Short Story: Ghost of a Smile (Patreon)

 This is a short story I wrote a little while ago I've kept forgetting to share with you $5 and up folks! It's a simple, cheesy little thing based on an idea I had in high school, but I hope you enjoy it.

Despite it being a short story I made a playlist for it while writing it, which is where the title comes from. Let me know if you're interested in me sharing that as well!

Ghost of a Smile

I found a place in the school library nobody knows about.

I only found it because I fell against a shelf in the very darkest corner of the room. I was looking at the dusty old books, the ones that clearly hadn’t been touched in years. When I fell, the shelf didn’t move an inch, but some books fell out. As I crouched down to put them back, I saw a small doorknob where they had been. I turned it, I opened the wall and discovered that the shelf was actually a door.

The room it leads to isn’t anything special though. It’s barely large enough to lie down in. Like the shelf that hid it, it was covered in dust when I found it. Abandoned.

But someone must have been here once. Because there are blankets, pillows and a few yellowed books on the floor. And a small, stuffed cat, of all things. 

As unremarkable as it is, I love the room. It’s a secret only I know, hidden and mysterious, like something out of a mystery novel. A place just for me.

I eat lunch there now. I’d never been able to eat lunch in the library before, for fear of being caught by the staff. My ritual had been to cram my food in my mouth as quickly as I could, then go inside. Now I can take my time eating with a good book to keep me company. It’s the only company I like these days anyway.

The room is my sanctuary. I dread when I had to emerge from it into the harsh, noisy school. This the only place where I feel truly at peace. Away from all that chatter that surrounds me like a wall, the conversations I can never be a part of, the laughter I can never share. Away from the people who look past me on their way to somebody else. I wonder if the person who was in there before, the one who left the books and blankets and this little cheap stuffed animal, felt the same way. I want to know more about them.

 One day I pick up the yellowed text on the top of the pile and started to read. The story is nice, a wonderful little adventure tale, but even more intriguing were the loose pieces of paper used to mark certain passages. Little notes and poems were written on them, usually reflecting the events on the pages they accompany. I can feel the love this person has for the story in these little bits of writing and it makes me love it too.

I start reading the book and the poems aloud to myself in a whisper. The room feels a little cozier when I do it. The world outside this small space melts away. I sink into the blankets and let the words caress me.

It’s so relaxing that I just…fall asleep one day. When I wake up and peek out the door, the library is dark and silent. 

I check my cell phone and find no texts asking where I am. It isn’t all that surprising they haven’t noticed I’m gone, but it still hurts. 

I ignore that pain and retreat back to my room. I don’t need them anyway. All I need is me. And my sanctuary. My own voice is enough company. The words of the person who was here before are enough to sustain me. 

I begin to read, my voice shaking at first, but then becoming stronger. I let all my pain bleed into those words, I read and read until it didn’t even sound like my voice anymore.

And then I hear something. Is it…sniffling?

I look up. A girl is hunched beside me, listening intently. She’s completely transparent. She meets my eyes with tears streaming down her face. “Please don’t stop.” She whispers. “You make it sound so beautiful. Even the parts I wrote.”

***

At first, I’m sure the girl is a hallucination bought on by loneliness or something, but I don’t care. I love talking to her. I love listening to her. And more than anything, I love her smile. 

Slowly though, it becomes clear to me that she’s real. My own mind could never produce a person like this.

She cries so easily. Our introduction is just the first of many teary outbursts. But she smiles just as easily too, though it’s a small, shy thing. She loves books as much as I do and she loves hearing me read. Which works out well, because I can never get enough of reading to people. This is the first time I’ve met someone above the age of five who likes that about me.

I start staying in the library most nights. I learn her name is Sarah and that she likes reading most anything, but especially fantasy. We’re going through her collection slowly because she wants to hear me read every word. She’s also insists on me bringing in my favorites and reading those as well.

She seems to have read all the books in the library that have been here for like thirty years, but nothing more recent than that. She can’t pick up anything or turn pages on her own. Her hand goes right through. She relies on me for all of it. It’s amazing, having to explain to someone what Harry Potter is.

She’s a ghost. One who died sometime in the 1980s clearly. We both know this, but we don’t say it. I think about it a lot through. She looks my age and I don’t see any visible injuries. Did she die in this room? How did she die? Who did she leave behind? 

