan might come to the party.”

I blink at her, a little caught by surprise. I haven’t seen Aiden in the last week, not since I helped him at the flower shop. I didn’t expect him to be here, but I’m clearly not sufficiently shocked for Angie.

“Are you about to tell me you already knew somehow?”

“That he was coming to the party? No. But I - heard he moved back.”

“Of course you did. All gossip travels through the flower shop at one point or another.” She smiles brightly. “So, here’s the thing, I invited, um, Noah, Ralph, and Grant.”

I stare at her in dismay.

“Oh. Well, that’s quite the list of all my least favorite people.”

“No, I know,” she says quickly, wincing. “I’m not crazy about them either. It’s just - Aiden is brand new back in town, and they were his best friends before he left. I’m just trying to make him more comfortable. You know he’s been away for like twelve years.”

“Eight years,” I correct automatically, and Angie shrugs.

“That was why I texted you, I was gonna give you a heads up about them all being here, but you never texted me back, and I assumed you weren’t coming…”

“It’s fine, Ang.” I drape my arm around her shoulders, and she hugs me again. “Really, it’s fine. I can handle myself. I haven’t seen those guys in a long time, though. They don’t usually come out to these things.”

“Because they usually ruin them,” Angie mutters, and I laugh into my beer. “Let’s just hope that Aiden actually shows up. Aren’t you dying to know what he’s been up to all this time?”

“You act like he and I were buddies. Recall that we were enemies, Ang.”

“Okay, well, I don’t know about you, but I like to know what my enemies are up to.”

“Have a lot of enemies, do you?”

“Yes.” She releases me and narrows her eyes. “There’s this old lady who brings her dog into the clinic. She and I are going to kill each other one day. Ethel.” Angie takes a deep swig of her beer. “Anyways, I hope that Aiden does actually come. If I invited those other guys to the party for no reason I’m gonna be pretty pissed.”

“Well, maybe they just won’t come.”

The moment I say it, an unexpected arm is flung around my shoulders with altogether too much force. I flinch in surprise and nearly spill my drink, and an unpleasant laugh grates against my ears.

“Holy shit, Jamie Keane? Is that you?”

I have to take a second to force a smile onto my face before I turn around, shrugging his arm off of me.

“How’ve you been, Ralph?” I ask, reasserting a hold on my beer. “Long time no see.”

“Seriously, it’s been forever. Look at you!” He gives me a toothy grin.

Ralph has dyed his hair white, apparently, since the last time I saw him. He’s as lean and scrawny as he was in high school, but his face has gotten a little bit softer. A few short prickles of beard hair jut out of his chin, which for some reason sends my mind to the thick beard that Aiden recently shaved off at his aunt’s behest. I shake my head, trying to get my shit together. I’ve only had two beers, this is ridiculous.

“Ralph, you made it,” Angie says, with enthusiasm of a clearly inauthentic nature. “Great. Do you know whether or not Aiden is coming?”

“Is he coming? He’s out front right now with Noah and Grant. I think they were trying to round up some brewskies.”

My stomach lurches unpleasantly.

“Oh, you guys already found each other?” Angie sounds a little disappointed that she didn’t get to make the re-introductions.

“Are you kidding? Aiden is my lifelong brother,” Ralph answers somberly, pressing a hand against his chest. “We are bonded at the soul. He came to see us this morning, we’ve been together all day.”

I feel like someone’s just slapped me in the face. The idea that Aiden has become his exact high school self over the course of just one week back in town is throwing me way off. He seemed so sincere, all that shit he was saying about making things right, and yet, here we are. I should have known better.

As if to confirm my suspicions, the back door flies open, and out comes Grant, Noah, and Aiden, each holding a freshly cracked beer. I can’t fucking believe it. In fact, I’m seething. Oh, man, I’m going to get him alone and yell in his face.

Aiden strides up to Ralph and offers him the beer. Ralph accepts with a salute.

“Where’s yours?” he asks, and Aiden shrugs.

“He still won’t take one,” groans Noah, slapping Aiden on the back. “We’ll break him yet.”

Oh. I’m glad I didn’t say anything. I take a hasty sip of my own beer, feeling a little tiny bit abashed.

“Aiden!” Angie springs forward and gives him a hug, which, to my surprise, he reciprocates. He was never a very hands-on guy in high school, half the time he could barely be bothered to even return an embrace from Melanie. But he locks his arms around Angie and even lifts her a little bit into the air, fixing her with a genuine smile, eliciting a squeal of delight before he sets her down again. She holds his forearms, half-laughing, leaning back to see him. “Wow, you look-”

“It’s great to see you,” he says, still smiling warmly. “Thanks for having me. Is this Sancho? He was just a little scrap the last time I saw him.”

Aiden bends to scratch his furry nose, and Sancho leaps up, tail wagging, to plant his paws on Aiden’s chest.

“I get it, Sancho,” Angie whispers in my ear. “I’d also climb that. Damn. He looks good.”

“Stop,” I hiss, as Aiden straightens up.

“Angie, is there anything left to eat?” Noah asks, shoving his beanie back and out of his eyes. “You should see what’s in the fridge at Ralph’s place. It’s like one mustard packet and a Pepsi.”

“All hungry people with me,” Angie announces. “Aiden?”

“No thanks, maybe later.”

Noah, Ralph, and Grant fall into line behind Angie, leaving me with Aiden. He brushes the stray strands of fur off of his hands and looks down at me.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”