He can’t kiss
like a normal guy.
Unless it’s in my dreams,
and then we do those last two things.
But dreaming about them
isn’t the same
as actually
doing them
and experiencing them.
All he can really do
are the strange ghostly things
that let me know
he’s here.
Don’t worry, Jackson.
I know you’re here.
Believe me.
I know.
He flicks the gas fireplace on
even though it’s like ninety degrees outside.
“Jackson,” I yell,
“stop being so weird.”
And then
it hits me like
a fast,
open-palmed,
stinging
SMACK
in the face.
Having a ghost
for a boyfriend
is
weird.
I Want to Know How
The phone rings
as Mom walks in the door
carrying pizza
for dinner.
“Are you okay?” asks Nick
when I pick up the phone.
For some reason,
it makes me laugh.
“Is that the only sentence you know?”
He doesn’t laugh.
“It just seemed like you were upset.
When I saw you earlier.”
“Yeah. I was.
But I’m okay.
Thanks, Nick.
I guess you’re not so bad after all.
And Krystal’s really cute.”
“She’s great.
You’d like her.”
He pauses for a second.
“You know, I didn’t want to let you go,” he says.
“I liked you a lot, and I’m sorry I hurt you.
I held on, hoping things might change.
Then New Year’s Eve gave me more hope.
I held on, longer than I should have.”
“So now you’ve let go?”
“Well, I still care about you.
But yeah, I think I finally have.”
“Was it hard?” I ask.
“Letting go?”
“Not as hard as holding on to something that wasn’t real.”
I gulp. “Can I ask how you did it?”
“I just decided, Ava.
That’s all.
I just decided.”
No Rest for the Weary
This time,
I stay awake.
I avoid sleep
like my life
depends on it.
And maybe,
life,
true life,
does depend on it.
If Jackson comes into a room,
I leave
and go
someplace else.
He follows me
more than he ever has before.
Maybe he senses
the uncertainty
that has crept
into my heart.
As always,
he leaves me alone
when Mom or Dad
are there.
At night,
I curl up
in the corner of their bedroom
and listen to
Dad’s faint snoring noises
and Mom’s soft breathing sounds
and wish
I could sleep
peacefully
like that.
But I’ve got to stay awake.
I’ve got to keep distance
between Jackson
and me.
Thanks, Mom
On Sunday,
I curl up
with Mom
on the couch
and we watch
Steel Magnolias
on TNT.
When I was younger,
I always
spent Sundays
with Mom.
She’d paint my toenails.
Braid my hair.
Rub my back.
Nothing extreme.
But so completely satisfying.
“This gets sad,” she says.
“I know. It’s okay.”
“You look tired.”
You’d look tired too
if you hadn’t slept a minute
in two whole days.
I lay down
with my head in her lap
and she strokes my hair.
“I wish I could make it better,” she whispers.
And as I drift to sleep, I think,
You are, Mom.
You are.
A Million Apologies
He is there,
in my dream,
but I don’t let him
touch me.
Not this time.
This time,
he has to let me say it.
“Jackson, do you know how sorry I am?
Do you know if I could change places with you, I would?”
He comes closer.
I step back.
“You have to listen to me,” I tell him.
“You have to understand.
It’s my fault,
and I’m so sorry.
So terribly sorry!
sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry
sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry
“Jackson, please forgive me.
Please!”
“It’s okay, Ava.
Ava?
AVA!?!?”
A Real—Life Nightmare
Mom is shaking me
and yelling my name
to wake me up.
“Ava, are you all right?
You were thrashing around and crying out
like someone was hurting you.”
“Mom, it hurts so much.
All of it.
I just want it to go away.”
I want to tell her so bad.
I want to tell her everything.
Except she won’t believe me.
Just like Cali didn’t believe me.
And if Mom and Dad
don’t believe me,
they’ll think I’m Crazy Girl
and send me away.
I sit up
and burst into tears
while I dissolve
into her arms.
“Shhhhhh,” she says
over
and over
again.
And then I know
there is something
I have to tell her.
I pull myself away and
look at her.
“It was my fault, Mom.
I dared him. What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking.
Don’t you see?
He did it for me.”
Hard to Believe
I want to believe her
when she tells me
it wasn’t my fault
and that I have to stop
blaming myself.
She says, “It wasn’t you, Ava.
He made the choice.
Do you understand?
You did not push him off that ledge.”
I want to believe her
with every bone in my body.
But that is pretty much impossible
when every bone in my body
feels
so
incredibly
guilty.
One Boy and Two Girls
Cali calls Sunday night.
“Jessa said you left the party with Lyric.”
“Yeah, he took me home.
I wasn’t feeling too well.
I shouldn’t have went with you.”
“That was nice of him to do that,” she says,
and I wonder if I hear
a hint of jealousy in her voice.
She goes on.
�
�I keep hoping he’ll call me.
You know, to ask me out.
Did he say anything about me?”
“Just that you met at the bookstore.
Where he works.”
“I think I’ll go by tomorrow and see him.”
She pauses. “Wanna go with me?”
I want to say yes.
But not because of her.
Because of him.
And there’s something
horribly
wrong in that.
“I really like him,” she says.
“I know,” I say.
“You should go and see him by yourself.”
Because I really like him too.
Friends
After we hang up,
I turn the computer on.
I have an e-mail from Nick.
Says it was good to talk to me
and we should do it more often.
Says I’ve got to meet Krystal.
We should get together.
Says he is glad we are friends.
I have an e-mail from Jessa.
Says she’s sorry
she didn’t get to talk to me
at the party.
