CHAPTER TWO
It has been almost two hours since Harry has moved into the flat, and he left a bit ago. I don’t know where, but I hope it’s to get food. Preferably Chinese and for two.
The last two hours, I stayed as silent as possible in my small closet, too terrified to move incase it caused me to make a sound that would result in Harry finding me, which is something I really don’t want. I feel extremely bad for the poor lad. He seems… lost and—confused, both of which I don’t blame him for.
Harry had put all of his stuff away, but I didn’t see. I can see now as I walk around the clean flat with a stack of boxes in the corner. The space is extremely tidy, something of which I wouldn’t expect from a boy of his age.
As I search the room, I begin to look for things that might tell me something about him. A driver’s license would be keen, but I have a feeling he took that with him. The only thing I know about him is that he has lots of books, so he must like to read.
That reminds me; maybe I should look for a few more.
At this point, I don’t care if he gets so scared that he has to leave. Maybe I was a bit earlier, but that was because he just moved in, he’s a newcomer, but in the end he’s going to leave like everyone else who owned the flat.
Quickly and without a word.
Maybe if he gets so scared that he has to leave, it won’t be so personal. He didn’t leave because of me; he left because he was scared of what I had done.
Honestly, I think that if I haven’t made someone learn to love—or like—me yet, it will never happen. I kept saying to myself, “The next one will like you for sure” but they never did and I’m tired of waiting.
In the process of thinking, I walk over to the shelf next to Harry’s bed that is full of books and flip through the spines. Most of them on the top shelf are simple reads, but on the bottom, there's more higher level ones. I honestly don't want another one of those since I've been reading one for five years, and, well, they're not the most interesting. So instead I take a fantasy and romance, hopefully happy stories. I make sure I only take two, staring off small.
As I’m about to head back to the closet, I look at the top of the shelf. My eyes go wide and fear courses through my body. On the top of the shelf is my book. The book I had been assigned five years ago. The book that I have learned to love even if it’s boring at some points.
On the top of Harry’s shelf is my book. After the fear flows out of my body, anger replaces it. Harry has tons of books, so many that he can read and yet he takes mine. He doesn’t realize that is the only book I have and the only thing I find entertainment through when he is walking around my flat!
My breathing starts to get heavy after my small inward rant, and I take a seat on his bed, resting my head in my hands. I can’t take the book back now and honestly, I don’t want it back. If I do, he’ll probably start to look for it and he may find me. If I take a few of his books, he won’t realize, but if I take the book back that he doesn’t own, he will.
Over the next coarse of hours, Harry comes back to the flat and unloads the groceries he had bought (which was lots and lots of food!). Then, he relaxes a bit and watches the telly, and when he turns it off, it’s on a movie channel. After he’s finished watching the movie, he goes and does some homework, I presume, after seeing his faces of concentration (which were quite adorable) and the way he would scribble down on his paper. Finally, he takes a shower and gets ready for bed.
But once he gets into the bed, he reaches over and grabs the book from the top of the shelf and turns on the lamp. He begins reading it, and after a long while, goes to sleep. Once his snores become a bit louder, I stand up and go to the fridge, grabbing turkey, cheese, and lettuce, making myself a sandwich from the bread that he had set out on the island.
I savor the taste, as it’s the only food I’ve eaten in the last couple of weeks, and once I’m finished, I take an apple and a bag of crisps, making my way over to the new couch.
Throughout the night, I watch the Kardashians and their crazy antics, sometimes switching channels and watching Friends, taking more generous amounts of food from the pantry. Once the sun begins to rise, I turn off the telly, not bothering to switch the channel back and walk back to my closet to take a well-deserved nap.
+
This entire week has been filled with my crazy antics of driving Harry nuts.
It started when Harry woke up on Sunday morning only to find that all of his potato crisps had gone missing, along with some of his Oreos and soda. Then, when he turned on the telly and saw it was on E! Network and not HBO, he got a bit confused.
But that was nothing compared to Tuesday when he found that some of his Agatha Christie books had gone missing and he swore to himself that he had packed them. Or on Thursday when he was working on a paper for one of his classes, and whenever he would try to press save, the computer would crash.