I only think about that kind of thing when I’m bored in class though. When I’m with her, these questions don’t seem that important. I’m more interested in hearing her theories about what the final Horcruxes will be or her rants on how much she hates James Joyce.

It’s actually during one of those she mentions her death for the first time. “It was probably being forced to read Ulysses that killed me, honestly.”

“So you don’t know how you died?” I interrupt her. 

She looks down at her lap. “Not exactly, no. Just that it was probably in the library, since I can’t leave this place.”

“Well, that’s definitely a start,” I say, though the thought sends chills through me. How was it nobody in the school knows about this? Everyone told horror stories about the “ghostly” bathroom that didn’t work, but not the actually haunted library? Had the school managed to cover it up?

“It’s just a possibility,” she says hastily. “I mean, it could be when you die you’re bound to something you loved more than anything else in the world. That’d definitely be this library for me. It was probably the only thing I loved.” She laughs hollowly. “Pretty pathetic, I know.”

“You’re talking to someone who camps out in this place every night with a bag of chips,” I remind her.

“Guess you’re right. It took haunting a library for nearly half a century, but I’ve found someone who can’t look down on me.” She puts her head on my shoulder. She’s been doing that a lot lately. I don’t feel anything when she does it…no body heat, no weight, nothing. If anything, it makes me colder. But I still like it. There’s this sense of coziness, even without touching. Is that weird? I don’t know.

She sleeps there, sometimes, snuggled up next to me. Or pretends she does. I can sense she’s still awake, deep in my lizard brain. That she can’t really fall asleep. But she wants to. So whenever I’m tired, she’s there, drifting off with me. I wonder if she pretends because she never got to sleep next to anyone while she was alive. It’s my first time too and sometimes thinking about that makes my heart beat faster. 

I’m not stupid. I know something’s going on between us. But it just hangs there, neither of us ever bringing it up. One day, though, she says “You know, I used to always obsess about whether there was a reason I was here, something I was supposed to do. But since meeting you, I don’t care about any of that anymore. I just like being here.”

“A reason?”

“Like how they say sometimes people pass on because they have unfinished business in this world? When I first woke up here, I was so sure that was what had happened to me. I was so desperate to do whatever I could to get to where I was “really” supposed be. But I don’t feel like that anymore.”

I am not reassured. I hadn’t really thought about Sarah passing on. That maybe she was supposed to be in some other world or living some other life, somewhere better than here. I don’t want to keep her in limbo, but I don’t want her to leave me.

I can tell she gets lonely though. I can’t be with her all the time. I can’t even stay in the library every night. I have to go back sometimes, to get clothes or food or whatever else I need. Every time I go, I’m afraid this will be the time they’ll say something, ask me where I’ve been, make me stay. But they never do. Of course they don’t. I’m not important enough for that.

It’s such a fucking joke that when I’m away from her, I become the ghost. I’m not in anyone’s field of vision. The desk I fill at school might as well be empty. The only one who sees me is her.

“Might as well end it all and hang out with you here forever,” I say once.

As soon as I say it, I regret it. She draws away, eyes flashing. “Don’t you dare. If you do…I-I’ll never speak to you again! Even if you do get stuck in here with me! I won’t even look at you!”

It takes a while for things to return to normal after that. She’s sullen for several days and feel cranky in response. But I keep coming and keep reading. She finally puts her hand through mine one night and mutters, “I just…I need you to promise. I can’t stand the thought of you doing something like that.” 

“I used to think about it a lot,” I admit to her. “But lately I’m able to think about other things. Like how I want to pick out the next book to read to you.” I flex my fingers a bit. “I can’t do that if I’m dead, can I?”

She nods fervently. 

“Yeah, wouldn’t be a good deal for either of us then.”

“So…”

“So, yeah. I promise.”

She leans against me again. I shiver, but it’s a good shiver. 

So we get through our first fight. But I can’t stop thinking about how I’m going graduate someday. What if I’m not able to see her again? She’ll be more alone than ever.  And she really does seem to hate being stuck here. But how can I help her?

I start wondering more and more about what’s keeping her here. It could have something to do with how she can’t remember her death. I have to admit I’m also getting more and more curious about what happened. 

