Jamie's face is a picture when I walk into the kitchen the next morning. He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't stop scowling at me as I open my cupboard to find some bread. I'm ravenous so there's no time for toasting or any other strenuous activity. Instead, I bite into a dry slice. I turn back around to face Jamie, and his eyebrows are raised as if he's waiting for me to say something. What exactly, I don't know.
"Just a quick reminder," he eventually says. "There are other people living in this flat, most notably, in the room adjacent to Carmen's."
"Huh?" I ask as I go to grab another slice of bread. "Oh!" I exclaim, finally catching on to why he's got a face like a slapped arse. I try, and fail, to hold back a laugh. "Yeah, sorry about that."
"It's not funny," Jamie mutters. "Where is Carmen anyway?"
"Showering. I was gonna go first, but I'm going to the gym for a bit, so I'll just shower after that," I reply before taking another bite of my bread.
"You've not showered yet?" he asks blankly, to which I shake my head. He looks at me as if I just told him I'd slaughtered a kitten.
"What?" I question.
"You're disgusting." He stands up from his stool. "And for the love of god, please clean your dishes."
With that, Jamie leaves the room. Geez, someone's in a bad mood. Granted, said dishes have been sitting next to the sink for about two weeks now, which has resorted me to eating out of takeaway boxes, but he could at least ask nicely. I will do it, just not right now. Sometime later probably.
Carmen is busy packing by the time I'm home from the gym, and there's no sign of Jamie, so I decide to head back to my room for a bit. After spending the night in Carmen's immaculate living space, it occurs to me how shabby mine actually is. Annabel is waiting for me on my bed when I get in, kind of like a mother waiting for her teenage kid to return home from their first wild house party. She looks a little chirpier than she did last night, which I guess is a good thing.
"Ugh, finally!" she whines. "C'mon then, the hell was up with you at the caves? Jamie's right, by the way, you're gross."
After everything that happened last night, I completely forgot about that. I try to look on the bright side; at least whatever happened in the caves was a good weird, least in the sense that it made me feel good. It could be even more evidence supporting the theory that I'm suffering from severe psychosis, but hey ho, it was a nice feeling.
I shrug at Annabel as I sit down beside her on the bed. "I dunno. I just felt really good, and I guess it showed. I don't think I could not see you or anything, I think I was just distracted by everything else going on. Did you see all the ghosts sitting at that huge table?"
Annabel nods. She fiddles with the sleeve of her oversized jumper, and her dark eyebrows furrow. I understand that look of confusion. There's been some really weird shit happening to me since I arrived at uni, and I'm beginning to wonder if I ever should've come here in the first place. I don't ask for much. I just want a life where I'm not bombarded with demonic stalkers, and to be able to enter a cave without falling in love with it.
"We're probably overthinking it anyway," I continue. "I doubt the cave thing is even related to the paranormal, I was probably just in a really good mood or something. There's nothing out of the ordinary about seeing all those ghosts, either. I mean, non-dead folk have parties all the time, so why can't your lot? Bit random, bit weird, but still."
Annabel nods again, but I don't think she's convinced. She lets out a sigh. "I guess so. We've got more important stuff to sort out anyway, mainly the fact that some evil, psychopathic force is apparently out to get you."
"All I know is that I've got five exams to revise for at the moment, so it would be just swell if all this shit could give me a break for a bit," I mutter as I lie down and shut my eyes. "I don't think I see dead people can pass for extenuating circumstances."
"Things have to calm down eventually," Annabel replies.
"Pfft. I don't think that'll happen, somehow."
Funnily enough, that's exactly what happens. Over the next few weeks, as if every spirit within a ten mile radius received a memo about my upcoming exams, nothing unusual happens. It's quite unnerving, actually. I don't go out much, and other than Jamie, there's not really anyone around to speak to. Once Jamie's gone, I barely leave the flat. It's times like these I relish Annabel's company because the reality is that if I didn't have her, I'd have no one. God, I'd forgotten how much I hated Christmas.
Carmen offered for me to spend time in Wales with her over the holiday at least ten times; she even invited me to have Christmas dinner with her family, but I declined each time. I'd only end up becoming an inconvenience, and don't really want to be the sad little orphan tagging along to another family's holiday. It can just get a tad bit lonely is all, although it doesn't bother me half as much as it used to.
