There Are Ghosts in Normal Heights, and You’re One of Them

I couldn’t breathe. Between the hot, moist gym air and the bacterial stench of sweat rags strewn across the floor, I felt a gag bubbling in my throat.

I covered my nose with the sleeve of my flannel and breathed in the crisp, powdery smell of fabric softener. At that moment, I wondered why gyms were such popular mating grounds — a social hub to meet romantic and sexual prospects, as if we were at a dimly lit bar or under the moonlight.

And then it happened. Through the haze of a dirty gym mirror, I, a neurotic grammar nazi with a fanny pack, had made eye contact with him, a carefree extrovert with a criminal record.

About a month earlier, I’d complained to the gym about the mirrors.

The mirrors are dirty, I’d typed. Also, the machines are dusty, and I found a bloody tampon in the shower. No one at the front desk says hi to you when you walk in, and you feel invisible. It’s either that or they just look at you as if you’re walking into their personal living space, and they’re just, like, who are you and what are you doing in my house?

But now that I was under someone’s watchful gaze, I found myself wishing to be invisible again. I couldn’t function. I couldn’t think. I felt scrutinized, ugly, and weird. I tried to lift the rowing machine, but my glasses slipped off my face, and the world blurred for a moment. When I pushed back my glasses and saw that he was still watching me, I became angry.

He raised his eyebrows at me and nodded his head once to say what’s up. But it was too late. I had already imagined each and every one of my insecurities under his microscope. Fragments of my middle school self, every ounce of self-consciousness within me, my big pores, my strange thoughts, my inner critic, all zoomed in at 600x. I shot him a dirty look and found refuge in the empty dance room, where I sat cross-legged in the dead center, surrounded by more dirty mirrored walls.

I cringed at my reflections closing in on me — the one on my left, the one on my right, and the one right in front of me. And then there was his reflection, approaching from behind. We made eye contact in the mirror again, and I looked away.

“Is everything okay?” he asked when he got to me.

I played dumb. “Yeah. Why?”

“You gave me a look.” He took out an earbud, and, in that moment, my anger had softened when I saw him up close. I realized I’d overreacted. “Did I?" I asked. “Sorry—I have Resting Bitch Face.”

“You have Resting Beautiful Face.”

I laughed awkwardly. “Thanks.”

“I’m Bernardo. Let me know if you wanna hang out sometime.”

Part of me wanted to. But I was trapped in a four-year-relationship with Gareth, someone who everyone warned me did not love me, and whose family behaved like a cult. No one was welcome into their world, especially not romantic partners. My holidays were often spent alone.

“Okay,” I told Bernardo, hesitant to end our conversation. “Have a good workout.”

He began to walk away, and I turned around, thinking about taking up his offer. He noticed and stopped — a last call for me to say something — but I said nothing.

That’s because I knew that once Gareth was out of my life — and I knew for a fact that he would be once I found the mental strength to admit to myself that he did not care for me or love me or want me — I would find Bernardo again and continue where we left off. 

That was my plan, after all. So I memorized Bernardo’s face as best as I could for when that day came. I memorized his eye shape and dark eyebrows as I left the gym, passing him as he hung off the handlebars, so carefree and unlike Gareth, who was the type of person to eat unseasoned tilapia five days straight, let you walk to your car alone at night, lecture you for wearing shoes on the carpet, and insist that you transfer your fast food from the wrapper and onto proper dishware once you got home.

Eventually my prediction came true. Gareth and his cult family were officially out of the picture, and I could now freely pursue — or rather be pursued — by Bernardo.

***

On one of our first dates, Bernardo and I ate cheeseburgers from Jack-in-the-Box — off the wrapper and not ceramic plates.

“It’s hot that you drink Coke,” he said. He handed me a ranch packet, which I put in my pocket to save in my fridge for another day.

“I drink a lot of soda,” I confessed, now proud of my bad habit. “I’m trying to stop.”

“Well it’s hot.”

"Thanks," I said. "I think it's hot that you always walk me to my car and stuff at night."

