What Happened?

Going Home

        Jacob sat on his bed once again. I could hear whispering going on in the kitchen. I decided to go out and listen to what they were saying.
        “Why was he at the hospital? Did he tell you anything about it?” His mom said softly.
        “If he had told me then I wouldn’t have been screaming at him to tell me where he was,” His father replied.
        The ten or eleven-year-old girl started talking. “I saw him by a body or corpse or something when he was supposed to be home. It was a girl on the ground. He had his phone out,”
        “Why didn’t you tell us earlier, Amelia?” The dad shouted. Well, not shouted. It was the kind of shout that was still in a whispering tone.
        “I thought you would’ve known already,” she squeaked quietly. I felt bad for her. She wasn’t all that old, so how could she have known what to do?
        His dad sighed and walked into another room. His mom sat back down at the table. The little girl- Amelia?- trotted sadly to her room.
        Of course, that still left the thirteen or fourteen-year-old. She walked calmly over to the room Jacob locked himself in. She knocked on the door.
        “Hey, Jacob, who died?” she said jokingly, laughing at what she thought was a joke.
        Jacob didn’t reply. I decided to leave at this point. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I’ll just go back home.
        I floated through the front door and went back to the right. I studied the scenery around me. The things I usually ignored. The beautiful color of the sky as the sun set, the gorgeous green grass swaying slowly in the wind, the quiet rustling of leaves on trees, and just the overall tranquility I usually ignored. I wish I had paid more attention to it before.
        While I was lost in the stunning outdoors, I realized I was at my house. I floated through the door. I guess I hadn’t thought about the fact that here would be worse than Jacob’s place.
        I entered the first room, and everything was chaos. Lily and Andrew were crying and screaming, and my parents were… fighting. My mom never fought with him. Was this… Was this my fault?
        “She was your daughter, Lucas!” My mother shouted at my father, through tears.
        “No, she wasn’t! I never wanted her! I never wanted any kids! I didn’t even want to marry you!” He shouted in response. I knew there was a reason why I had loathed him so. He was a terrible person.
        “Then why did you, Lucas?! Why did you marry me?” My mother shouted again. I had never seen her angry. This was my fault. Why did I have to die?
        “I married you because I was only twenty-three! I married you because I was young and stupid! I didn’t think that we’d be here twenty years later!”
        My mom groaned and left the room. My dad stomped out the door. Lily and Andrew were left unattended. I floated over to Lily.
“Maybe,” I said softly, “maybe I can pick you up?”  So I tried to. I put my hands around her, and I picked her up and cradled her. So I could interact with living people!
Could I possibly… Talk to people? Maybe I could make myself visible to others? Would that scare them? Would that make things worse?
I’m not going to try to talk to anyone tonight. I just died today. That wouldn’t do any good. I floated Lily over to her room and set her in her crib. I rocked it back and forth until she fell asleep.
“I’m sorry you never got to properly get to know me, Lily. You’re only two,” I whispered after she fell asleep. I left the room and headed back over to Andrew, who was still having a tantrum. I sat on my knees to get down to his level. I held his hand. He was lying on the floor. I pulled him up and walked him back to his room. I picked him up and set him on the bed. It wasn’t even seven o'clock yet, but I figured he needed a nap after all that crying.
“I know you can’t see me, Andrew. You’re not much older than Lily. I can’t imagine what you’re thinking about right know,” I kissed him on the forehead and left the room.
        Now what?
        I made my way to my own room. I stopped at the door. I stared at it, studied it. Why did it feel so strange, now? I carefully twisted the knob and tugged the door open. I know I can pass through it, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to feel dead. I don’t want to be dead.
        I looked around the inside of my room. Everything seemed so… off. Yet, nothing had changed. Everything in my room was still in the same place. Everything from my bed to the piece of gum that I had stuck to my dresser years before was still in the same place. But something was just… different.
        It didn’t matter. I didn’t care. I wondered about the room that had once seemed so familiar and dull, but now seemed so interesting and new. I opened my closet door. I pulled out my light jackets that I wore throughout fall. I pulled out my hoodies that I wore in early winter and late spring. I pulled out the heavy jackets that I wore during the heavy snows of winter. I glanced at the final thing in my closet, the reason I had gathered my courage to ask Jacob out in the first place; my prom dress. Prom was in two weeks, and I wanted nothing more but to go with Jacob.
        Ugh, there’s no use dwelling on prom! It’s not like it’ll bring me back to life. I lightly touched the lace of the dress, and then pulled my hand away. I put back all my coats and hoodies.
        I continued to search the room. I stopped at the drawer on my dresser when I shoved all the stuff I considered worthless. There were some amazing things in there, now that I think about it. But then… I saw it.
        It was a carefully folded note with a heart sticker on it. I don’t remember this. What is this? I unfolded it to read what it said. Last time I checked, I had pretty bad luck with notes, so even though I was dead, I was cautious. The paper had words that looked like they were written by a trembling little kid with bad handwriting. There were splotches of water dotted about the paper. I read the note.
