Chapter 1

As Damian's life spirals down the hole, the ghost of his ex-girlfriend haunts him, coaxing him to open the window. So far, Damian has refused, but he slowly feels his resistance waning thin.

“Mare…Mariposa?”  

There she was, sitting on my windowsill like she used to. Her jade eyes obscured by the shadows of the trees. Her black hair shined in the harvest moon, and she looked at me dolefully.

“Damian…” she murmured, her voice sounded the same.

She pressed her fingers against the window, her breath fogging up the glass.

She was real.

She was here.

She was alive.

“What… are you doing here?” I breathed, too stunned to fully realize it.

“Why weren’t you there?” she asked me. “I waited for hours, but you never came. Everybody else did, even that Mr. Fowel, who I cussed out the day before the accident. But you weren’t there,” her eyes welled up, and my heart was pounding.

I slowly sat down on the foot of my bed, and I averted my eyes. I should be flipping out right now. I should be running out of the house and screaming like an idiot. But I wasn’t. I felt like a piece of crap, my head throbbing from the hangover. I was too startled, still in the state of disbelief to do anything.

“I…” I didn’t know what to say.

“Why, Damien?” she asked again, pressing her cheek against the glass. “Even my horrid father showed up, even those girls who hated me showed up, but why didn’t you?”

My heart twisted inside of me, and the bile rose in my throat. Mariposa…

“Damian. I love you,” she murmured, her dark green eyes looking at me through tears. “And it kills me to know that you didn’t show up to my funeral because you were too busy getting hungover,” suddenly, she pounded the window, and a spider web of cracks ran along the glass. I flinched back, my eyes suddenly wide.

She choked a sob.

“Why?” she repeated. “Have I not been good enough for you?” she whispered. “Nothing but loving and understanding? What did I do wrong?”

I didn’t know how to answer, but I felt my stomach doing flips. I was going to hurl.

And before I could even get a reply, I ran to the bathroom.

 

That was two months ago. She’s showed up every night since then, asking the same questions, pleading the same request.

Mariposa and I were once lovers. About oh… six four months ago? I broke up with her, though I forget the reasons why. I suppose it was because of our differences, she was this weird, random soccer playing gothic girl while I was the star basketball and baseball player.

Jocks don’t date the weirdoes.

Anyways, fact was that we broke up. I thought it was a mutual brake-up, considering she only giggled and said ‘okay, well, talk to you later then’ and she bounced off with her friends. I thought that was the end of it. I only saw her a few times after that, and it looked like she moved on. I sort of did, things just never felt the same.

Then, one day, we got in a car accident. I was stoned, she wasn’t. Our friend David was driving like an idiot. She wasn’t.

David was seriously injured.

Mariposa died.

Everybody cried, even the girls who hated her happy a*s cried. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t cry. People thought I was inhuman, especially the people who knew that she and I went out. It got even worse when people knew that I was in the same accident, but for some reason the tears wouldn’t come.

On the night of her funeral, Eric, Roy, Alicia and I decided to get drunk. I don’t remember why, or even how, considering we were all underage, but I remember stumbling home with my head pounding.

She now shows up every night, when the moon is in my window. She asks me questions about how school is, and if her friends miss her. I usually end up shrugging, I don’t know her friends, so how would I know? More often then not she would always tell me that she loved me, and always asked me if I would let her in.

I always told her no.

I wasn’t stupid. Why on earth would I let a zombie into my room? I would only do that if I had a death wish.

I didn’t tell a soul about her. What if I was just hallucinating? Maybe my conscious finally showed up and was making up for its absence and making my life a living hell. At least at night anyways.

 

I didn’t fall asleep until two o’clock in the morning, Mariposa kept talking to me, and asking for entrance. School sucked, I could barely keep my eyes open in geometry. I vaguely remember Mr. Fowel talking about how to construct a triangle, but I was more focused on staying awake then what he was actually saying.

“Hey, stay up,” Eric growled. “He’s looking this way,”

I turned my head slightly, looking at the teacher with half-lidded eyes. Mr. Fowel merely shook his head, and continued on with the lesson.

About a half hour later, I was jolted awake as the bell rang, Eric gave me a concerned look, and kept kicking me awake. “Come on, we got English next,”

I stumbled up, grabbing my binder and walked off with Eric and eventually Roy joined us.
“Geeze, what happened to you? You look like crap,” Roy stated in a matter of fact tone. “You look like you haven’t slept in ages,”

If only they had any idea that there was a freaking zombie sitting on my windowsill every night.

“I was up all night,” I replied with a yawn. “I was up last night doing homework and I got Epitaph too,”

Which wasn’t I lie. I did do a little homework, and I did get this new game called Epitaph, but I certainly wasn’t up all night playing it.

“Really? How is it?” Roy asked, bouncing up and down in excitement. Roy was the resident video-game dork.

“Pretty good. Though I hate the Renee girl,” I replied. “She’s a b***h, in both personality and in gameplay. Especially when she goes and--”

“Don’t ruin it for me!”

Eric opened the door to our class, and they pushed me inside. I plopped down into my seat without a fuss, and I pulled out my book.

“Hey, its Callie,” Roy then whispered, a sudden grin coming to his face.

