“Are you okay?” Amy asks as we head across the Fremont Bridge, the Willamette River sparkling below us.
I slide my eyes over to her and give her a tepid smile. “I’m heading to Sephora. Of course I’m okay.”
Amy Lombardo is pretty much my closest friend. She’s been there for me through everything from losing my virginity with Dillon (okay, she wasn’t actually there for that, but she helped me deal with the aftermath), to breakups, to cramming for final exams. She, along with her boyfriend Tom and our friend Jessie, make up our little posse that has managed to last throughout the crazy high school years and now into this scary big world of the beyond. Jessie has already gone off to school in California, so our pack has dwindled to me being the third wheel most of the time.
Amy takes her eyes off the road and slides her sunglasses down on her nose, inspecting me with her chocolate brown eyes. “You sure?”
Her voice is soft and I know she’s worried about me. The first year after my mother died, I was practically inconsolable. I’m surprised I even finished high school to be honest. Life was just a blur and when it wasn’t a blur, when I was feeling things too deeply, too much, I made it a blur. I never thought I’d follow in my sister’s footsteps, but I turned to drugs and alcohol in order to get through the days.
But the nights were always worst. The drugs never helped me with the nights. The dreams would come for me, no matter how doped up or drunk I was.
Somehow I got out of it. The days seemed brighter, steadier. When I hurt, which was all the time, which still is all the time, I was able to absorb it, deal with it. I was able to think, to actually see myself, my life, and distance myself from the substances. I leaned on Perry, my father, even Dex. Amy, Tom, and Jessie were there too. My ex bailed when I was too much of a mess, but he was just extra baggage anyway. The heartbreak over losing him was nothing compared to losing my mom.
I know Amy worries about me still. I know I’m not the same person I was before it happened. It doesn’t help that Amy doesn’t know the truth about how my mother died. The truth about me. The truth about my family.
I need to keep it that way. I’ve seen what our ghostly afflictions can do to someone. I know that my grandmother, Pippa, saw dead people and could enter a realm called the Thin Veil, and that in time she was committed and eventually died alone because no one believed her. I know that Perry has been haunted since she was fifteen, that she was put on a cocktail of medications that did no good, that the world wanted to lock her up because it didn’t understand her. I know that my mother saw the truth—far too late.
And the truth killed her.
Even my brother-in-law comes from a lineage of fucked-upness. Dex was also plagued by ghosts from a young age, did a stint in a mental institution, and relied on medication to keep it all away. When he went off the meds—and had his infamous ghost-hunting show with Perry—things only got worse until he discovered his own brother was taken over by a demon and literally tried to take us all to Hell while we were in New York. Worst vacation ever.
Then there’s me. I’ve seen so much, been through so much, that even if I did admit to my best friend that my sister’s now defunct ghost-hunting show was totally true, that I’ve seen the world behind the curtain, I’ve seen exorcisms and monsters and the devil himself, I wouldn’t know where to begin nor how to make it all sound remotely believable.
So I let Amy think that I’m tired and on edge because I’m still grieving and not because my dreams keep getting worse and worse and I feel like each day is leading me down a dark path I might not be able to come back from.
“I’m fine,” I tell Amy, loudly, struck by the sudden need to convince myself of this as well. I quickly reach over and shut off the annoying poppy shit on the radio and flip to my favorite alternative station.
When Nine Inch Nails comes on, Amy makes a sound of disgust. “So now you think One Direction sucks?” She rolls her eyes, clearly not amused as we take the exit to downtown. “You really are turning into your sister, you know?”
In more ways than one, I think to myself. But even though Amy chides my sudden change in music tastes and I’m becoming a bona fide 90’s grunge and metal lover even though I was born at the end of that decade, I’m not ashamed of it. I look up to Perry, more than she’ll probably ever know. Besides, seeing ghosts and demons just lends itself to listening to White Zombie and Slayer and Fantomas on repeat. One Direction and Selena Gomez are for the girls who don’t see dead people every fucking day.
Not that I was seeing dead people every day. I mean, maybe I do, but half the time you don’t really realize it unless they’re covered in blood, or maybe standing in a white dress in the middle of a road, like every cliché you can think of. Most of the time, the dead just kind of . . . blend in. They’re innocuous and usually harmless. Sure they can scare the pants off you but that’s usually the extent of their damage.
I gaze out the window as we roll through the Pearl District, watching the throngs of people on the sidewalks, everyone in shorts and tank-tops and billowy dresses, trying to beat the heat.
Then, for just a second, I see a flash of a familiar face as he gets off a bus. I straighten up and blink, trying to see better but he’s gone.
It couldn’t have been the guy from the wedding, the guy from my dreams, could it? God, I really am getting delusional.
When we finally find parking and I’m swallowed by my mecca that is Sephora, I’m feeling better. There’s nothing like sipping on syrupy Coca-Cola from the mall’s food court while perusing the white, backlit-beauty of a million makeup products. It’s like being in heaven, really, if angels wore all black and enough foundation to paint a house.