“Jamie.” Kasey rests a hand on my foot. “Can you please say something? You’re never this quiet. You’re freaking me out.”

“You’re freaking me out,” I mumble, half-heartedly.

It’s a blustery night, and the tree boughs below my windows are creaking and swaying, their leaves whipped up into a quiet roar. Inside, it’s still and dark. I have just one lamp on, and the only other light comes from my phone, which is open and propped up against my knees. I’m scrolling through my photos. Aiden driving my car on our road trip, in his dress shirt with a half-laugh on his face. A cute photo of him with Ellen, both making a stupid expression. A shot I secretly snapped of him at the Ghost Office, sitting on the pebbled beach, waiting for me to return with some snacks. I swallow against the feeling rising up in my throat and click the screen to black.

Kasey, perched at the end of my bed, sighs and climbs up to join me. I open my arm and she snuggles under it, curling against my side.

“Jamie,” she says, very quietly. “The last time I saw you this upset, I had just died.”

“I know.” I rest my cheek on the top of her head. We may not be able to feel each other, but having her here is comforting and familiar nonetheless.

“And this isn’t even something that happened to you.”

“I know.”

“You sound like you’re going to start crying.”

“I’m not.” My voice breaks pathetically on the answer. I toss my phone down onto my comforter, everything I’m feeling rising up like a flood in my chest.

“Oh, babe.” Kasey snuggles closer. “I never thought I’d say this to anyone, much less a man, but - you’re a little too empathetic for your own good.”

I let out a frustrated sigh. Normally I’m happy to talk until I can find what I’m actually trying to say, but right now, it feels like reaching into an empty well. I’m groping around and coming up with nothing. All of my thoughts are in a tangled ball, hopelessly snarled up and confused. Kasey has been waiting for me to say something substantial for like thirty minutes. Thank god she’s unbelievably patient with me.

“Jamie, say what you want to say. I’m not going to judge you, I promise.”

“I…” My throat feels dry. “I just had no idea. I feel so bad. I kept joking and pestering him to tell me what he really is, and I didn’t know that there was a reason like this that he didn’t want to.”

“There was no way for you to know. That’s not what you want to say.”

“You’re going to laugh at me.”

“Honestly, Jamie, I won’t.”

“It’s going to sound stupid.”

“I don’t care.”

“I want…” I can’t look at her. All my words rush out at once. “I want to tell him that there is a safe place for him to be everything that he is, and that place is with me, and that I’m not offering it up to be nice, but because I - I fucking want him there, and I want to tell him that I felt this way before I knew he was anything but a regular person. So much so that - it scares me, a little bit, just because I haven’t… this feeling… He…”

“Okay, okay.” Kasey folds an arm over my stomach. “Stop, it’s okay. I understand.”

“Do you?” I mumble into her hair. “Because I don’t even understand, and it’s not like I’m a baby, I’m in my mid-fucking-twenties, shouldn’t I be familiar with the full spectrum of human emotion by now?”

“Not necessarily. Maybe you haven’t had the right opportunity for one of them.”

“But what the fuck? I’ve dated people, and liked people, and had bad crushes, and…”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, babes,” Kasey says. “I mean, up until now it’s all just been about fun, hasn’t it? You never really let anyone get too serious with you, and you’ve had the chance. I’m pretty sure Roger was ready to sweep you off your feet, to name one. Look at your phone! How many times has he texted you, even though you guys only went out for like a few months, and a long time ago?”

“Roger was-”

“Roger is not the point, he’s an example. Just answer me this: am I wrong in saying that the way you feel about Aiden, you’ve never felt about anyone else before? Because maybe, that means...”

I vault upright and let her go.

“Don’t. Don’t.”

“Jamie.” She sits up too, looking at me earnestly.

“I'm not listening to this."

“Why do you think you are hurting so bad about something that happened to him like, twenty years ago? Why do you think it’s hurting you the same way it hurt him? I see the way you look at him.”

“We only reconnected like, at the start of summer.”

“I don’t think the amount of time has anything to do with it, Jamie.” Kasey shrugs her shoulders. “I think sometimes, somehow...”

Without thinking, I touch my hair, that place where Aiden is always reaching out for me. I imagine I can feel his nails gently skating over me, his fingertip brushing my hairline. My mind drifts to the moment after we rescued Gabby, when he hugged me. The pulse and breath of him, his laughter in the storm, his wild excitement, sweet and giddy. A moment when he let go of everything else and was purely himself. He was brilliant life in the shape of a person - he was just Aiden, and he was in my arms.

