Lost at the Start

10.

Then again, as far as the actual radio stations—the local ones, at least—went, there was a good chance he was afraid they'd miraculously start talking about me, and even with my new reappearing trick, something told me he really did not want to hear that. Maybe even for the reasons I didn't want to.

I didn't want to hear strangers that never even met me grieving my death, or even pretending to be sad enough to present a somber news story. I didn't want to hear what everyone was saying about what amounted to my corpse. There was nothing they could say that wouldn't light a bitter-emotion fire in me, so why even bother? All it would do was upset me.

Yeah, I can see that going double for him. I glanced over at Jackson. Or, rather, I intended to glance, but ended up staring because I knew I couldn't be caught unless I wanted to be.

Only half-realizing what I was doing, I took him in, studied him. My eyes browsed his features like I'd never seen him before, and I was glad to see that so much of the depression and exhaustion I'd seen in him before had faded.

None of it was completely gone, because I was still technically dead, but he did look much better.

However, I then remembered that there was a good chance this whole new existence of mine was only temporary, and he'd probably hurt worse when and if I had to tell him goodbye for good.

After my number 1,857 head shake of the day, I did best to stop thinking about that. For now, I'd take my time as it came to me. If I didn't, I'd freak out and wind up losing Jackson because I was worried about him, and I refused to let that happen.

I'd already lost him once when I was alive—long story—and sort-of-ish-not-really lost him when I died and left him behind. If I could help it, I was not going to lose him again while I was still able to have him.

Dead or not, I was gravely (no pun intended) certain that losing him would still hurt like the Dickens. And that was about the farthest you could get from how I wanted to spend my time as a ghost.

Or just how I wanted to spend my time at all.

Finally, the car—Jackson—pulled into Sonic and up to one of the order stations.

Before he could put the window down and reach over and press the order button, but after the car was firmly in park, I put all my energy into appearing.

Not only did I want to talk to him, this time, if I could, I wanted to be completely corporeal—visible to anyone and everyone that might see—so people wouldn't think he'd lost his mind.

I could tell the minute it worked—or at least I became more "there" than I had been thus far—by the immediate chill I could feel of a car that was clearly out in the cold and not running it's own heat, causing goosebumps to pop up over my bare arms and the tip of nose to slowly feel like it was turning into ice. The seat beneath me suddenly felt much more solid, and the general atmosphere of the air around me felt a little sharper.

As long as no one that easily recognized me and knew I was dead got a good look at me, we'd be hunky-dory.

Jackson half-jumped and froze, hand still on the car keys. Slowly, he turned his head to look at me. He blinked a few times, like he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Considering I had only ever magically apparated into his house before, I could understand why. Dead boyfriend randomly pops into my car, I'm going to be a little unsettled, too. Regardless of whether or not he's shown up somewhere else before.

"Sorry. I just willed myself to you and..." I moved my eyes to look around the car without turning away from him. "I didn't know where you'd be, so..."