I start asking people around the library about it. It’s tough, because I haven’t talked to people in so long. I only get through it by picturing her face when I do it.

Most of them don’t know what I’m talking about, but an assistant, a college-age girl named Maya, is intrigued. “You know, my sister mentioned that someone died on school grounds while she was going here. I don’t think they were told exactly where it was found…a lot of places in the school were closed off for the police investigation, including that bathroom everyone goes on about…I’ll have to ask her about it.

We talk a little while longer. When she asks me about how I found out about this girl, I pretend I heard about her somewhere, but forgot exactly where. I even pretend I saw a photo. When I describe her, the assistant smiles and says she sounds pretty, which makes me unreasonably happy. Then I realize I’ve been talking to her, actually talking, for like fifteen minutes or something.  It’s so easy to talk when it’s about Sarah. 

The assistant seems to be fooled into thinking I’m a normal, interesting person. She greets me when I come into the library the next day, saying she texted her sister but hasn’t heard anything back yet. The day after that, she asks me what the poems Sarah wrote were about, and before I can stop myself, I quote a couple at her. It’s a betrayal, maybe, but I can’t help it, I just want someone to know how good she is. It makes my heart soar a bit when Maya compliments her “dark imagery”.

We start talking about poetry and what kind of books we like. Maya loves mystery novels, which is why the case with Sarah fascinates her so much. She says she’s excited to solve it with me. I’m kind of excited too.

“You’ve sure been talking with the assistant a lot,” Sarah notes blandly that night and my heart seizes up. She’s caught me. I gather myself and say, “She’s recommending books to me” and Sarah just accepts it.

“I’m glad you found a friend,” she says. “You deserve it.”

“I wouldn’t really call her a friend,” I tell her, but she shrugs and smiles. I see a little longing in that smile and am overcome with this sudden, powerful wish that she could talk to Maya too. That I could introduce them. But I know Sarah would never go for that, so I say nothing.

A little bit later, Maya approaches me with a glint in her eye. Her sister got back to her. She never met Sarah, and doesn’t remember much, but she does know the death happened in 1986. sometime in October or November.

Maya finishes telling me this and then a miracle happens. For the first time in years, someone invites me to go somewhere with them. Maya wants to go the public library and look through the newspapers for that year. She thinks that Sarah’s death will be reported there, somewhere. 

I hesitate, thinking about the bumpy bus ride to the library and how crowded that route always is. Then Maya says, “I can give you a ride there if you want.”

A ride in someone else’s car? Will I even be able to survive such a thing? But my mouth says “yes” and Maya’s blue Honda is waiting on the corner when I get out of school that day. I take a deep breath and cram myself into it. 

It’s uncomfortable, moving along side by side with someone in such a small space. I cast around desperately for something to talk about and end up asking Maya about college. She’s thinking of transferring to this one place…and the way she talks about it makes me hang onto her every word. I mutter something about how it sounds like a dream, to go to a school where the teachers actually care, to live in a place where you can walk to all kinds of bookshops, where you can hear lectures from great authors…

Next thing I know Maya’s urging me to apply for this scholarship they offer, saying I could totally get it. When I shake my head  and say I can’t think about that stuff right now, she seems genuinely disappointed.

We reach the library and head straight for the microfilm. We sit with our heads together, pouring over each screen. Nothing. I begin to feel nervous, but Maya calms me a little by making fun of the wild 80s fashions in the pictures. 

Finally, I see it. Sarah Bryant, age 17. Found dead on school grounds. Seeing the proof she exists makes something burst inside me. I have to take a moment, covering my head with my shaking hands. Maya asks if I’m okay. I nod. Even after all this time, there was this buried part of me that feared she was really just a figment of my lonely, addled mind. But she’s not. She’s real.

I pull myself together and read on. The article doesn’t give many details besides the name and directions to the service. No cause of death is mentioned. Maya is disappointed by this, but I have all I need. Really, I’d known this for a while. Known it wasn’t the kind of thing our local paper would ever list. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself. 

The drive home is a lot more silent than the one to the library. I think that this is it. Maya’s done with this mystery and she won’t want to talk to me anymore. But before she drops me off she says, “We should go to a bookstore next time. Maybe one with a café. Get some coffee.”

