Heather

Author's Note: This story was written for Iggy's 'A musical challenge' competition. My song for this piece was 'Gravity' by Sara Bareilles.

When I lived, I was invisible.

Or at least, I thought that I was. Now I know that going unnoticed and going unseen are very different things. I’d give anything, anything, to go back to those days, when I was just another anonymous face in the crowd, when, at least, if I shouted loud enough, someone might just turn around and hear me.

Not so anymore.

Not that I haven’t tried. By God, I’ve tried. I’ve shouted, yelled, screamed and sobbed so much over the past year that part of me still can’t believe that no one has heard me. These days, I’m just air. No, that’s not true. Air can still impact the world, in a breeze, a gust, a draught. Air can do so much.

I wish I was air.

When he wakes, Yannick doesn’t see me, and even though this is usual, I still can’t help but feel disappointed. It seems that where Yannick Vale is concerned, my death will be mirroring life in his total ignorance to my presence. I still, somehow, don’t feel any resentment towards him for that. Perhaps I should.

It might be easier if I did.

I listen as he shouts a reply to something his brother has shouted from down the hallway. His vowels are touched by the softest hint of a French accent, a lingering reminder of trips to see family throughout his childhood.

I don’t know why whatever it is that I have become is drawn, bound, tied to him and him alone. I don’t understand why one, single, inexplicable twist of fate means that I am forever destined to remain beside this boy, who I fancied for so long when I was alive, and who has never really said a word to me when I was alive.

Despite his rumpled pyjamas and his mussed bed hair, he is still achingly beautiful. I notice this even more so now than I did before. His beauty used to be photogenic, but now he’s beautiful purely for being alive, and a tiny part of me can’t help but hate him for that.

I am dead. I shouldn’t be able to feel pain.

But I do.

And it hurts.

I watch as Yannick surveys the pieces of engine that are arranged haphazardly on the table before him, and I sigh that I realise that this is all I can do. Watch and listen.

Watch and listen as Yannick grows up and falls in love, and gets a mortgage, and a dog, and cheers as his team wins the premiership, and has a life. I want to move on, and leave him to that life. I wish I was still alive.

I want…

I wish…

I want him to notice me. I wish he’d noticed me when I was alive.

I suppose that wanting and wishing aren’t always enough.

“Heather,” Yannick breathes suddenly. He’s looking straight at me.

But perhaps this time it was.

“You’re dead,” he says hoarsely. As he attempts to stand up, he almost falls off his chair. He stands up shakily, still holding onto the back of his chair, his eyes on me the entire time, “You can’t be here.”

I stare at him in shock or horror or amazement, but mostly disbelief. It feels as though my heart is racing, even though I know that this is impossible.

“Hi,” is all I manage.

“Hi,” he says, a quiver in his voice, “Is that really you?”

There is a look on his face that I’ve never seen before. There’s incredulity, and he looks like he’s about to cry, and possibly vomit, but there’s also something else, something I can’t identify.

I nod and smile, then look at my feet, an action that I had performed millions of times in conversation when I was alive. Hating myself for my diffidence, I blink and look back up.

“I am Heather,” I reply, “I am dead. I don’t know why I’m here, or why each time I’ve tried to leave you, some force has pulled me back. I have been like this for the past year.”

Yannick continues to look at me with that same mix of emotions on his face. He’s gone slightly pale, but he doesn’t seem to be running off. I take a deep breath in, or at least perform the action of doing so. To hell with it all. I try not to think about what I’m about to say, then I gasp, “And I think I might be in love with you.”

I look away as soon as the words leave my mouth. There. I’ve said it. It’s too late to ever matter, but at least I’ve told him.

I sense him moving towards me, and force myself to look at him again. His expression has changed, with the something else that I noticed before materialising in the form of a smile that spreads across his face, hesitates, then becomes a grin. His reaction surprises me, and I immediately feel overwhelmed with regret that I didn’t tell him sooner. When I was alive, that is.

Why didn’t I say something? What the hell stopped me?

“Heather,” Yannick repeats, “I think I love you too.”