Callie was the girl I hooked up with after Mariposa. We never had anything special, though I would have liked there to be.

She took a seat in one of the desks in the back, her bright azure eyes catching mine for a moment, but she looked away as Lizzie Temple caught her attention. I turned back to my book.

“You need to go talk to her,” Eric stated, crossing his arms over his chest.

I merely looked up at them. “And why would I need to do that?”

“Because. I swear to god you two are perfect for each other,” he replied.

“You also said that about Mariposa, remember?” Roy said. “That Spanish girl with a sharp tongue and a mean right hook?”

“Yeah… she was sort of a b***h. Though she was pretty easy on the eyes. Not many other girls can stake that claim here,” Eric muttered lowly as a pair of porky girls scooted between the aisles to their seats.

I gave a lop-sided smile.

“Speaking of which, have you gone and visited her grave yet?” Eric asked me.

I shook my head. “No. I haven’t had enough time,”

“Might want to hurry, or she might come back and haunt your sorry a*s,” Eric said.

I stared at him long and hard, my eyes widening.

“What?”

“Don’t go spouting off that superstitious crap at him,” Roy returned. “She ain’t going to haunt anybody. She’s just a molding corpse right now,”

I repressed a fake, humorless laugh. Oh how wrong he was. But I simply gave a smile. “She’ll haunt me huh?”

“Mmhmm, haven’t you heard the legends? Geezus Damian, you grew up here. Anyways. They say that if you don’t visit a friend’s grave, usually they mean boyfriends or girlfriends, they’ll come back and haunt you,” he stated.

"But she's my ex?"

“Hey, you three start reading!” the teacher then snapped.

 We all three ducked our heads submissively and quickly started on the assignment.

 

“Hey! You want to go to the football game?”

School was out, and Roy was still running off a sudden sugar high of about three Monsters and two redbulls. I was surprised that he hadn’t exploded by now.

“No. I have stuff I need to do,” I responded, tossing my binder into my truck.

“Awe, Damian. You never go out anywhere anymore,” he pouted, sticking out his lower lip.

I simply sighed. He wouldn’t go out either if he knew what was lurking out there anymore. Slamming the door to my truck closed, I waved at him and started the ignition.

“See yah,” I said, and my discolored truck puttered out of the parking lot.

 

“Please?” she asked.

“No,” I returned sharply, crossing my arms over my chest. “You’re not invited,”

“Why?” she asked, shifting on her spot in my windowsill. “Why won’t you let me in. Its cold out here, Ian, its always cold out here. Why won’t you let me in?”

“Cuz’ you’ll suck out my brains or something,” I stated.

“Damian… I’d never hurt you,” she whispered. “I could never do that,”

“How do I know that you're not lying?" I asked. "What do you do during the day? You know, when you're not buggin me?"

 "Not sure. When you fall asleep I go back to the graveyard. Its kind of wierd, looking at your own gravestone. Even wierder when you know thats not your body six feet under," she shrugged.  

 "I bet," I replied, stiffling a yawn.

 "Yeah. Well, I sort of hang around there for a while, and when the sun starts to rise, everything goes dark for a while," she added. "God, its cold out here, please, Damian, could you let me in?"

"No," I said. "I'm not going to let you in, Mariposa,"

"Why? What did I ever do to you?" she asked, pressing her fingers to the window.

"Its not what you've done, its what you're gonna do," I answered flatly.

She sighed, and I heard her choke up tears. "Damian..." she murmured. "Let me in, please," she begged, it hurt my gut to listen to her like this, but I knew better. It was an act. Back when she still had a pulse, she could randomly burst into tears. Seriously, one time I snapped my fingers and the waterworks were going full steam.

I preoccupied myself by looking at brochures from random colleges.

"Oooh, whats that?" she then asked, suddenly losing the sniveling tone. I bit the inside of my cheek.         

"A brochure for College," I replied. Washington State University. A college that Dad liked because it was close by and had wonderful opportunities for my talents.

"Oh really? You're dad is still hounding at you to decide then? Lucky me, I don't have to worry about that ever again," I could hear the smile in her voice "I don't have to worry about anything ever again... its nice, you know, not having to worry. Back before the accident, I had to take care of my little sister and had two jobs, you know that. I also had to make sure I passed school, and all sorts of other crap," she sighed wistfully. "Now its all gone, I'm not sure what I should do..."

"Did you ever think of going back?" I chided. "You know, they probably do miss you. You said that they even cried at your funeral," 

"They lost their main income, of course they're going to be sad," she said simply. "Wouldn't you if you actually had to work to get some cash?"  

I said nothing. We sat in silence again, until  finally I tossed the pamphlets away. "Mare, I need to sleep," I said, rolling over onto my back. She merely smiled softly. 

"Can I come inside, please? I don't like going to that Graveyard..." she murmured. 

"No,"

She gave a small hiss in anger, but I heard her leave. I sighed heavilly, and glanced at my clock. Three thirty, thats a new record. 

I gave one last sigh, and my lids fell down on their own accord.

Author's Note

Rawr, idiotic mistake I made with the last story. Its a book thing, it has chapters.

Reviews

[-Aurelia Mirella]

You have my attention!

I'm really curious as to what is going to happen next!

Great job.

Always,
-Aurelia Mirella