Regret Letters (Part Three)

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Everything looked the same, but somehow different. How long had I been gone? Surely it was only a few days; a week at most. I figured it didn't really matter anyway. There was only one reason I was floating around the streets of Knowcan.

It didn't take long before I was looking directly at my old house. The red door was still there and so was Daddy's beat up little black car. I was curious to know whether my room had been changed into something else. My vision began to zoom in and out. The big blue house was closer then farther, then closer again to me. As if I were on a sling-shot carnival ride everything just stopped. I was back in the spot where I began.

So that must be what confusion felt like. It wasn't really an appealing feeling. Something inside me told me to get my job done and ask no questions. I knew, though, that I was not ready to face the hurt in my parents. What was I even supposed to say? A tingle of cold slithered through my body. It was a way of telling me that I was sad, I suppose. My fingers were getting harder and harder to move. The brown hair that framed my face was stiffening so that it hurt to turn my head. Before I couldn't move at all I tried to think of something happy, or at least not so depressing.

That day when Jackson kissed me behind the gym formed in my mind. The tingle of my first kiss seemed to echo through my entire body. A quiet heat flowed through my blue fingers, turning them red again. Jackson sneaking out of basketball practice to see me in my student government meetings. Helping cut out paper boats. Stealing kisses when the club advisor wasn't watching. Not that Ms. Will would care. She was young and could still remember what it was like to have your first taste of ignorant love. The first smile I had ever detected since dying began to slide it's way onto my face. He had almost made me forget about the butterflies that appeared every time Stephen walked by. Those were the good days.

I didn't want the cold to come back. As quick as I could, I flew directly over the large field they had never built houses on. My hand was on the doorknob before I realized how strange it would be for Morgan's dead best friend to walk into her living room and ask for a soda. That was if she could see me at all; probably not. Instead I walked directly through the door. The wood was grainy against my skin.

It was official; I was a real ghost and just as cheesy as the fake ones.

No one was home. It wasn't strange for Morgan's house to be empty. Her mother was a international missionary and her dad traveled on business constantly. When I died he was in Boston. Marcy, her older sister, went to college across town at the big university.

I glanced around. They had moved the furniture some. The kitchen still looked the same. A clock on the microwave above the black stove told me it was 3:00 p.m. There had to be a calender somewhere so I snooped through kitchen doors before I saw one conveniently stuck to the refrigerator.

April 8, 2011.

It'd been exactly a year since I had died.

There was no way. One year on that mountain felt like only a few days. Time had literally flown by while I sat in one spot, unmoving, and sulked about events I couldn't change. What all could have happened in one year?

It was then that I heard a car drive up Morgan's driveway. The loud engine cut off, but I didn't hear any car doors slam. After a minute or two I slid through the door and floated toward the driveway. A new looking silver SUV stood still on the pavement. Inside I could see a figure with long blond hair hunched over the steering wheel. At first I thought the person was dead; until I came closer and saw that the person's chest was moving up in down like it was struggling for breath. Closer and closer I crept until the blond straightened up very suddenly.

At first I had no idea who she was. Black makeup ran down a majority of her face. Blond hair frizzed around her ears and neck. She grabbed a phone out of her glitter smothered purse and flipped through pictures. The girl stopped at one of two 16 year olds that were happy and smiling. They were in a car, probably waiting for a red light to change. A girl with brown curly hair held the wheel while the other, with long straight brown hair, took the picture. They looked familiar to me.

Between sniffles the blond whispered to herself as if she was talking to the phone.

"I'm sorry. If it weren't for me, you'd still be here. Zaza, you were my best friend. My sanity depended on you," She chuckled grimly,"Now look at me. I've turned into one of those private school brats we always laughed at. I mean, really! I'm a freaking blond. Without you around, I have to be someone I'm not. I miss you."

Her head fell back on the wheel. A curtain of blond covered her face and a rush of cold filled my body.

That was me in the picture smiling my ignorant smile. This was Morgan Layer.This was the girl that survived when I died. This was my best friend.

And she was blond. What all had happened after I died?!

Morgan sat there for thirty minutes crying. I stood outside the car. The cold freely flowed through me, stinging my toes and tightening my muscles. When she finally stumbled out of the car, Morgan fiddled with her keys while she walked to the front door. I followed her and slid through the closing door. She slumped upstairs to her room. It had never occurred to me to even look in there to see what had changed. When I saw it, my jaw dropped.

Her room seemed to be a reflection of how Morgan really felt. The Beige walls were covered in photos of brunette Morgan and I. Some of them brought back memories. Some brought a whole new layer of Ice. Dark purple bedspreads matched dark purple pillows and chairs. Clothes laid a trail to her walk in closet that was constantly messy. At least that hadn't changed. Black furniture was placed all around the room. I wondered how on Earth her mother had allowed her to put all this depressing stuff in her room. Mrs. Layer would have said it was satanic or something.

The phone rang and Morgan picked it up; sniffling away her tears as she said, "Hello? He's at work. I just got home from school. Well, it's his week to have me so that means he'll be home in about an hour. Dad always gets off early when I'm here. you can call him back then. You're welcome. Goodbye."

So Mr. and Mrs. Layer were divorced! They were the perfect high school sweet hearts. It hurt to know that they were no longer together and Morgan had to deal with that. What else could be have gone wrong for her? I didn't want to know. I couldn't stand to see my best friend in the entire world be this way. Faking happiness when inside she was dying a more painful death than I had.

I rushed down out of her dreary room and into the bonus room down the hall. Papa L, as I used to call him, always kept paper and pens in there for when he did his work at home. I found a bold marker and willed my hands to pick up the object. My body obeyed; I picked up the marker will no problems at all. I jotted down a short letter for Morgan and again willed hands to pick up the note.

With shaking hands I laid the note on Morgan's bed while she was taking off her uniform in her closet. Waiting to see her read it wasn't an option. It would be physically too painful for me. I could barely move as it was. So I rushed out of the house and on to my next destination. The words I wrote were imprinted in my mind. Over and over again the replayed like a scratched CD.



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Hi there, Gabriella, I guess I'll be writing you a review.

I just read the first two chapters before this, and the first thing I want to say is that I think that this should be part two, not part three. Part one and part two were so similar and short that I think it would have been better to combine them.

Second, I would edit a little bit more before you post. There were a few spelling mistakes and typos. If you find proofreading hard, you could try having a friend read it out loud? Just a suggestion.

As far as the story goes.....actually, I don't know where it's going. There doesn't seem to be much of a storyline yet. Well, let me rephrase that. There isn't a conflict yet. Sure, she died, but is the story just going to be about her wandering around crying? You need more of something. Maybe you have more planned..? I don't know. But there doesn't seem to be a storyline yet.

Okay, so I know losing your best friend would be hard, but Morgan seems to be obsessed. Even if I were dead, I would find it strange and kind of creepy if my best friend had pictures of us together all over her walls.

And now for emotion. I don't know if you've ever been depressed, so I don't know if you know what it really feels like, but to me the emotions just didn't seem real. Last year I suffered from serious depression and I'm just starting to get over it now, but I didn't really feel like I could connect with the sad emotions in the story.

Overall, I'm sorry to say, I'm not too intrigued. You have the basic storyline of her dying and becoming a ghost, but that's just the base of a story. You need to build on that base. You have a great opportunity here to make this really good, but I'm just not seeing it, mostly because nothing is happening.

Anyway, this is just one opinion, so don't take it too harshly. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me~