I wish that he could feel so happy and free all the time. I want to help him feel like that, and then keep helping him feel like that for as long as he’ll put up with me talking his ear off and adding extra coffee stops to our route. I want to press kisses all over him until he forgets that he ever hurt at all.

I’m concerned that this might be what Kasey’s talking about.

“All I am saying,” she murmurs, reaching out to take my hand, “Is that his mom was wrong.”

My heart is straining to keep up with me.

“What do I do?” I whisper.

“Well, first you thank whoever or whatever made me into a ghost after I died so that I could be around to help you. Because you are extremely dense about this stuff.”

“I do that every day. Next.”

“Next,” she says, “You tell him.”

I sit with that for a moment.

“Do you know,” I answer slowly, “What it will be like for me, if I tell him and he doesn’t feel the same way?”

Kasey squeezes my fingers. I can’t feel it.

“Great loves are worth great risks, Jamie.”

I suddenly feel like I could cry all over again. I try to picture it: me telling him, and it working out. But my brain inevitably takes it the wrong direction. He’s not the kind of guy to be a jerk about it, I know that. Instead, I envision an insurmountable awkwardness, a widening of the space between us. Fewer and fewer texts and less time spent together. A day when we don’t speak at all. And then another, and then another. A growing silence that eventually becomes complete.

A terrible realization comes to me: if that happened, not only would I cost myself my best friend, but also cost Aiden his. After he’s spent so long carrying all of his secrets alone, and finally found it within himself to share a few of them with me. Could I do that to him? Could I risk that?

Kasey is watching me, waiting. The trees twist and dance in the wind outside.

“I’ll think about it.” I flop onto my back. “I’m not going to decide right now. My stomach fucking hurts and I can’t sleep and I want to die.”

Kasey lays back next to me, smiling.

“Yeah,” she says. “You’ve got it bad.”

~~~~

Kasey waits until she thinks I’m asleep before disappearing. I know where she’s off to: the line between Benton Street and that empty lot. She goes there every night. I miss her the moment she’s gone. My mind won’t shut off.

I climb out of bed and open up my closet. I reach up over the hangers to the shelves, feeling around in the low lamplight. My fingers land on cardboard.

The box is heavy, and I extract it carefully. I place it on my bedroom floor and sit down next to it. The lid is coated with a layer of dust; I haven’t opened it up since high school. I don’t even know why I brought it with me when I moved out of my parent’s house.

Dust flutters up into my face when I open it, but thankfully the books inside are not as messy. I pull them out one by one: my little poetry collection. Not poetry I wrote, of course. I disposed of all of those. These are works by my favorite poets, ones that I read in high school when I was trying to learn how to write some myself. After the incident with Aiden, the books became nasty reminders of what had happened, so I took them all from my shelves and put them into this box, where they’ve been ever since.

There’s a specific line from one of them that I remember. I don’t recall the exact wording, but something has brought it back into my mind. I find the book I’m searching for and flip through the pages. They’re dog-eared on my favorite poems, which makes the skimming quicker. I find the line and stop. Now I know why I was thinking of it. It’s because it reminds me of Aiden.

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror / up to where you’re bravely working.

I trace my finger over the words, thinking of him.

I really am a hopeless heart-eyed idiot.

~~~~

“What are you doing?” I ask, dropping my bag in its cubby. Kent holds up a finger, his eyes still on his phone. A moment of quiet typing passes as I run my eyes along the store plants we keep on the back counter. I mist a few of the leaves, pinch off a dying one.

“Sorry about that.” Kent pulls out his headphones and tucks them into his pocket. “What did you say?”

“I asked what you were doing.”

“Duolingo,” he answers. “I’m learning Spanish. What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, why?”

“I don’t know, you look like you’re sick or something.” He presses a hand to my forehead. “Was there a party last night I didn’t hear about?”

“No, I just didn’t get enough sleep.” I scoop my coffee off of the counter and take a huge gulp. “You can just say that I look like shit and have done with it.”

“Hey, I don’t have time for sass today. An event planning company called and they need like fifty centerpieces done, which means I need all hands on deck. So, wake up.”

“Does that mean Destinee’s here?” I ask, taking another speedy sip of my coffee.

“Yes, I’m here.” Destinee appears from the back, pulling off a pair of gardening gloves. “Did Kent show you the sketch for the centerpieces yet, Jamie? They’re complicated and huge. I think you should do them. You’re the best at it.”