She doesn’t let go about the scholarship thing either. The next time she sees me in the library, she shoves a flyer straight into my hands and tells me to visit the website. 

She’s serious. She really thinks I can do it. I’m not sure I believe her, but I look up the essay online with my phone that night. As soon as I read the prompt, I come up with the first sentence. I tentatively tell it to Sarah, and she says “Oooh that’s good! Keep going!”

So I write the essay bit by bit, bouncing it off her. She doesn’t let me stop. Whenever I trail off, she’s like “Um, I’m not letting it end on THAT note. We need a PROPER conclusion here.” God, what a nerd.

Finally one night, she’s satisfied. “It’s the perfect essay. Better than anything I ever wrote. Never go into poetry, okay? I couldn’t handle the competition.”

“Please, you were responsible for all the best parts.” I snorted. “Not that I’m going to give you any credit. You’re my-“

“Don’t you friggin’ dare.“

“-ghost writer.”

She puts her head in hands. “It’s a damn good thing I am, otherwise the awfulness of that would have killed me.” But she grins at me through the cracks in her fingers.

That night, as I watch her pretend to sleep, I think hard about a lot of things. I realize a lot of things. And finally, though it makes me sick to my stomach, I reach a decision.

A few weeks later, I get the letter back in the mail. And I know I have to tell her.

I duck into the room at four and find her already sitting on our blanket, with her back turned to me. She says, “You got in, didn’t you.”

“You…knew?” I settle shakily down onto the blanket as behind her.

She nods. “I’m not stupid. I know what a scholarship essay sounds like. And I notice a lot of thing. Like how close you’ve become with that Maya girl.”

“No, I was just-“

“Investigating what happened to me?” She chuckles wanly. “Yeah, I picked up on that too. And you’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”

I fidget. She turns to face me, her expression serious. “Open the last book.” 

It was the one at the bottom of the pile, the only one we hadn’t read yet.

“It’s in the back,” she tells me.

I open the back cover and it falls out. Her note. 

I pick it up, my heart pounding. And I read. As I do, tears fill my eyes.

Sarah’s serious look turns soft. “I wrote there that I knew I was never going to be happy. That I would never find anybody to care about me.” She scoots forward, until she’s barely an inch apart from me. “I think that’s why I was really stuck here. Because even though I thought I could never have it, I wanted it. So, so badly.”

My vision is so blurry I could barely see her. “Sarah…” 

“I thought I could never have it.” Sarah repeats quietly. “Then…I met you.” Her mouth spreads into a small, pinched smile. “These past few months…thanks to you, even though my life is over…I’ve found happiness.”

Tears pour freely without abandon. I haven’t cried in so long it feels like I’m out of practice. I can’t figure out how to say anything through the sobs.

“It’s all I could have wanted. And seeing you meet someone else, helping you get the scholarship you need to ditch this stupid town…knowing you’ll live a happy life where I couldn’t…” She closes her eyes and her spirit almost seems to glow. “Yeah. It’s enough.”

“Sarah…no…don’t…” I finally remember how to speak.

“I have to. I can’t resist the pull anymore. You gave me what I needed to let go. So…thank you for reading to me. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for being everything you are. I know you’ll be okay without me now. I love you, Nell.” 

“I love you, too,” I manage to choke out.

Her spirit shudders and flickered “That’s all I needed to hear.”

She leans forward, as if to give me a kiss, but of course she simply floats through me. My whole body turns to ice and I cry out.

And then…she’s gone.

I sit there, crumpled on the floor, my chest heaving. She’s really gone. She left me, just like that. And I’ll never be able to to sew up this hole she’s ripped in me. I should be happy for her, happy that she got to move on. So why does it hurt like this? Why does it feel so wrong?

Why does it feel so…?

Wait. 

I wipe my face and stand up.

I can’t believe this.

“Sarah, I know you’re still here, so knock it the fuck off.”

Silence answers me. I grind my teeth “I’m not joking. Show yourself right now.”

Slowly, Sarah fades back into view. Her eyes are wide and if ghosts could blush, she’d totally be doing it. “How did you-?”

“You think after being with you all this time I can’t sense you?” I rub the back of my prickling neck. “Also that speech sounds like it was right out of one of your goopier novels, now that I think of it.”

“Shit,” Sarah mutters.

