In the background, I hear William grumping it up with phrases like “If it burns, it burns! That’s what insurance is for!” and I stifle a laugh.
“Sure. I’ll be glad to. I’ve already spent time with my family, so I can go now.”
Adam breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much.” He lowers his voice even more. “I’ll have to make it up to you later. You know. With my tongue.”
I swallow and nearly stumble on my next step. “Well, I expect no less for my being such an upstanding neighbor.”
Adam laughs and we chat for about another minute, until William begins to groan about not getting the French fries he’d ordered with his burger, and Adam has to go figure that out. After we hang up, I say goodbye to my sisters, their hubbies, and my baby nephew, and make my way to my car.
The sky is dark ocean blue above me, and gray whale blue in front of me, the clouds all glowing purple and yellow on their undersides from the just-about-set sun. In my mind, I make plans for what I need to do before Adam comes over. Wash my comforter—again. Consider whether I need to purchase a special comforter just for sex, because we both get so slippery for one another. I want to shower and make sure I smell awesome with this new lotion I got from another artist at Crème de la Crème tonight. It smells like pumpkin vanilla cupcakes with chai spices.When I tried the sample on, I about fainted from how amazing it was. I should find a corresponding recipe for my fall baking. Or see if Nadia would like to make an inspired new flavored flan. Also, I should put on the new lingerie I got yesterday for Adam. My stomach flip-flops at the thought of his expression as he sees me in it.
My mind rolls into itself, going back and forth between the gorgeous, ever-changing skyline to my ideas, to my anticipating having Adam again tonight, as I pull into the Noemi driveway. I find the spare key just where Adam said it would be—slid under the loose frame of a front window—and make my way inside, gently shutting the door behind me.
I’m relieved there is no smoke, no smell of anything burning. When I make my way to the kitchen, the toaster oven is definitely off. I breathe out a sigh. Either one of the men had turned it off and forgotten, or maybe William’s ghost wife, Emmie, helped them out.
Thinking about ghosts has me glancing around the dark house. I don’t know why. I wasn’t expecting to see Emmie standing there, see-through and wispy-white, asking me what my intentions are with her grandson or something.
But something about standing in this home alone…It reminds me of my own ghost days. A feeling comes over my stomach—not a bad one. But kind of like I’ve been given a strange gift to briefly experience what it was like once more. And what did I do the most as a ghost?
I snooped.
I’m not saying I decide to go through William’s bank records or see how many pairs of underwear Adam owns. I just decide to go to the cherrywood china display in the living room and pullopen the tiny drawer on the uppermost right side. Inside should be a pair of scissors, a few rubber bands, and some rolled-up fast-food napkins.
They’re still there.
I don’t want them to be here. I want them to appear different, to have a random highlighter or hand lotion tube thrown in so I know firmly that I didn’t spontaneously leave the Land of the Living and become a ghost once more. I hate that I have to do this regularly, always when I’m faced with a scene or sensation of something that reminds me of my experience of ghosthood—but I can’t stop till I prove to myself that I’m alive.
I reach for the next drawer under that. The last time I looked—when I was split from my own body, warm and asleep in an old tree—it’d had a collection of bottle caps and marbles inside it.
They’re still here.
At this point, I’m overcome with fear that I’ve turned back into a ghost. Or maybe that I had never returned to start with. That this whole life, since my awakening in the woods, has simply been a dream, and I’m actually still back there, snoring away like Sleeping Beauty or Rip Van Winkle.
I place my hands on the walls and breathe out a sigh of relief when I’m met with firm, cold solidity. I do the same to the chairs in the dining room, and to the table, reveling in the wood beneath my palms.
This is real. I’m still real.
I pull back my hands quickly and accidentally hit one of the chairs with my wrist. I rub the sore spot, blinking when the laptop on the tabletop bumps awake, the screen suddenly bright and blue in the dark.
“Oh,” I say, startled. I blink some more, my eyes adjusting tothe light. And the whole thing just reminds me of where I am. What I’m actually doing.
I’ve probably been here too long. Adam’s going to pull up with William and they’re going to find me in the dark, touching all textures of matter in here, and then Adam really is going to wonder if I’ve experienced psychosis before.
I swallow and freeze then. Because that word.Psychosis. It didn’t just pop into my head just now from my conversation with Amá yesterday.
It’s on the stack of papers that are on the table, now brightly lit by the computer screen.
As though the word has stretched out newly formed arms and gripped me with its claws, I am sucked back toward the paper pile. I pull out a chair and have a seat. I do not know why I’m doing these things. It is as though decisions are being made for me, and for my body, and the only say I have in the matter is how quickly it happens. I take a deep breath and begin to read.
Psychosis is clinically defined as…when I asked if they’d ever heard of Sky Flores experiencing a break from reality…told about the family’s reputation for witchcraft…believes that wild animals come to her on command…the myths surrounding the Flores women are difficult to believe as they are.
My chest is undulating in a manner it’s never done before. I guess what I’m experiencing right now could be described as severe hyperventilation. I want to cry, but I’m too shocked and…freakingangryto cry.
How dare he?
How dare he throw my family under the bus like this?
How dare he make me believe he was falling in love with me?