His tone is sad, despite the grin that illuminates his face. His voice triggers a memory, a fleeting image in my mind. It is of him, crying and properly tearful. It is foggy, and only lasts a second, but I know that it is from my funeral. Fancy that, Yannick Vale, crying over me.

He loves me.

It’s all I ever wanted. So why aren’t I happier?

“Are here because you’ve got unfinished business?” Yannick asks me. The table with the pieces of engine on it is still between us. There is an old, 1980s radio sitting on the corner of the table, as well as a couple of Yannick’s schoolbooks. I examine the pieces as I consider my answer. I have no idea how any of these pieces fit together, but I know that Yannick does. He tells people he wants to be an engineer, but I know the word he prefers: inventor.

“Of course I have unfinished business,” I finally say, “I was sixteen bloody years old when I died. Of course I wasn’t finished.”

“Fair enough,” he looks embarrassed, “I only asked because, you know, that’s why they say people come back…”

He lets the end of his sentence hang in the air between us.

“I didn’t come back,” I reply softly, “I don’t think I ever left. I don’t remember dying, either. I would, you’d think, but I don’t.”

“Perhaps that’s a good thing,” he grimaces, his voice just as soft as mine.

“Yeah,”

“I can’t believe this is real,” Yannick steps around the table with a small, wry smile.

My God, he is beautiful.

It suddenly hits me that the reason I didn’t feel as happy as I ought to have when he told me how he felt is that it makes leaving so much more impossible. How can I give him up now?

I am so, so torn.

“I want to…” Yannick’s voice breaks voice breaks, and he falters, “I mean, I’d like… But I can’t, can I? I’d just pass through you.”

“Try,” I challenge him, extending my arm towards him, “Take my hand.”

It doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t. His hand doesn’t pass through mine, instead, it meets with resistance when our hands draw near, like to magnets repelling each other.

“I’d very much like to kiss you, Heather,” he says, devastated, as his hand falls back to his side. In his eyes, something clicks, “I’m so sorry I never told you. I barely even spoke to you. I’m sorry. For you, and for myself.”

His honesty feels like it has cost him something precious. All his defences are down, and he looks so vulnerable.

“Me too,” It doesn’t feel like the right thing to say, but I couldn’t think of a better response any more than I could think of a way to put how I feel into words. A sudden, mad idea grips me, appearing out of the blue, and with a forwardness I didn’t know I was capable of, I say, “Turn on the radio. Don’t ask why, just do it.”

An unasked question is etched onto his face, but he does as I say and switches it on. The music blares, but I don’t recognise the song.

“Dance with me?” I ask, grinning madly. Yannick is speechless, so I place my hand on his shoulder. It meets with the same resistance, so my hand hovers a few millimetres above his shoulder, as close to touching as I am able to achieve.

I raise an eyebrow at him. And he places one hand on my waist, and rests the other as close to my hand as possible. We aren’t touching, but there’s a nice illusion of it.

It’s a fast bright, catchy tune, but we are dancing slowly. I used to love dancing, I remember, and wonder how I managed to forget. We are doing an awful parody of the waltz our class had been taught in P.E. a couple of years ago, and Yannick dances in a way that is awkward, but completely unashamed.

I laugh as I realise that I’m not going out fighting.

I’m going out dancing.

I know that I have to let go of him the moment the thought enters my head. As I look at him, I can tell that he sees my realisation in my eyes.

“Don’t go,” he pleads.

But I know that I have to, no matter how much I want to stay here, with Yannick, dancing and pretending that anything other than this substitution for contact is possible.

I’m dead. But he is so, so alive.

This is going to haunt him for the rest of his life. He will always wonder what might have happened, if he had told me how he felt when I was alive, but at least whatever it is that has kept me here has given him a second chance to finally let me know his true feelings. And he knows how I feel too.

How many people get that chance?

It’s not happily ever after, but it’s a kind of closure. For both of us, I think.

The last thing I feel is his hand in mine, then I let go.

“Heather,” he whispers.

My tenuous strength vanishes.

I can’t do this.