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Fantasy

“You know, I can’t miss you till you go away.”

Ellie’s mouth hung open. Her gaze locked onto me as I took a bite out of a piece of shortbread, leaving sweet crumbs on the saucer on my lap and probably all over my pyjamas. Shoot, I guess I have to vacuum the study later. I don’t usually do things without thinking, or saying things without understanding their consequences. 

But it was 2.30 in the morning and I was awakened by Ellie who insisted that she needed to talk to me. I dragged myself to the study and prepared tea with some snacks like my mother taught me to do whenever guests come over. But this time, the tea and cookies were more for me rather than for company. I needed a jolt of caffeine, but coffee was way too much for my blood pressure right now.

I did a mental check of what day it is. Saturday. Good, I can go back to sleep after this is done. Does the spirit realm or afterlife have a time difference, too? Like they’re on the other side of the continent or something? If so, they really need to check on the local time before paying us a visit. We practice this kind of etiquette when making long distance phone calls, so why can’t they do this too?

At this point, I don’t care about hurting her feelings anymore. I mean, what more does she want from me? I thought we’ve settled things already during her last visit.

“There’s something that’s still tying me here,” she muttered. Here we go. She’s doing that so I would feel bad about her.

But no, I won’t yield. She needs to get out of here, now!

“Maybe there’s something you need to figure out with someone else?”

She shook her head. Her brown curls draping gently on her shoulders. Even in death she looks beautiful.

“Then what is it? We’ve already said what we needed to say, right?”

“Well, obviously there’s something else.”

“I’ve said what I wanted to say.” And right now, I’m quickly coming up with new things to say to add to that list. Really nasty ones to pick her apart and make her cry.

But I’m in no mood to hear a ghost wail here in my house.

“Can’t you help me figure out what it is?”

I was yawning when she said it, so I made sure to make the loudest sound and exaggerated my expressions. Squinting eyes. Check. Arms thrown back. Check. Mouth opened to the extent of near-dislocation of my lower jaw. Check. “I wish I could help you.” My voice cracked. I should win an Emmy. 

“You can,” Ellie insisted. Her eyes shot up to mine and her usual demure demeanor perished in an instant. “Every day, the space that I get to roam around gets smaller. I don’t know why. I used to be able to roam about the neighborhood. But now I’m just stuck inside your house.”

I sighed. “Have you ever tried leaving?”

“I did, but I can’t go beyond what I can see.”

“No, I mean, have you tried leaving here. This plane of existence. The world of the living. Or whatever it’s called.”

She shot me another look of disbelief. “You think that I want to spend another minute here? I’ve tried to leave. I did everything, but I can’t.”

I shrugged.

“Do you think I like being here?”

“I don’t know, do you? ‘Cause it looks to me that you’re just overstaying your welcome.” I turned away from her before uttering under my breath. “Like you always did.”

I didn’t have to turn around to look at her. I knew how she would react. If she was alive, she would stomp away from me and slam the door shut behind her. But now, whenever she’s angry, she’d just vanish from the room. 

About a few seconds later, I turned to see that my assumptions were proven true. She’s gone. But from what she said earlier, she shouldn’t be far from here.


Back when we were kids, Ellie and I had been best friends. No, we were like sisters. We grew up together and greatly due to that, we’ve shared a lot of our experiences together. We went to school for the first time together, scraped our knees together, had crushes, got heartbroken, celebrated birthdays, got into trouble. Always together. 

By now, the idea of a constant companion is suffocating. But back then when we were younger, it felt like I needed someone and I was glad that Ellie was always there to watch my back while I got hers.

Well, until she betrayed me in high school. Then we stopped talking from then on. So, I had to start learning about how to do things on my own. Signing up for college courses, going to lunch, studying at the library, attending seminars, graduating (okay, I wasn’t alone alone during graduation, but still), going to interviews, getting the job I wanted, going to work, coming home. All by myself.

The next time we met was actually by accident. I attended a wedding whose bride was the sister of one of my high school classmates, and guess who was wearing a bridesmaid gown accompanying the blushing bride?

I spotted her when the bride was walking down the aisle and I already planned out my escape route after the ceremony. 

It wasn’t like I was afraid of seeing her. I just don’t want to.

But, plan A didn’t work out. And so did plan B. So, I went with plan C: act civil and excuse myself like any decent adult would do. 

However, I didn’t expect Ellie to chase me to the entrance when I was leaving. She said she wanted to talk to me. But by some form of serendipity, my phone rang. And it was from work. So, I had a legit reason to bail out. Well, I practically ran to my car to avoid her and drove off.

Turns out, a colleague was only asking around if somebody accidentally took one of our staff’s mail.

I never saw Ellie again after that. And the next time I heard about her was from a phone call.

Ellie was gone.


But not gone gone, obviously. Because here I am, in my study, trying to figure out how to get rid of her. It’s something rather harsh to say to the deceased, but we’ve been through the same thing for weeks now. The first time she appeared in my house, I nearly had a heart attack. The second time, I thought I was asleep. And it was getting old by the third time she came here. 

Come to think of it, this would be her 10th time here. Or is it the 11th?

Every time she comes around, she would tell me that she needed to do something before she could get to the “other side”. Something that she forgot or regretted. So I became her middleman. The first time she came by was because of a stray cat. She said she would always feed it on the way back from work and she couldn’t keep it because her landlord wouldn’t allow pets. Apparently before she… passed, she promised to herself that she’d find a home for it. So, naturally she sent me to get it done. A few posts on social media later, the cat found a new family.

