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Personal sacrifices would also be required for the ritual: a lock of my hair, a tear shed from genuine sorrow, and an audible declaration of a secret never before spoken. The book warned: "This is a balance. To give life, one must also give pieces of one's life."
Night after night, Ben joined me, his stories filling my life with spectral colors and ghostly laughter. Each time I saw him, it reinforced my understanding that I was on the right path.
Soon, I would hold him. Even if it was just for a fleeting night, I wanted to know the warmth of Ben, not just the image and the voice and the stories.
Just once, I wanted to feel him truly there. No glass, no barriers, no haunting divide.
And I hoped that maybe he wanted that too.
Ben
Ah, the late 60s and early 70s. Vinyl records hissed and popped as they played some of the best music of all time. Drive-ins showed classic movies likeEasy RiderandButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Saturday matinees offered lighter fare for kids—The Love BugandEscape to Witch Mountain.
Everyday sensations, the kind you don't think twice about, became treasures I could never experience again. The jingle of car keys and the crackle of a newspaper. I missed it all, every last mundane but miraculous piece.
And now I had Logan. Meeting him was like finding an old record you thought you'd lost. You dropped the needle, and a favorite melody played. From the beginning, something familiar and comfortable about Logan drew me in.
And then, the memory I'd shoved into the deepest, darkest corner of my thoughts came back, vivid as ever. Always dimly lit, the stairwell echoed with my footsteps as I ascended.
The building smelled of a strange blend of bricks and wood varnish, peppered with the lingering aromas of neighbors' dinners. Pot roast came from 2B, curry from 4A—ordinary scents that were part of my everyday life.
I'd been lugging a bag of groceries, envisioning a low-key evening—some canned soup and a dog-eared paperback for company. My stomach started to rumble, encouraging me to hurry.
I’d reached for the railing, a dependable slab of wood worn smooth from decades of human touch. But that night, my foot caught on something. Maybe it was a loose tread on a stair, or it was just a misstep in the rhythm of my routine life. Time seemed to pause as I teetered, the stairwell walls blurring in my vision.
My bag of groceries took flight first, items tumbling out in a clumsy ballet. Cans rolled down the steps, and I remember thinking, absurdly, that I'd have to pick those up.
Then gravity did its thing. I fell, the sensation shockingly quiet and swift like I'd stepped off the edge of the world. There was no time for a scream or a flailing grasp at the railing. I just tipped backward, my body obeying the laws of physics with ruthless efficiency.
That's how I went from flesh to ghost, tethered to the apartment building like a ship forever anchored. No glory, no dramatic farewell—just a staircase and a can of soup that never made it to my kitchen.
Faded echoes of conversations with my ghostly mentor, Eleanor, a spirit who'd been drifting through the world for nearly a thousand years, resurfaced. "Sometimes," she'd said, "spirits get a rare chance. A loophole that lets them be human again, even if it's just for a little while."
Could that really happen to me? Could I once again feel the kiss of sunlight on my skin, the sensation of biting into a juicy apple, or the soul-quenching warmth of an embrace?
That night, as Logan followed his bedtime routine, I floated into the bedroom.
“Can I join you on the bed tonight?” I asked. “I want to be close.”
“Of course.” Logan slid between the sheets and watched as I approached.
My ghostly form hovered only inches from him as we lay together. I couldn't actually touch him, but I could feel the heat radiating from his living body against my ghostly form.
"I wish I could stroke your hair and trail my fingers down your cheek," I said softly.
"Me too," he whispered back. "But just having you here like this...it's enough for tonight.”
I gazed at Logan longingly, taking in every detail of his face: the warm brown eyes, the full lips, and the light trail of freckles across the bridge of his nose. My ghostly state didn’t detract from my ability to recognize his beauty.
"No, it will never be enough," I sighed heavily. "Not until I can feel your lips against mine and your arms wrapped around me."
Logan reached out and pretended to caress my translucent cheek. I closed my eyes and leaned into the phantom touch, wishing it could be real.
“Soon,” he said softly. “We’re going to figure this out soon.”
I felt my spirit pulse brighter. I'd never felt closer to another soul, living or dead.
“I hope it’s not too early to say this, but I love you," I whispered. "Beyond life and death.”