        “I could’ve helped you. I could’ve saved you. If I was just there, I could’ve done something. I could have pushed you away, I could’ve died myself, but why did my daughter have to die? Why?!”
        Mom wrote this note. She… she thinks it’s her fault. She wasn’t there… she couldn’t know… Ugh! Why am I still here? Why am I still on Earth? I died already, why am I not in some afterlife? Is there… unfinished business? Like in those movies? Is there something still left for me to do?
        I set the note down and yawned. Do ghosts need sleep? I guess they do, considering the sudden heavy feeling on the back of my neck and constant yawning. I fell backwards onto my bed.
        When I woke the next morning, for a short moment, it felt like everything was back to normal, like it was all a bad dream. But then I looked in the mirror. I still had that ghostly gray, sand-like skin.
        I left my room feeling like everything in my life had crumbled apart. Well, in a way, I guess it had since I’m dead. I stopped when I was at the stairs. I sighed to myself before taking the first step down. I hated this. It felt like I was willingly walking into pain. I knew that the typical “family breakfast” thing was ruined now. When I reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the kitchen, everyone was there. But no one was sitting in their normal seats. No one spoke.
        My mom wasn’t making breakfast for everyone like she usually did. She wasn’t acting like her usual, optimistic self. She was slumped on the couch in the next room, but it was like she was in the same room since there wasn’t a wall there. She was drinking something- Wait, is that alcohol?! I may not know my mother very well but I know for a fact that she would NEVER drink alcohol.
        But there she was on the couch, chugging a bottle of wine, and crying. This family was broken because of me. No, no, no, no. Stop it. Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I should start being negative. I didn’t choose to die. This isn’t my fault.
        My dad was, surprisingly, the only one sitting at the table. Not in his seat, though. We all had seats that we sat in, but he was in my seat. What on Earth did he think he was doing?! I was half-tempted to just push him out, right here, right now.
        But I didn’t. As much as I hated him, I knew that I couldn’t do that. I decided to try my best to ignore him while I checked on Lily and Andrew.
        Neither of them had had breakfast. Mom didn’t cook anything, and my dad was ignoring everyone, like always. I decided that they needed food. Lily was crawling around on the floor while Andrew was screaming about how hungry he was. They were both being completely neglected.
        Mom was very obviously drunk at this point, so she probably would ignore any strange things that happened, and if I made food I don’t think my dad would even notice. I took matters into my own hands and popped two waffles in the toaster.
        Mom usually made waffles a different way, never using frozen waffles, but I never really paid too much attention to it. Soon enough, the waffles popped up. I quickly realized that Lily couldn’t eat waffles. The syrup would get everywhere, and she would probably choke if someone didn’t help her eat. I remembered that there was baby food in the cabinet. I put the two waffles on one plate and slathered them in syrup and butter, giving the plate to Andrew.
He didn’t seem to care about a mysterious plate of food floating over to him and immediately began eating. I went over and grabbed a can of strawberry-banana baby food. I overheard mom one morning saying that it was Lily’s favorite.
I sat down with Lily and began spooning the food into her mouth. By the time she was finished eating, Andrew was done, too.
I recalled that today was Thursday, so Andrew should be at school. Mom used to take care of everything for him. She’d make sure he got his homework done, get him to pack his book bag once he finished, pick out outfits for him, brush his hair, and all of that kind of stuff. I never realized how hard her life must have been with us kids always around.
        And now I’d have to take her place to get Andrew ready. It can’t be that bad, right? I put Andrew’s plate in the sink and figured I could wash it later if no one else took care of it. I grabbed his hand and walked him into the bathroom. He seemed a little shaken, but was surprisingly calm about this. I looked at the counter and realized his clothes were there, and he still hadn’t changed out of his pajamas. I handed the set of clothes to him and left the room, expecting him to get dressed on his own.
        He exited the bathroom a few moments later with his shirt on backwards. I sighed and turned it around for him, and brought him back into the bathroom. I brushed his messy bed hair for him so he looked decent. I put toothpaste on his toothbrush and gave it to him, and he brushed his teeth. It all worked out surprisingly well. I brought him his shoes and he put them on, but I had to tie them for him. When I saw his bus outside, I figured out that my bus had already gone by about twenty minutes ago. Not like it mattered, though. I didn’t have to ride the bus if I was dead. I put Andrew’s book bag on him and sent him out the door onto the bus. He seemed really relaxed about being helped by an invisible being to get ready for school. But then again, he’s only six.
        After Andrew left, I put Lily in her crib so she could go back to sleep. She had just woke up, but she was usually tired after eating. After all that was over with, I realized that I wanted to go to school. I wanted to make sure all my friends were okay, I wanted to make sure Jacob was okay, and I wanted to see how everyone would react to the death of a student.