A bespectacled white man with dark, tousled hair and an eye socket of scars stood directly behind him.
Cosmo screamed. He scrambled for the door, certain the man would slam it shut and trap him in here to do god knew what. But the manevaporated. Some unperceived mist swallowed up his wide-eyed face, and he disappeared.
Clawing at the doorframe, Cosmo lunged for the hall. His foot slipped on something cylindrical, and he slammed into the ground. A marker rolled away, stopping at Zedd’s foot.
“Shit. You okay?” Zedd gripped Cosmo by the arm and pulled him up. “What the hell is going on?”
His shoulder and wrist throbbed from the impact with the floor, but he barely processed it. “There was a m– A man. In the bathroom.”
Zedd poked his head into the bathroom then ran into the front room and ripped open the curtains. “Where’d he go?”
“Disappeared. A ghost.”
“The hell he is.” Zedd flung the sheets away from the bed and peered underneath. “I know he didn’t go out the front door, because I was smoking out there. Where’d you go, asshole?”
Cosmo picked up the marker he’d slipped on. Black, like the writing on the mirror. “Did you write the replies to my messages in the bathroom?”
“What?” Zedd yanked open the fridge door as if someone could actually hide inside.
“Did you write ‘You’re beautiful’ and ‘Stop playing Soft Cell. It keeps me up’ on the mirror?”
“No?” Zedd slid open the closet and shoved clothes away. He looked back. “That guy left you a message that you’re beautiful? I’m going to smash this creep.”
Cosmo pressed a hand to his still-throbbing heart. This ghost was watching him, listening to his music, leaving him messages. Cosmo had been planning his own funeral, caught up in the romanticism of death, and the first thing he did upon seeing an actual ghost was scream.
Zedd opened the front door and stared out. “Wherever he went, he’s not here now. Must have slipped inside when you were getting the pizza.”
“He’s a spirit.”
“No such thing.”
“I need to call Déjà.” Cosmo picked up his phone and opened his contacts, but his fingers trembled and he clicked on the wrong name.
“That witch who’s always telling you to leave me? She’s putting weird thoughts in your head. You don’t need her.”
“Excuse me?” Cosmo put a hand on his hip. “You don’t get to choose who my friends are.”
Zedd closed the door and stopped before Cosmo. “You sleeping with her?”
Cosmo scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“That’s not a ‘no.’ And why else would you hang out with her so much? Why else would she try to drive a wedge between us? She’s making you all morbid, writing up obituaries and planning a death party. No wonder you think you’re seeing ghosts. She’s probably making a voodoo doll of me that she’ll stab in the balls anytime I get near you.”
The band constricting Cosmo’s chest ratcheted tighter. He thought of her hunched shoulders in the soda shop, confessing that ghosts were everywhere. Encouraging him to find someone who would treat him like a queen. Zedd was treating him like anything but.
When Dad had caught Cosmo kissing his date on the doorstep, he’d yanked Cosmo inside and slammed his fist into the drywall right beside his head. He’d called Cosmo the f-slur and swore Cosmo wouldn’t spend another night in the house. Mom had loved Dad, but she didn’t hesitate for even a second to start throwing his clothes out on the lawn. In the end, Dad had gotten on his hands and knees, crawling after her and sobbing like the pathetic worm he was.
Mom had been married to him for close to twenty years, and in a split second she’d mustered up the conviction to throw him out. She never took him back.
Cosmo’s throat welled with rage as he stared at Zedd. “Get out.”
“What?”
“You will not bad mouth my dearest friend, and I won’t stand one more moment of you treating me like shit. The audacity of you! Accusingmeof being the one to cheat when your cock is in every willing participant you find! Maybe I would have fallen for Déjà because she is warm and wonderful and mesmerizing, but she isn’t into men.” Cosmo wasn’t so sure he was a man, but that was beside the point. “You can forget crawling into a body locker with me; I will rise from the dead to drive you away.Now get out!”
He flung open the door, snatched Zedd’s shirt, shoes, and cigarettes, and hurled them over the balcony.
“Goddamn it!” Zedd clanked down the stairs after his items.