We spent that April walking around Barrio Logan, eating fusion hot dogs with guacamole that were half Mexican and half American like us. We spent it drinking at The Shout! House on Fourth and The Lost Abbey, and working out at the foul-smelling gym. I stayed as close to him as possible at the gym, because, like the fabric softener on my flannel, he smelled nice. 

Most days we drank, since that was his favorite thing to do. I worried about his driving, sometimes fast and reckless, and I found it ironic that when I finally took over all the driving during the dates, he warned me that I shouldn't cross over double yellow lines. It wasn't legal in California, he warned me, and it wasn't safe.

He told me about his criminal record, too, and I realized that I knew nothing about his world, and that my world knew nothing about his. I didn't tell my world about his world either, or about him for that matter. I knew exactly what everyone would say. That I was setting myself up for getting into trouble — trouble either with the law or with matters of the heart.

"What's it like?" I'd sometimes ask him.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Your life and upbringing were so different from mine. I wanna know what it was all like. I wasn't allowed to do all the things you did when you were younger."

"That's a good thing," he said. Isn't it?"

At the end of the day, I knew that a criminal record didn't make him a bad person. He was people-oriented, unpretentious, and most of all generous.

"I like your shirt," I told him once, looking at his Goosebumps shirt he wore almost every day, even though it was March and not October.

"You can have it if you like it. I'll give it to you."

Around that point, I wanted to know everything about him. He played pool, and I swam in one. He was a chef, and I was a swim teacher. He hated the color red, and I painted my nails neon colors. He had a DUI, and I had an overdue library book.

"When's your birthday?" I asked him over passion fruit margaritas one night.

"December 5th. When's yours?"

"August 19th."

"That's my sister's birthday." He drank his margarita, then ordered another one and helped me finish mine. I was impressed by how much alcohol his body could tolerate. "Hey," he said. "I see my friend. Do you mind if I go say hi to him real quick? I'll be right back."

Whenever we were out, Bernardo always ran into people he knew, and also people he didn't know. But then those people he didn't know soon enough became people he knew.

"You're an extrovert," I told him when he got back.

"What's that?"

"Like, when you're the life of the party."

"Yeah," he said. "That's me."

***

I'd moved to Normal Heights in San Diego a few months before I met Bernardo.

“There are ghosts in Normal Heights,” he informed me one night. He opened the door of my Murphy bed, and it creaked. “It's haunted.”

Personally, I believed in ghosts. I saw one or at least had thought I’d seen one when I was seven. The place I now lived in had history.

“My studio was built in the 1900s," I told him. "I actually had to sign a waiver when I moved in that I’m aware there’s lead in my walls, and that I’m okay with it. It can’t hurt you, though, unless you lick the walls.”

He got quiet.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"You're a nerd." He'd said it too matter-of-factly for it to be a compliment.

“I am?"

"Yeah, but a cute nerd," he added, most likely sensing that I'd taken offense.

I knew something had changed in that moment. Bernardo had finally realized and acknowledged out loud that we were from two different worlds, where we spoke the same language but a completely different one all at the same time.

Only I didn’t want the men from my world — the ones who wore velcro-strap sandals for maximum orthopedic comfort, ate plain tilapia while watching obscure documentaries, and requested you eat your Burger King off fine china to avoid making a mess.

I wanted Bernardo’s tribe. And I wanted Bernardo specifically. 

I confessed my new fixation to my friend Natalia one night.

"No!" she said. "You can't."

"Why not?"

"It's a bad idea. The drinking and everything else you've told me about."

"But I like him."

"No," she said. "This isn't good."

But I continued to see Bernardo, and I struggled to show him the side of me that could fit into his world.

"That could’ve been bad," he said one night at a cross-walk when a car almost hit me. He put his hands on my shoulders and moved me to the other side. "My one chance at true love. It would've been gone, just like that."

