I was lying on my bed staring at the ceiling and feeling sorry for myself for the third night in a row. The girl troubles of an eighteen year old guy still in highschool were not that critical in the grand scheme of things; I fully understood that yet somehow the thought did little to cheer me up. I rolled over onto my side and tried once again to think of something else, anything else, just to take my mind of her for a little while.
Andrea had been my girlfriend for almost two years and things had been going really well I thought, particularly as I watched the constant string of breakups happening around me. Then her family decided to move away. Some bullshit about her father's job I guess, I hadn't really paid attention at that point of the conversation. She had been as upset as I was over the whole affair but there was precious little we could do; neither of us were independent enough to leave our families and live on our own.
"Hey Alex," came a soft voice from the doorway.
Even with my back turned away from her I recognized my older sister's voice immediately, she must have finally gotten home. The day Andrea actually left it hit me pretty hard and, naturally, the one person I could have talked to about it wasn't around.
"Hi Megan," I mumbled back.
"You want to talk?" she asked.
Mom had no doubt told her what happened as soon as she walked in the door, it would at least save me the trouble. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to talk though, I was getting to the point where I almost enjoyed the self-pity in a weird sort of way.
"You miss her pretty bad, don't you," she said without really making it a question.
I nodded and felt Megan sit down on the bed behind me and reach out to ruffle my hair the way she did sometimes.
"It's stupid, I know," I said. "Just a highschool crush, we probably wouldn't have lasted anyway. Even people who get married don't last very long."
"But now you'll never know," Megan said with that note of understanding in her voice that I loved to hear.
My parents loved me and they did their best to empathize with me but they were a different generation and they just didn't understand. Megan was different; she didn't always have advice for me but she listened and, more importantly, she never judged. That was the main thing that set her apart from my parents and even my friends, I could tell her the most embarrassing and terrible things I'd done or thought and she wouldn't so much as flinch.
"Yeah, that's part of it I guess," I said.
I returned to my previous position on my back and looked up at my sister. She was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest and looking at me with a completely neutral expression.
"It's not really a big deal though is it," I continued. "People are starving and dying all over the place and I'm whining about a girl. Suck it up, right?"
"Alex," she said slowly, "just because yours isn't the worst problem in the world doesn't mean you're not allowed to care about it. It's okay to be sad that Andrea's gone, even I'm going to miss her."
I felt tears welling up and blinked them away quickly. Megan wouldn't care but I hated to cry even when I was alone, it made me feel pathetic. Or maybe it was just because I only cried when I was already feeling pathetic, hard to say.
"I dreamt about her," I said quietly. "The past two nights I wake up and she's in the room with me, it seems so real. She doesn't talk or anything even when I talk to her. Then I try to touch her and I realize she was never there." I snorted, "more of a hallucination than a dream I guess, since I'm awake and all."
Megan nodded thoughtfully and I noticed she was chewing on a few strands of her hair in the corner of her mouth. Usually that was sign she was focused on something and not paying attention to what she was doing.
"Sometimes that happens to me," she said. "When I'm stressed or worried sometimes I get hallucinations like that. One time I woke up and was convinced there was a massive hole in the floor. I had to go to the bathroom but I was terrified I would fall if I got out of bed. I think I ended up actually jumping off the end of the bed where I thought it was safe. Funny what you remember sometimes isn't it?" she finished, smiling at the bizarre memory.
"Yeah," I agreed, forcing a weak smile of my own.
"Anyway, think you'll be okay?" she asked.
"I think so, probably just going to sulk for a while then I'll be fine," I told her.
"Alright, well I'll be around if you need me," she said as she got up to leave.
"Thanks Megan," I said before she made it out the doorway.
"Anytime little brother," she called back.
****
Just like the previous two nights I woke up disoriented in my darkened room. Andrea was standing beside the bed watching me and I smiled happily at her.
"You're back," I whispered.
"Just checking on you," she whispered back. "You were making noises like... I don't know, bad dream maybe?"
She ruffled my hair fondly the same way Megan always did and I enjoyed the feeling for a moment before realizing what was different.
"You talked," I accused her.
"Yeah, so?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"You never talked last time Andrea, how come you can this time?"
She paused for a long moment, long enough for it to dawn on me that she had touched me too. When I had tried to touch her the previous two nights she had simply vanished like a ghost. Pushing my luck I reached out and gently felt her arm. It seemed solid and, better yet, she stayed exactly where she was.
"Maybe your imagination's just getting better," she said softly.
"Maybe," I agreed. "Can you stay with me a while?"
"Sure Alex, just for a little while."
She lay down next to me on the bed facing me as I shifted to give her enough room.
"I'm glad you're here," I told her. "I miss you so much already."
I leaned in to kiss her and felt her hesitate for a second before pulling away. I frowned in confusion and backed off.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing, just... it's nothing," she said.