However, my favorite was when he was watching a movie, and whenever he would hear a curious sound, he would turn around quickly, only to see one of the books from his shelf on the floor. And then another noise would ring out, and when he turned around, two more books were on the floor and so forth.
The poor lad got so scared, he called the manager of the building to ask about any strange happenings that had once occurred, to which the manager made a shocked face, annoyed face, and understanding face, only to just shake his head simply in the end.
A bit later, he called his mum to ask her how her day was, which made my heart melt in an indescribable way. The way his face would light up with each word she would say. But in the end, he said goodbye to her sadly after she asked how his new flat was.
I willed myself not to care. Telling myself that he wouldn’t give one damn about me if he actually saw me. I would constantly say to myself that he wouldn’t give any sympathy to me, so why should I give any to him?
Today is Saturday, which means it has been a full week since Harry has moved in. I’m surprised he hasn’t moved out yet, saying as though I’m not the most delightful company, even though he doesn’t even know me.
Everyday I constantly remind myself that he doesn’t care about me and that I don’t need to show him sympathy, but sometimes it gets to a point where he’s so optimistic about this boring old flat that it hurts. He should be long gone by now—since that is what the others would have done—yet he isn’t.
Actually, his optimism is giving me yet another reason not to show myself. He’s still pretty happy in this boring old flat that I don’t want to ruin it for him. But it’s still fun to mess with him. Not to mention cute.
So in the spirit of messing with him, I snap my fingers together and walk to the back of the flat, opening the window slightly, causing a chilling breeze to pass through the flat.
Harry sits on the couch on his phone, but once he feels the cold, he turns around quickly and looks to the window.
“Wha—” He questions to himself, standing up and going to the window to close it, scratching at the back of his head on the way there in an adorable way. I laugh a little, and he looks straight at me, captivating my whole attention.
He takes a step towards me, and I don’t move a muscle. Harry averts his eyes only for a moment, but then they’re quickly staring back at me in less than a second. He reaches his hand out, right in front of my face, but then quickly pulls it away due to the chill.
Goose bumps form all over his arm, and he rubs them together. Without any warning, he steps right through me, causing me to let out a soft groan of pain, which makes him spin around quicker than a ceiling fan.
“What is this?” He asks under his breath. Harry begins looking around, not very frantically, but he's looking for something and I have a feeling that something is me. "Is someone else here?" He questions the air, and I'm half-tempted to just tell him, but I don't.
He huffs in disprovle before retreating from his spot in front of me and goes back to the couch, cuddling close to himself, and that’s when I decide that the poor lad has had enough, and stop messing with him…for now.
Before I go back to the closet, I walk over to the couch and sit in front of him, seeing tears well in his eyes. I never wanted to make him so scared that he would cry, or maybe I did and now that I see it, I wish I hadn’t.
The only thing I wish for right now is that I was able to touch so that I could hug and comfort him. I wish that people weren’t so afraid of me so that I could at least talk him through it. I wish that I wasn’t so much of a cold-hearted bitch.
Maybe the reason that people run away is because I’m such a bad person. It was the reason that people didn’t like me when I was alive, I guess. I never actually understood why people didn’t like me when I was alive, because I actually strived to be nice and liked, and now I just don’t care.
I guess I didn’t care, because now I feel as though my heart is being tore out because of the tears on this boy’s face. The number one reason why I care is because he stayed even when it was scary and when it was hard, so he deserves to be happy.
Stepping away from Harry, I walk back into the closet and think. What could I do to fix this? I can’t talk to him because then he’ll get even more scared, which is something I don’t want. I can’t comfort him without falling through him and landing on the couch, so the only thing I think to do is to write a note.
Once Harry is long off to bed, (since I’m not invisible anymore) I walk to the kitchen and grab a note pad from the drawer. In the best handwriting I can muster, I write the only words I can think of that will maybe help this situation without further scaring the boy. Setting the note back on the island with the bread, so that when Harry wakes up to get something to eat, this’ll be the first thing he sees.
I’m sorry -V