#she probably......... backspaced all of this as soon as she ws finished typin it to b frank

[lanasaved]

ghost | task #008

Hey, Caleb.

Is that a weird way to start one of these things? I don’t know. I’m barely even used to writing in capitals. Or, like, with full punctuation. It doesn’t really feel like me. You know? It’s like I have it programmed in my code somewhere that I have to misspell everything and add a bunch of eggplant emojis. 

I’m not really sure what that says about me. I guess I have a hard time taking things seriously. And this looks pretty serious, right? Grammar and everything.

Anyway. I wasn’t sure who to write this to. I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to write anything. I don’t really say things, if they’re bad. I hate that crease people get between their eyebrows when they’re worried. And I hate even more when they don’t get it, because they don’t get anything. It’s like... I don’t know. It’s hard saying things that matter when they don’t. Not to anyone else, anyway.

That’s what I loved about you. Everything that came out of my mouth mattered, even if it was a dumb French accent or a quote from a shitty movie. 

I miss that. Like, a lot. Enough that I have this gross, ugly lump in my throat as I’m typing this, which is pretty embarrassing, actually, because it’s over letters on a screen that just look like ants if I squint hard enough. It shouldn’t matter this much. Or maybe it should. I guess I’m bad at the whole ‘emotions’ thing. I never know what‘s meant to go where. 

I think it was just nice. That you listened, I mean. You were the only one. And you even listened when I didn’t say anything, you know? It was like you had spidey senses. When he came around to the house, I think you could tell. I remember one time, we were sat up at the dinner table, next to each other, and I just grabbed two huge fistfuls of my dress and I wouldn’t let go. 

Even after the food had gone cold.

Even when the sun went down.

But you sat with me, anyway.

You didn’t make me say it, you just held my hand.

I spent a long time in that house, wishing I’d been born into another one. Or that I’d been born different. That I’d been born in a way that wouldn’t make people look at me like that. That I’d been born a little less loud or a little more interesting. Because maybe then it would have been easier. Maybe then I wouldn’t have grown up holding my breath all the time. 

Do you remember that time Jensen got really drunk and threw the flour jar at us? When it got all over me? You took me to the bathroom, and you locked the door, and you sat me on the edge of the bathtub so you could get a towel and wipe it off. I could hear everyone talking through the walls, even though they were corridors away. It sounded like we were living in a zoo at feeding time. Like we shared a house with lions and we were the only two that didn’t eat meat. The only two that didn’t eat each other.

Do you remember what I said?

“I look like a ghost.”

I kept repeating it, I think. Like a broken record, or something. I don’t think you knew what to do, at the time. I mean, you were thirteen cleaning up an eleven year old, so you definitely didn’t. 

Sometimes, if I close my eyes, I can still see my face in that bathroom mirror. Chalky and white and scary. Staring back at me like the physical manifestation of the word inside me that I can’t pronounce.

I looked like a ghost. A ghost that lived in a house where no-one ever acknowledged its existence. Isn’t that funny? It’s funny, in a makes-you-wanna-cry way. Funny, like irony. Funny, like the fact mom and dad ever bothered having me at all.

I don’t know. This is getting off point. That’s one thing I’m good at, I guess. Losing track of things.

I think the point I’m trying to make is this: I miss you. I miss you so much, even when you’re there. I miss the way you’d listen. I miss the way your eyes crinkled at the corners when you laughed. I miss the way you’d wipe the flour off my dumb face when it wasn’t even your job to.

I miss my brother.

But, hey -- we’re both still breathing, right? That’s what people say to me. That you’re lucky, for surviving. That I’m lucky, for getting you back.

Doesn’t matter that I can’t get that night out of my head.

Doesn’t matter that Tommy’s dead, and I’m not allowed to talk about it.

Doesn’t matter that you never call any more, or try to hold my hand.

Doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t matter.

Because at least I’m still breathing, right?

At least I’m one of the lucky ones.