Phantoms of Fall (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 2) (12 page)

Most guys would never notice anything was wrong. I
took time to fix my makeup before leaving the rest room so
that not a trace of my tears was visible.
But Zach was no
normal boyfriend—he knew me so well,
I should have
guessed that he wouldn’t be fooled. For once, though, I was
quick with an excuse that wasn’t even really a lie.

“I’m sorry, Ruby. I thought she would back off—really
I did.” He looked as sad as I felt. “I wish I could take you out
tonight to make up for it. I’m sorry I can’t be there for you
when you need me the most.”

Why
did he
have to be so irresistible,
so sweet,
so…perfect? When I walked into the room, my heart was
made of steel and I was positive that I could let him go. But he
was everything I ever wanted—how could I just walk away
without even trying? If I told him the truth, though, he would
never stop worrying about me. I had to handle this one on my
own.

“It’s not okay—you shouldn’t have to deal with this
alone.
Maybe if I talk to my mom—explain the situation—
she’ll understand and at least let me have my phone so we can
talk.”

No.
As much as I wanted to talk to him, I really
needed time alone to figure this whole thing out. I shook my
head, “I’ll be alright—I don’t want you to end up fighting with
your mom, too.”

“You’re too good to me. You really should still be mad
at me—for a lot of things. I don’t know what I did to deserve
you.”

What did
he
do to deserve
me
?
What did
I
do to
deserve
him
?! I’d been nothing but trouble since the day he
met me. I lied to him and let him think Lee was beating me. I
didn’t tell him about the ghost and now I was hiding an even
bigger secret from him. Not to mention all of the times he had
to save me—even risking his own life for mine.

Mrs. West walked in and gave me a stern look so I told
Zach he needed to turn around. He said a quick “I love you”
and settled into his seat.
Class dragged on forever, mostly
because he was so close to me but relatively untouchable.
Only one good thing came out of today—Creepy Girl was
nowhere to be seen after the incident in the locker room.

I took a detour on the way home and stopped at
Something Wick-ed. There was a lot I needed to say to Rita—
starting with an apology. When I stormed out of the shop last
week, I never thought I would be crawling back to say I was
sorry. My only hope was that she would forgive me and agree
to help me even though I really didn’t deserve it.

There were only two customers in the store when I
arrived and lucky for me they were already at the register and
ready to check out.
Rita spotted me instantly and waved
happily as she handed the last lady her change. I never should
have been so mean to her regardless of what she said to me.
Sometimes I could be a total shitass.

“Ruby,” she said as I approached the counter. “I’m
really glad to see you. I want to apologize for what I said to
you last week. I never should have jumped to that conclusion.
You were right—I was projecting my own situation onto you.”

“No, Rita—I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s starting again
and I need your help.” When the tears started pouring down
my face, she ran to the door and flipped the sign to say
“closed”.

We
went
to
her office
and
with
words
barely
recognizable through my sorrow, I told her everything that
happened with Creepy Girl. “I just don’t know what to do—
about Zach, about the ghost, about anything.”

Rita sighed and ran her hand through her thick red
hair. “I’m sorry, Ruby. I didn’t want to be right about this
whole thing. And as far as Zach goes, I don’t know if I’m the
right person to be giving you advice on your relationship.
Breaking up with Kevin felt like the right thing to do at the
time, but honestly, not a day goes by that I don’t regret doing
it.”

Great. I didn’t want to find myself in her situation
twenty
years
from
now
wondering
if I made
the
wrong
decision.
Could I live without him?
But could I live with
myself if I stayed with him and continued to hurt him? It was
a lose-lose situation no matter how I looked at it.

“So does this mean I’ll never be able to, well, you
know.…” I hoped she knew what I meant by that. I didn’t
exactly want to ask her if I would never be able to sleep with
Zach—at least not in those exact words. Lucky for me, she
knew where I was going with that vague comment.

A brief glimpse of confusion soon followed with wide
eyes of recognition. “Oh…no, no that rule doesn’t always
apply. There are different types of ghosts—they don’t all feed
off of your energy like Scarlet did. This one seems to be more
interested in the fact that you can see her. I think that’s why
she’s following you around. She hasn’t hurt you at all, has
she?”

I shook my head no.
Aside from making me look and
feel completely unhinged, no, Creepy Girl hadn’t made any
kind of attack on me. At least not yet. And as a matter of fact,
she actually disappeared after I told her to stop following me.
I didn’t see her at all for the rest of the day. Was that all it
took to get rid of her? Maybe the situation wasn’t as dire as I
made it out to be.

“Well that’s a good sign.
Unsettled spirits have so
many different reasons for not moving on. They’re not always
violent.”

While that was definitely a plus, I would rather not
have to worry about them at all. “So, does it get easier to deal
with? Seeing dead people, I mean.”

“It does…kind of. It’s like the older I get the easier it is
for me to figure out what they want, what I can do to help
them.”

I had a brilliant idea. “So if I can figure out a way to
get you into the school, you can tell me what Creepy Girl
wants so we can get this thing over with?” The sooner she
was out of my life, the sooner I could deal with my other
problems. But like everything else in my life, there was no
easy way out.

“Sorry, Ruby—that’s not how it works. Ghosts aren’t
always visible to everyone with our talent. What you can see
won’t always be what I can see and vice versa. They appear to
specific people for specific reasons. There’s a reason she
revealed herself to you. If you want to get rid of her, you have
to find out why she thinks you can help her.” Rita relaxed
back in her chair. “Oh, and stop calling her Creepy Girl. It’s
disrespectful. She has a name—find out what it is.”

