If I keep this up, I’m going to flood the whole condo with my tears.
You know, this would be respectable crying if it were entirely about Pa—but there’s a small, tiny part of my brain that lingers on Seph.
It’s better this way. You won’t get hurt this way.I keep repeating the same thoughts even though I desperately want to call him and take back everything I said.
God. How am I still thinking about a stupid boy when my dad is literally gone?
If maturity means not feeling things anymore, maybe this is what being seventeen is all about—feeling sad and horny at the same time.
Once my eyes seem to finally run out of fluids, I grab forthe ice pack I store in my bedside drawer. Lesson learned from years of experience: If I don’t ice my eyes after a night of crying, I’m going to wake up looking like mosquitoes assaulted my eyelids.
While my hand searches for the pack, it bumps into the book hiding Pa’s phone. I haven’t checked it ever since Pa’s ghost showed up. I plug the phone into my charger, and moments later, it lights up with a ton of notifications.
Most of them are messages from the contact labeledSweetheart
Still thinking about seeing our baby go to prom. Did you ever think she’d be this grown up?—Beth
Wish you were here, sweetheart.—Beth
The last message was sent an hour ago.
I take the phone, creep outside, and notice the light seeping in from Ma’s bedroom. When I press my ear to her door, I try to listen for any signs that Ma’s already sleeping.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I’m contemplating walking away when I hear a faint, “Nika?”
When I slowly push open the door, I see Ma is lying on the right side of the bed with her tablet propped up on the left. The left part was always Pa’s side of the bed.
Ma scooches to the middle as soon as I climb in. I peer over her shoulder and see she’s watching thePagpagmovie. If Achi were here, she’d convince Ma to switch the movie to something lighter. I mean, the movie is literally about a woman making a deal with the devil to revive her dead husband—thishasto be triggering for Ma.
“Are you sure you should be watching this?”
Ma holds up her finger and whispers, “The ghost knows where they are.”
I keep watching as Kathryn and her little brother, thecharacter Macmac, hide underneath a white sheet at an abandoned house. Roman the ghost murderer creeps into the room and swats away the other hanging sheets in the room with a wooden stake. Kathryn hugs Macmac closer when the ghost slowly walks away…
“Ay!” Ma covers her eyes when the ghost catches them.
“Kathryn’s not going to die,” I assure Ma. “She’s the best character here. Movies never kill off the best characters.”
Ma still doesn’t look at the screen.
Like I predicted, Kathryn and her brother are able to escape from Roman’s grasp and run outside to the garden. But then the ghost catches up to them. Roman knocks over Macmac with his elbow and chokes Kathryn by the neck. He shoves her to the ground and raises his wooden stake…
No way. There’s no way the movie is actually going to let her die.
Ominous music plays…
Macmac yells for his sister…
Kathryn screams…
A gasp escapes my lips as Roman lifts the stake over her body, when suddenly, a dagger pierces the ghost’s heart. With very convenient and impossible timing, Daniel (who was completely passed out just a moment ago) miraculously kills the resurrected ghost.
I only remember to exhale when the screen shows Kathryn and her brother alive and well.
My mom peers at me. “You were scared too, ‘no?”