When I was younger I used to keep a box full of spare change that I'd saved throughout the year, so that I could buy Christmas cards and address them to myself. I'd buy as many varied designs as I could, and write in each one with different handwriting so that when I put them up in my bedroom, I could pretend they were from my family. Looking back, that's probably the most depressing thing a ten-year-old can do.
I spend a lot of the holidays in bed. Some days, I don't even leave my room because I don't feel like eating, and sleeping is easier than staring at four walls. Some days I don't even see Annabel. It's not because she's not there, I just can't see her. It happens sometimes, and she thinks it's related to my mood, but I don't know. Whenever I'm at the point where I can't see her, I don't really care either. I don't care about much when I'm like that.
It's just frustrating because all I can focus on is my non-existent family and the fact they died, and I didn't. It makes me feel like the worst person to ever exist. When I manage to crawl myself out of that hole, I realise how nonsensical that is because I had no control over what happened, but I always manage to convince myself that it was all my fault when I'm in that headspace.
Christmas day is inevitably the worst. I wake up late morning to silence, and if it wasn't for the fact it's Christmas day, I wouldn't leave my room. I force myself out of bed, all the while wishing for the night to come so that I can go back there. Our flat's group message is filled with everyone wishing each other a merry Christmas, which I guess is nice, and Carmen sends me a message separately. That helps.
She did try to call, but the last thing I felt like doing was talking, so I made up some story about being busy with some course friends who are here over the holidays. I'm not sure she believed me. We talk most days, and if ever we don't, it's only because I can't bring myself to get out of bed to do anything.
I throw a supermarket pizza into the oven for my Christmas dinner, and drink some wine Jamie left in his cupboard in an attempt to spice things up. It doesn't really work. I can't see Annabel today, and that's probably the worst thing about it. I'm completely alone.
When I head back to bed at around seven, I'm feeling the worst I've felt in a long time. I don't know why it's bothering me so much this year. Last year was fine, and I was living alone in a flat then, so I don't know why this year is any different. I guess I had Annabel then.
A few hours pass, and I can hear a rattling sound. I ignore it at first, assuming it's an animal outside or something, but then there's a quiet thud as something drops to my bedroom floor. I sit up in bed, but can't see anything. I hear the rattling once more, and spot one of my pencils moving on the desk.
"Not now, Annabel," I mutter as I lie back down.
This time, she throws the pencil at me.
"Piss off, I'm not in the mood!"
She throws another one. I grunt as I jump out of bed, and swear under my breath. I stand over my desk where Annabel was shaking the pencil, and notice that one of my notebooks is open. I switch my desk lamp on to inspect it.
On the first page of lined paper is a badly drawn snowman that honestly looks more like a deformed horror villain than anything at all Christmassy, and written underneath is a small message. The writing is awful, and resembles that of a five-year-old writing a full sentence for the first time, but I'm just about able to make out what it says.
To Felix,
Merry Christmas
Lots of love,
Annabel
P.S. That's meant to be a snowman
I smile, and for the first time in days, I feel okay. Annabel has never been able to write before because she says controlling the movement of a pencil while using the correct amount of pressure is near enough impossible to do with her mind. This really must've taken some effort on her part.
I rip the page from the notebook, and grab some Blu Tack from my bedside cabinet. I decide to stick it on the wall opposite my bed, and it fits in perfectly amongst the posters I already have up. Once it's on the wall, I head back to bed feeling a lot better than when I left it. As I lie back down, I know Annabel's here. I can't see her or hear her, but I can feel her warmth all over my body, and I know tomorrow won't be so bad.
#
It's New Year's Eve, and I'm sitting on the sofa in the communal area feeling sorry for myself while Annabel practices her writing skills beside the kitchen island. Since she wrote me the Christmas card, she's become obsessed with learning to write. I hear the notebook slam shut, and when I turn towards her, her eyes are on the doorway.
Moments later, Ava walks into the flat for the first time since she left four weeks ago. I stammer a little at the sight of her, having barely spoken to a soul since Jamie left over a week ago. Her family went skiing or some other shit rich people do over Christmas, and I didn't even realise she was home yet. An enormous grin grows on her face when she spots me moping on the sofa.
"Groovy, hi Felix! Carmen said you're, like whoa, festering in the flat all day every day," she announces in a sing song voice. "So I'm taking you out."