“Translation, you don’t want to help,” I answer, pointing an accusatory finger at her.

“Enough,” Kent warns. “The truck with the supplies is going to get here any second and then all of us are going to do the centerpieces. You should both be glad I’m not making you come with me for the delivery. Unless one of you feels like volunteering?”

Destinee and I immediately busy ourselves with opening up the shop, leaving Kent’s invitation unanswered.

“That’s what I thought,” he grumbles. A beeping from the back of the store draws everyone’s attention.

“Sounds like the truck is here,” Destinee says, flipping on the last set of lights. “Are we loading into the workroom, Kent?”

“Yes. Jamie, finish opening the store.”

“I can help unload,” I protest.

“Thanks, but honestly, Destinee is better at it.”

“Faced!” Destinee says, pointing at me gleefully.

“Wow!” I call, as she follows Kent towards the back room. “Wow wow wow. I won’t forget this!” I’m half-shouting, so I don’t hear the bell over the door jingle. “I hope you jerks get sealed up in that truck! Then you’ll be the centerpieces! Kent! Did you get to the part of Duolingo yet where they teach you how to say ‘I’m a butthole who says hurtful things for fun’ in Spanish?”

The front door clicks shut, and I whip around to find Aiden standing there, his eyebrows arched. He’s got two cups of coffee in his hands. It’s Saturday, and he’s back in his usual look, his hat crushing his chestnut hair over his eyes.

“Business as usual?” he asks, striding over to the counter. He sets down both of the coffee cups. “Brought you one, but it looks like you’re already set.”

“No, believe me, I’ll have both.” I drag the cup closer to me. “Thanks.”

“You have an addiction, dude.” Aiden takes a sip of his own coffee. “And I would know.”

“Oh, ha, ha. I just didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” he says, squinting at my face. I toss my hands up in the air.

“Is everyone going to comment on how awful I apparently look today?”

“Okay, well-” Aiden startles me by reaching across the counter and brushing his thumb along my chin. “The first step might be to get the toothpaste off your face.”

“Oh, my god.” I smack his hand away. This is your fault, I think, scowling into his cute fucking face. “I was in a rush! We have like five million centerpieces to do today.”

“That’s funny, I distinctly heard Kent say fifty when he left the house this morning.”

“Alright, you know what? Buy some flowers or get out.”

Aiden bites back a smile and drifts over to the row of loose flowers lining the store's front display. He walks around for a moment, eyeing his options. I watch him curiously as he extracts one.

His selection surprises me: a white Asiatic Lily, with a faint indigo blush on its inner petals. He digs in his pockets, then sets both the flower and a debit card onto the counter. I glare at him for a moment, then sigh and begin wrapping the stem in brown paper.

“Stupid.”

“Grumpy.”

I’m so tired and irritated, but suddenly I feel a little better. Aiden just does something to me. Something about him, here, on his day off, at my work, bringing me a coffee… My frown collapses. I shake my head and swipe his debit card. He taps my nose, matching my smile.

“That’s better.”

“What are you doing here, Aiden?”

“I need you to do me just a little favor.” He holds up his two index fingers, a few inches apart. "Well, okay. Not that little of a favor. A big one, actually. More like this." He widens the distance between his fingertips.

"Mmkay." I push his hands down. "I don't think you've thought this gesture through."

“Here’s the thing. I told my aunt that we’ve been hanging out and she sort of wants to have dinner. Like, with both of us.”

“Oh.” My cheeks start to color, so I quickly turn and grab the plant mister. I already did the ones behind the counter, but they won’t mind a tiny bit of extra moisture. “Yeah, that sounds great. When?”

“Really?” Aiden folds his elbows onto the counter again. “Wow. I expected more protest than that. Aren’t you concerned that she might have a thousand more favors to ask you? I bet she even has a few lined up for after dinner.”

“I don’t mind, honestly.” I shrug, spritzing the plants. “The last favor she asked me to do was drive you around to look for an apartment, and I’d say that worked out for the best.” I turn to make a face at him over my shoulder, and find his blue eyes warm and smiling.

“Cool.” He straightens up and tucks his debit card back into his wallet. “I’ll text you the details. Are we still going to the Ghost Office tonight?”

“Yeah, if I can escape centerpiece hell.”

He grins, knocks his knuckles on the counter, and heads for the door. I set the plant mister down and pick up the lily he bought.

“You forgot your flower,” I call.

“Oh no, did I?" he says, and closes the door behind himself.