Says it was good to see me
out in the world.
Says she loves me
with lots of xo’s.
I write her a note that tells her
we’ll get together soon
and I miss her.
Then I start a new message.
TO: Lyric@remstat.com
my phone number is: 222-1567
ttyl
ava
And then, before I have any time
to change my mind,
I hit
SEND.
Mother Knows Best
I stay awake
again
Sunday night.
Monday morning, Dad leaves early.
He’s heading to Montreal
for the week.
Mom has work to do
and I think about asking her
to stay home with me.
But then she’d
really
worry.
She reaches out
and cups the back of my head
in her hand
in a way that says
“Will you do something fun today?
Call one of the girls.
Go to the mall. Or the pool.
Something?”
“Maybe.”
Her eyes search mine.
What is she looking for?
The old Ava?
The happy Ava?
The Ava who didn’t carry guilt around
like a big boulder on her shoulders?
“Sweetheart,” she says,
almost in a whisper,
“I’m making an appointment for you.
To talk to someone.
I know you don’t want to.
But I think you need to.”
I can tell,
by her face,
her voice,
her touch,
she’s made up her mind.
So I nod
and secretly wonder
what else I might need to do
that I don’t really want
to do.
Get Me Out of Here
Then I’m back to today
and what I should do
with the day
that looms ahead of me
like a long,
lonely road.
“I wish I could drive,” I tell Mom.
“It’s not long till your sweet sixteen,” she says.
“I’m not so sure it will be very sweet.”
She kisses my cheek and says,
“It will be because you are.”
And then she leaves.
Once again
I’m left
with just my thoughts
and the ghost
who haunts me
because
he loves me.
I need to do
something.
If I stay here,
I’m not sure
I can stay awake
any longer.
The cool air comes.
I shiver.
The music turns on.
My Last Breath
by Evanescence.
I don’t want to
hear these words.
It’s a sad song.
Does he want me to feel sad?
If I feel sad,
does he think that will
make my heart
want him more?
He is closer to me now.
So close.
I think I feel
his breath
on my cheek.
And then the phone rings.
It startles me.
I run to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Ava?”
It’s the lyrical voice
of the real, live boy.
“Were you sleeping?”
“No. I’m awake.”
I don’t tell him
I’m avoiding sleep
to avoid
my ghost of a boyfriend.
“I don’t have to work today.
Wanna go have lunch? See a movie?”
But there’s Cali.
And there’s Jackson.
And there’s—
me.
“Pick me up this afternoon?
Around one?”
Who Are You?
The music gets loud.
And louder still.
He might be mad.
Does he know
it was a boy
on the phone?
Or is he just tired
of me ignoring him?
I feel him near me
as I go into the bathroom.
I shut the door
and lock it behind me,
but it doesn’t
keep him out.
“Jackson,
can I have a little privacy?
Please?”
He doesn’t leave.
I feel him there,
so close.
If he were alive,
our skin
would be touching,
chest to chest,
legs entwined,
arms wrapped
around each other.
But he’s not alive.
As much as I might wish
and as much as he might wish,
he’s
not
alive.
This time I yell.
“Jackson, leave me alone!”
The water in the sink
turns on
full blast.
I go to turn it off,
and as I do,
I glance in the mirror
and his face
appears,
just for a second.
It’s not the face
of the beautiful,
joyful,
loving
boy
It is a dark,
sullen,
painfully sad face
that scares me so bad
I want to turn and
run and
never ever
come back.
I Have to Say It
And so I run.
I run from the bathroom
and back to the kitchen.
The hauntingly familiar music
of Evanescence still plays.
I go to the CD player
and change the song
to track 4.
My Immortal.
It speaks of a girl
being tied to a life she doesn’t want
and how she’s haunted in her dreams.
I let the music fill the room,
and then I yell with everything inside of me,
“Jackson, y
ou have to go.
This isn’t working.
Don’t you see?
This isn’t what love is supposed to be like.”
I crumble
into a chair
in the kitchen.
I love
you
and
I’m sorry,
he barely whispers
in my mind.
The fatigue,
the sadness,
the fear,
the guilt
all come to the surface,
and then I’m crying,
shaking,
pulling at my hair,
shrieking in a voice
that doesn’t sound like mine.
“YOU
HAVE
TO GO!
“I CAN’T
LIVE
LIKE
THIS!”
It Hurts to Breathe
I think I’m starting
to hyperventilate.
I run and grab a bag
out of the drawer.
In
Out
In
Out
I breathe slowly
and try to
calm down
so I can finish
what I need to say.
I hurt everywhere.
I ache with the pain
I feel
because I have to
do this.
“I’m sorry, Jackson.
I will always love you.
I will always remember what we had.
“But you have to move on.
You don’t belong here.
“I wish I could change everything and erase that day.
But I can’t.
“You have to go.
Please, Jackson.
Please go.”
On One Condition
Okay.
I will go.
But only if
you will give me
your guilt
to take
with me.
But How?
So that
is his unresolved
issue.
He doesn’t want
to leave me behind,
carrying around
a blanket of blame.
I put my head
in my hands
and weep
for the loss of
Jackson.
My soul
cries
like it has
never
cried before.
He is
so
good.
His love
for me is
so true.
I remember
the notes
he left me.
Ava is good...
Be happy...
Don’t be blue...
It wasn’t
about him.
It was
about
me
and wanting me
to live
the rest of my life
with joy,
instead of
grief
and pain.
He doesn’t blame me.
But I blame myself.
How do I rid my heart
of that guilt
and let
go?
Maybe