For a moment, I worry that Carmen has told Ava everything about my parents and the accident, but I dismiss that thought. I trust Carmen enough not to do that. I flash Ava an unimpressed look, but she pays no attention to it.
Instead, she laughs, waltz over to hand me a flower--some purple thing--then skips out of the room. I forgot how weird this girl was. I leave the flower on a countertop, then go after her to find her standing outside my room. Once she sees me, she wanders in as if it's been her home since birth.
Once inside, she begins cleaning up. Is that normal? Is it some weird girl thing? My room's not even that bad. My curtains are closed, and have been for a few weeks, so she swishes them open to reveal the extent of the mess I've collected over the past month or so.
Ah. Okay, it's worse than I realised.
I'm only now noticing its slightly putrid smell too, and I'm suddenly kind of embarrassed about Ava being here.
"Uh, no," I interrupt her mid-tidy. "I mean, it's okay, thanks. I'll sort that out later, I've been meaning to do it."
She shrugs, immediately stops clearing things away, then sits on my bed with her hands placed neatly on her lap. "Okay."
Oh, okay, that was easy. I don't actually know why she's here. She wants to force me out of here, I get that, but why she's sitting on my bed, I don't know. I'm about to ask her when she turns to me and tilts her head slightly.
"Who's Annabel?" she asks, and I stop dead in my tracks.
What? I dart my eyes around the room in search of her, but she's nowhere to be seen. Does Ava know something? Have I said something? She must notice the startled look on my face because she soon elaborates.
"That paper," she explains, lifting her arm to point at the wall opposite the bed. "The one with the snowman on it."
"Oh! Uh..." I'm not sure what to say, so I just tell her the truth. "My sister."
Ava nods. "Oh, groovy, I didn't know you had a sister."
I don't know what to say to that, so I just reply to her with an awkward shrug. She doesn't pry further, and instead, informs me to get ready because we're going to her family's pub. On one hand, I really don't want to get drunk with a load of middle-aged people in a pub on New Year's Eve, but then on the other, I really want to get drunk with a load of middle-aged people in a pub on New Year's Eve. What the heck, eh?
We've not been outside for ten seconds when I take that back because holy shit, it's cold. We're on our way to our halls' car park as Ava's driving tonight, and we must barely be outside for three minutes between the time we leave the building and get into her car, but I'm fairly certain I've reached the initial stages of hypothermia by that point.
More surprisingly, I actually feel a lot better. Simply coming into contact with fresh air clears my head. Annabel is already in the car when we get inside it, and I don't think I've ever seen her so excited. I guess me not leaving the flat means her not leaving the flat either, least not properly, so I shoot her a tiny smile through the rear-view mirror.
"Would you like me to try and contact your spirit attachment?" Ava asks me as she starts the car in the kind of tone you'd ask someone how much sugar they want in their tea.
"Uh--I.. uh, I don't think I have one, it's okay," is all I can muster as a reply. I don't think I've said a single sentence to her without stammering yet.
"I could help him or her move on to The Beginning," Ava continues, as if she didn't hear a word I just said. "Sorry, I mean what most people would refer to as heaven. Every pure spirit deserves it. Yours is very pure. Probably young."
I want to tell her that Annabel is happy where she is, and to leave us be, but hold my tongue for obvious reasons. Annabel herself grins at me through the rear-view mirror at the mention of her apparent purity, the cocky little swine.
We're speeding down the main road now, and for some reason, Ava has rolled down the window on her side of the car. She drives with one arm dangling out of it, and the winter air gushes into the vehicle in a flurry. Thank God I brought a jacket.
"Nah, seriously, it's fine. You've got this spirit attachment thing confused, I think," I say to Ava without looking at her.
I expect her to argue back or something, but she says nothing. She just nods, and continues driving. She doesn't say anything else for the next ten minutes or so, and the only sound to be heard is Annabel's quiet humming alongside the sound of the car's engine. We can't be more than a minute away when Ava speaks again.
"You're not a very good liar."
We've stopped at a red light, and her eyes are piercing into me. In the darkness of the night, they look black. She watches me with something I can't quite put my finger on. It's not expectancy as if she's waiting for me to confirm her statement, it's more like curiosity. When the light we've stopped at turns green, Ava turns away and continues driving without another word.