Young Writers Society

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 called to him from down the hallway. His vowels are touched by the softest hint of a French accent, a lingering reminder of spending the first four years of his life in France, as well as numerous trips to see family since.

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, in return, never really said a word to me.

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 know it’s unfair to hate him for something as simple as the beat of his heart and the breath in his lungs, but I can’t help but feel a gnawing worm of jealousy eat through my other feelings. He’s so alive and I am gone.

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 yet again 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 and could be a part of it.

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. In these twelve months that have just passed, these twelve impossibly long months, I had resigned myself to the idea that he couldn’t see me. Before, a year used to feel like an age, but this past year has felt like an eternity. Before I accepted the reality of my situation, time seemed even slower than it does now. In all the time since then, I’ve refused to consider the possibility of this happening.

“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 want him to know.

“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. I’ve come to know him very well, better than I probably should. I know more about him than I knew about anyone when I was alive. I want him to know that, but I’m also scared about how he’ll react if he finds out. People should really only know so much about each other. I don’t want to ruin this.

“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,”

Sometimes it concerns me, that I don’t remember my death. Sometimes I get snippets, flashes, sensations of lights or voices, but nothing I can cling onto. I should remember, but I’m glad that I don’t, no matter how cowardly it is to feel this way. In Yannick’s eyes, I can see that he knows, but would never tell me. I wouldn’t wish that on him. No one should have to wear a burden of explaining to someone how they died.

“I can’t believe this is real,” Yannick gets up and 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? Given the choice, only moments ago I would have moved on in a heartbeat, but now I feel even more tightly bound to the world, to Yannick. I am dead and he is alive, I remind myself, but it doesn’t change a thing.

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. I let myself entertain the brief fantasy where it works, try to imagine that another outcome is possible, but even as I reached my hand out, I knew what would happen. His hand doesn’t pass through mine, instead, it meets with resistance when our hands draw near, like two magnets repelling each other.

“I’d very much like to kiss you, Heather,” he says, devastated, as his hand falls back to his side. Talking to me now, he seems so far away from the charming boy with the electric smile that I knew. He looks older, I think. Aside from the year just passed, where he aged and I remained sixteen, he seems more mature than when I once sat behind him in English. I think he knows as well as I do that we are grasping on straws.

In his eyes, something suddenly 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. No tears run down his cheeks, but his voice has a tremor in it that tells me he is holding back sobs.

“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.

“I really liked you, for ages,” he continues, his French accent more pronounced than I’ve ever heard it, “But I was too scared of what you would think of me if I told you. And then you died, and I realised that I didn’t just like you, I loved you, even though I probably didn’t know you well enough to. I love you, Heather, and this past year, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how good we could have been together.”

I listen in silence, letting him pour his emotions out. His words make me realise something, something that I am hesitant to tell him. I could be wrong. I could be completely wrong. But I might be right, as well, so I speak up.

“Perhaps that is why I’m here.” I try to look anywhere but at Yannick. I don’t want to give him false hope, or make him feel as though he is to blame. “Perhaps it is because neither of us could let go of the other that I’m here. Perhaps we were destined to be together, and my death screwed that up, and now destiny’s trying to compensate the only way it can.”

He nods, but I don’t know whether he believes me. There are a million flaws in my explanation, so I add, “Or it might just be dumb luck, or a scientific anomaly, or a flaw in the space-time continuum.”

My last reason sparks a glint of a smile on his face, and he murmurs, “I don’t want to lose you again. I don’t want to forget anything about you.”

I feel awful. It’s a different feeling to the hopeless frustration I was feeling when he couldn’t see me, but it’s no less dreadful. I don’t feel happy, and every word coming from Yannick’s lip makes me feel worse. A sick feeling creeps through my gut, and I desperately yearn for my lost life. Why did I have to die? Why was my life cut short at sixteen when other people get to grow old? Why don’t I get that future? The injustice of it, something that I have been trying not to think about, stings ferociously. I never had my first kiss. I never had a job. I never got to take a gap year. I never had to worry about money. I never got to do anything worthwhile. People spend thousands of dollars on fighting getting old. Don’t they know how lucky they are to get the chance to get old? I never wanted to grow up, but now I would give absolutely anything to get the chance to.

I will never grow up. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.

“It’s not fair,” Yannick sighs, mirroring my thoughts. A blade of anger slices through my misery, and I can’t stand to look at him. I understand completely, but I can’t sympathise. I’ve lost everything. He only lost me.

My anger doesn’t last. My emotions feel like they are all jostling for attention. Frustration. Confusion. Sadness. Joy. Hope. Despair. And love. Nothing seems to be able to gain ground over the others permanently, so I just feel… tumultuous. I can’t stand to look at Yannick, but at the same time, I can’t tear my eyes from him. I should make the most of this. If he can’t see me tomorrow, I can’t afford to waste this moment.

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, my sudden change in mood surprising him, so I place my hand on his shoulder. It meets with the same resistance, so my hand hovers a few millimetres above, 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. He catches my eye and smiles.

“Promise me one thing, Yannick,” I say, as the song comes to an end.

“Anything,” he replies, as another tune comes onto the radio. It’s softer, this song, and slightly muffled by a hum of static. It’s vaguely recognisable, so I guess that it must be from when I was alive.

“Don’t forget me.”

“What do you mean?” He steps back from me.

“I’m dead, Yannick” I reply, sharper than I intended to sound, “I never wanted to die, but I didn’t get much choice. I’d give anything to be alive again. I love you, Yannick, but I can’t keep pretending that we have a future. I want to rest in peace.”

“Don’t go,” he pleads. He goes to reach for me, and when he fails his hand doesn’t fall to his side, like last time. He leaves his hand close to mine, and the few millimetres feel like a chasm.

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.

As I let go, I feel his hand in mine.

“Heather,” he whispers. He is looking at me with wide eyes as his hand reaches up and brushes my cheek. Impossibly, inexplicably, I feel his touch. In the same instance, it is both the most wonderful sensation and the most terrible. I have to move on. I have to let him go.

I have to.

He reaches down, and kisses me.

My tenuous strength vanishes.

I can’t do this.