I became hopeful that our worlds could morph, and that he wanted to be a part of mine. At the end of the day, there were things we had in common -- at least on a human, general level. We both agreed that Bánh Mì sandwiches were difficult to eat. And we both agreed that, the more depressed we felt, the more we posted on social media. When things were going well in his life, he told me, he never posted.

But then he ghosted me, like I’d meant nothing. He didn't post on his social media either, which meant he was doing just fine without me.

The last time I’d spoken to him, he’d complained about how stuffy the gym was, and how pissed off he was that he couldn’t breathe in there. He’d also called me a nerd again, and so, without a doubt, I knew that was what it was.

Most days, I felt sad over it, but I was distracted enough with my swim trainings on the weekends to go on. Still, whenever we had a break, I’d check my phone with wet chlorine hands to see if he’d messaged me. Nothing. Then I’d go back to my training, practicing emergency scenarios and strapping my coworkers onto backboards. When it was my turn to play the spinal injury victim, I closed my eyes as I was strapped onto the backboard and thought of Bernardo. I wondered what he was doing in that moment.

At one point, I contemplated sending him an error-ridden text message to prove to him that I was not, in fact, a nerd. I called him once on the phone, but when it went to voicemail, I accepted my fate and carried on with an air of depression. 

And then I got a text. Finally. It was a bad day for me, too. I’d left work early to see my grandma in the hospital, and all I wanted was to hug Bernardo and for him to tell me that he liked nerds and that he liked me and that everything was going to be okay.

Natalia: Hey! How are you? Can I call you?

It wasn’t him, but I was still happy to hear from Natalia.

Me: Yes. Please. I’m in the hospital with my grandma right now.

“Heyyyy,” said Natalia.

I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hiiii.”

“How’s your grandma?”

“Not good.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Well it’s not okay.”

“I'm sorry. Can I tell you something?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. It’s about you.”

“Oh no,” I said, half heartedly. “Did Gareth post bad pics of me?”

She laughed. “What? No.”

I guessed again. “Did Bernardo post a picture with a new girl?”

“No.”

“Did Bernardo get back with his other girl?”

“No.”

“Did Bernardo die?”

She paused. “Yeah.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

Everything went still, and I looked at my grandma on the bed, asleep. The hospital beeps sounded louder.

“So he’s dead.”

“Yeah.”

“It was a car accident. Wasn't it?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I need to go.” I hung up the phone and texted Bernardo. I'd lost all my willpower to play it cool, completely unbothered by his coldness, and to not contact him.

Me: Hey. Can you call me?

Me: I really need to talk to you right now.

Me: Call me when you can.

Me: Hey . . .

Me: Okay.

Me: Pls tell me this isn’t real..

I misspelled please and added an extra period for good measure.

I googled his name and found his birthdate — it was the same December birthday he’d told me over passion fruit margaritas that night. Only this time, it had an end date attached to it with a dash.

My stomach sank. I googled more and found images of the accident on the news. The car he’d taken me places in and that I refused to get in was now turned over, his blanket hanging out the broken window and on the asphalt where blankets didn’t belong.

I read the autopsy as soon as it came out. He’d died of asphyxiation.

“Asphyxiation,” I thought.

"What's that?" I heard him say in my head.

“Like, when you can’t breathe.”

"Yeah," he said back. "That’s me.”

***

I wanted to throw up most days, but I did my best to go on in the months after. This time with a heavier air of depression. I forced myself to move my body, to go to the gym, to wash my hair, and to clean my home. I texted him as if he were still alive until his phone died and then went out of service completely. When I was cleaning out my fridge one night, I found the ranch packet I’d saved from when we had Jack in the Box. I hadn't eaten much in the weeks after, so I threw out some uneaten moldy pasta I'd felt too sick to eat when it was still good, the square of lasagna that looked like a brain when it plopped out of the Tupperware and into the trashcan, but I kept the ranch packet.

I hid it behind the bottles of condiments where I couldn't see it but where I knew I could look at it later whenever I doubted that any of it had actually happened.

As far as I knew, and as far as he'd known, there were ghosts in Normal Heights, and I wondered if he was one of them.

*Names have been changed.