Geez, how many rules were there to this whole thing?
My head was spinning circles. I didn’t just need a handbook
on how to deal with boys—I needed one on how to deal with
ghosts as well. “Where do you think I should start?”

“Well, I would start looking through old yearbooks.
When someone dies they usually do some sort of page in their
memory. The school was built in the early eighties, I think,
and there should be one from every year there.”

I needed to get this over with as fast as I could. There
was nothing wrong with taking the easy way out, right? “You
went to that school, didn’t you? Do you remember anyone
dying there?”

“I graduated in ’85 and I don’t recall anything
happening up ‘til then. But I left town after graduation and
didn’t come back until about five years ago, so that leaves
about a twenty year gap that I know nothing about.”

Disappointment must have been written all over my
face because she added a quick “sorry” at the end. Okay, so it
wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. But compared to what I
went through to figure out who was haunting Rosewood, this
seemed
relatively
easy.
I
could
burn through twenty
yearbooks in a day or two assuming I even needed to go
through them all. Maybe this wouldn’t be so tough after all
and I could solve my problem before my next date with Zach.

It was starting to get late, so I thanked Rita and drove
home. I couldn’t start on my research until Monday so I
decided to relax and enjoy the weekend as much as I possibly
could.
Without Zach as a distraction, I could get a lot of
reading done for English and print out a copy of “Ghost Stone”
for Mr. Raspatello.
But most of all, I was looking forward to
my shopping trip with Chloe the most.

I
stayed
up
late
reading
and
received
another
goodnight “mwah” from Rachel’s phone. My talk with Rita
really helped me feel better about my situation and I fell
asleep with hope in my heart. But like so many nights before,
there was horror on the horizon.

Something wasn’t right. I had no idea where it came
from, but I had the worst sense of foreboding as I walked
down the hall toward the cafeteria. Slowly putting one foot
ahead
of the
other,
I felt like
a prisoner heading
to the
gallows. Tonight, I was going to die.

Music poured through the open doors, inviting me to
join the party. Everyone was dancing and laughing and all I
wanted to do was join them. I saw Rachel and Boone first,
glued together at the lips like always. I yelled over to them
but they ignored me. That was weird. Even though they were
kissing, normally they would at least wave in recognition.
Maybe they didn’t hear me. I shouted over the music but they
never responded.

Moving through the room, I saw Zach seated at a table
in the corner. Bonus!
He was still supposed to be grounded
and I didn’t expect to find him here. Who cares why he was
here—I was
excited to see him
so I quickly
dodged the
dancing couples and made my way over to him. I was almost
there when Ryan suddenly ran out in front of me. Closing my
eyes
and
bracing
for the
inevitable collision, he
walked
straight into me. And by that I mean straight
through
me like
I was nothing but a pillar of smoke. A sensation of intense
heat swept through my body like a laser beam had just sliced
into me.

But while I stood there confused, Ryan kept walking
like nothing even happened. That’s when it hit me. I wasn’t
going to die tonight—I was already dead. One by one, people
swiped into me and while they didn’t seem to notice, I
certainly did. Searing heat cut into me every time I connected
with someone. I didn’t want to be dead! Standing right in
front of Zach now, I could see he was crying. He called out my
name like he knew I was there, but never once made direct
eye contact. He couldn’t see me and it stung worse than any
pain I felt before. I tried to call his name in the hopes that he
could at least hear me but my throat tightened more and
more with every attempt until it closed completely. It didn’t
matter—I wasn’t even breathing. Then ever so slowly, I
disappeared until I was nothing.

The dream disturbed me.
Was that really how it felt
to be dead?
Was that how Creepy Girl felt—like she was
nothing at all? A deep feeling of despair crept into my heart. I
never wanted to feel that way—I had to find a way to live my
life without regrets. But to do that, I needed to figure out how
to balance my connection to the other side with my love for
Zach—because if I couldn’t, I would have to break my own
heart by letting him go.

Surprisingly, the weekend flew by.
All hopes
for
talking to Rachel about Zach flew out the window when she
and Shelly decided to go out of town in search of the perfect
furniture for what would become the guest rooms. Luckily,
my
shopping
trip with
Chloe
was
an amazing
success.
Hanging out with her was the complete opposite of spending
time with Rachel. In short, she listened more than she talked.
Even though I didn’t set out to discuss my issues with Zach,
that’s exactly what ended up happening.

The main goal of my shopping trip was to find the
perfect outfit for my first post-grounding date with Zach.
He
promised to make it special, a night to remember. I wasn’t
sure exactly what he meant by that, but I knew what I was
hoping for.
I was so excited just thinking about it that I
shared the news with Chloe.

“As soon as Zach’s punishment is over, we’re going on
a special date,” I said as I hauled an armload of clothes into
the fitting room. “A
really
special date, if you know what I
mean.”

“Yeah, I think I do.” Chloe helped me sort everything
into outfits
and
then waited outside the
door for me to
change. “So…will this be your first time together?”

I looked into the mirror and
saw she
was
right.
Everything had to be just perfect for my date with Zach. A
serious case of flat butt just wouldn’t do. Those jeans had to
come off—fast. Our conversation continued while I changed.

“Oh…really?” she said disbelievingly. “I’m so happy
for both of you. You make the perfect couple.” She flung
another pair of jeans over the top of the door in exchange for
the flat butts. “So…are you scared?”

Was I scared?
No, I knew what
real
fear truly was.
“Nervous is more the word for it. Mixed with excitement—
definitely excitement.”