“Why did you lie to me?”

“I…just didn’t want you to feel guilty about leaving me.” She clutches her arm awkwardly, looking to the side.

I shake my head. “Oh, I don’t feel guilty. I’m not leaving you.”

Sarah’s mouth drops open. “But…the scholarship-“

“Okay, so I am technically leaving you,” I say with a shrug. “But I’ll come to visit, duh. The university’s not that far away and Maya will let me in here. And as soon as I graduate, I’m going to work here.”

“Work…?” Sarah looks at me like I’ve just declared my ambition of being a professional assassin.

“Yeah…it’s a, um, thought I’ve been having.” Heat is crawling up my neck now, but I refuse to get flustered here. “Reading to you, telling you about all the new stuff that’s happened, writing together…well… it made me realize I want to be a teacher. The kind of teacher who could have helped someone like you. The kind who would have noticed someone like me. This school could use one of those, clearly. So I’m coming back here. And I’ll be with you that way.”

Tears glimmer in Sarah’s eyes. Such a crybaby. Though I guess I can’t say anything, considering how wet my face still is. “But! Maya! Wouldn’t you rather be with-?”

“Maya’s my friend, dummy,” I snap. It’s true! I have a friend! A part of me that had refused to acknowledge it until now has relented and is shouting in glee. I hush it because I have more important things to talk about. “I’m not in love with her. I’m in love with you.”

“But!!” Sarah jumps forward and waves her hand through mine wildly. “H-how could you be happy with me? We can’t touch, we can’t kiss, we can’t---” She stops and I feel like she’s doing the invisible ghost blush again.

“Have sex?” I shrug. “I’ve never really been too interested in that anyway. Probably why it took meeting you to make me even realize I like girls. So, it’s cool with me if it’s cool with you.”

Sarah sinks to the floor, her hands over her eyes. She’s crying full on now. I kneel beside her. My anger and shock from before had faded a little by now and I try not to speak so harshly this time. “Sarah, you said these past eight months were enough. But you don’t really mean that, right??”

Sarah shakes her head. “No…no…I want to be with you…as long as I can.”

“Same here.” I reach out and trace the tears steaking her face. My fingers tingle as they brush through each droplet and it fades as if I really wiped it away. “Let’s have that big full life you missed out on. Let’s have it together.”

She just cries in response, but I know it’s a yes. I sigh and smile.

I may not be able to hug her, but we sleep side by side that night in the little room, and it feels just as warm.

***

When the day finally comes, I hesitate at the library exit like it’s the exit into hell or something. Sarah and O already said all our sappy goodbyes, but I just can’t step over that line. We stand there, staring at each other.

“Come on, guys,” Maya says gently, holding up the keys to lock up and jingling them. It was a big shock for her when I introduced Sarah, but she’s recovered by now. Mostly. I think. At any rate, I made her promise to look after Sarah while I’m gone.

“I swear I’ll drive down next month to see you.” I say for the millionth time.

Sarah nods. “Good luck.” She says for the millionth time.

“I love you,” we say together. Sarah puts her hand forward so her transparent fingers just connect with mine. There’s the usual tingle and then…then it’s just cold.

I finally look away and step over the door. When I do, the whole world seems a little emptier. My shoulders shake as I hear the click of Maya locking up behind me. I know I shouldn’t look back, but I do.

And Sarah is there, standing beside me, outside the door, looking utterly baffled.

“You…” I gasp. “I…I thought you couldn’t leave the library!”

“I thought I couldn’t too!” Sarah exclaims. “Every time I tried before, it didn’t work….but when you stepped out this time, it was like I was tugged with you-!”

She puts her hand over her mouth “Wait. I…once thought maybe I was bound to the library because it was the thing I love most in the world…” She looks at me with sparkling eyes. “Maybe what I love most changed.”

“Oh God…” I put my hand to my forehead, painfully aware Maya is standing right here, watching awkwardly. “That’s so…God…”

It takes a bit for both of us to calm down. Maya keeps laughing, which doesn’t help, but eventually I compose myself. 

“Well, Sarah.” I say to my ghost girl. “Ready to check out?”

She shrugs, a smile playing on her lips. “Sure. Can’t just collect dust in the library forever, can I?”

That’s right. She’s with me now. There will be no returns.