The second time was about a USB drive that she forgot to return to her ex. I whined at her for not using cloud storage, but I returned it to him anyway. So, from the gist of it, these were more trivial things that she could’ve done before, but they were all left in my slightly more reliable hands instead. And I can’t believe the things that she just put on hold till the very last minute! There was even one time when she forgot to send the right documents to her lawyer, which led to her parents not receiving a penny from the money that she left for them. 

I didn’t mind doing that, though. Her poor parents didn’t deserve going through more hardships that they already have.

And now, with no clue of what she needed to do, all I could do is wait for her to remember and tell me what I need to do.

Not that I have a choice in the matter.

As if right on cue, Ellie came bursting into the room and I nearly spilled more crumbs.

“I know why I’m stuck here!”

I straightened myself up on my chair and put everything on the nearby coffee table, before I caused another major disaster.

“Because I was wondering about the reason for me to be stuck here, specifically in your house. Then, everything made sense! The reason I’m here is because of you!”

I narrowed my eyes. “Ellie, you know better that I’m not-”

“I meant that we still haven’t resolved the issues between us.”

“What issues are we talking about?”

“I don’t know. Something we haven’t done, maybe. Maybe I have a shirt I borrowed that I haven’t returned to you.”

“Nope.” I was much taller than her, so anything of mine on her would not look good. And she was one to always made sure that she looked good.

Ellie thought again, then she looked around the room. “I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

I wanted to get up from my seat, but that would risk spilling crumbs all over the floor. But heck, I was gonna vacuum anyway.

I brushed the crumbs off and went to check my phone on the other side of the room. I scrolled through e-mails and text messages, and found none from Ellie. I must’ve deleted them all already.

“That’s it,” I heard Ellie say from behind me.

“What’s it?”

“Your phone.”

“What?” She’s just grasping at straws at this point and I’m getting tired of her guessing game.

“That time. At Alicia’s wedding!”

“Oh, that’s her name.”

“What?”

“You were saying?”

“Oh, right. I wanted to say something to you that day, but you were in a hurry so I couldn’t even talk to you.”

“No… Really?”

“Are you for real?”

“Just tell me what you wanted to say.”

Ellie scoffed. “I can’t believe you.”

“Yeah, I can’t either.”

“Listen to me,” Ellie’s voice echoed through the room and it sent chills down my spine. I know I’ve always been mean to her but at times, I forgot about her current nature. She’s not what she used to be. And although I could easily, if not haphazardly, dodge her before, right now it’s impossible. 

I finally turned, trying to hide the shakiness. Ellie still looked like Ellie. Older than the girl I was friends with, but every part of me knew who she was. 

And what she did.

“I’m sorry.”

Her voice was low but clear. It was something that I never thought I would hear, but here it was. Even now, I thought that I was dreaming. 

I couldn’t tell why I started crying. Had I been longing to hear her say those words? Because then, I could finally let go of my pride that I’ve been fortifying these years. Or had it been relief? Because after all those times thinking that I hated her and being angry with her, I could let everything subside?

The warmth of tears stained my cheeks and though I wanted to cry harder, my pride was still holding me back. I was still furious. Why did it take so long for her to say those words? She could’ve fixed everything sooner and we could’ve patched things up. 

We could’ve.

We might.

“You never gave me a chance to say it,” Ellie said. 

“Because you never seemed bothered by it.”

“But I was. And for that, I’m still bound to this place.”

I had to turn away before more tears could blind me from the rage I’ve had in my heart, the one that I’ve kept for so long.

I couldn’t just let it go.

“You know it, don’t you,” Ellie said. “That I would never deliberately hurt you.”

That’s not fair. “But you still hurt me.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to apologize.”

The heaviness was drifting away. But I wasn’t ready. So I kept tugging on it, like my life depended on it.

“You’ve said your piece. You can go now.”

Ellie stood there quietly. I’ve been kicking her out of my house a lot since she’s been appearing here to ask for favors. But this time, it felt harder on my heart than before.

“Are you sure?” she said.

I sighed, my back still turned to her. “What do you mean?”

“Won’t you regret it? You still haven’t forgiven me.”

Her ridiculous notion beckoned me to face her. “You can’t force me to forgive you.”

She nodded. “That’s true. But I can’t stand the thought of you holding onto that anymore.”

It was clear. My pride and anger that I’ve latched onto for so long anchored me to a state of mind that was crushing me, until it was causing me to feel literal pain.

My heart skipped a beat. 

“I don’t care if you hate me,” Ellie said. “But… please. Before I go, I hope you know that I’m really sorry for what I did. And even though I don’t deserve your forgiveness, I hope that you won’t dwell with guilt like I did.”

I sniffled. She was right. I had been guilty, for letting my own voice get drowned out by feelings of resentment, and the thought that somehow it would be my one form of comfort. True, I was innocent. But the reason I remained so made me as guilty as her.

“I don’t hate you, Ellie.”

I didn’t want to do this, but she was running out of time. If I could prove that I didn’t hate her after all, I wouldn’t wait to watch what would happen to her when she ran out of places to go.

“And I… I forgive you.”

The sun was rising, its rays bled between the drapes that were hung above the window. The one near the desk where I would usually work at. Another day has come, and the shadows from the previous night were chased away by the light.

I was afraid of turning around despite knowing what had transpired. I looked down on the coffee table where I served us tea. She used to love these shortbread, I thought. I picked the tray up and headed towards the door. And just as I thought, Ellie was no longer there. I would know. 

Of course I know.

March 10, 2020 01:17

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2 comments

Inactive User
02:56 Mar 19, 2020

I did not expect that ending, but it was powerful, and kinda left me wanting more of the story. good story!

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Che Zue
04:34 Mar 19, 2020

Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it 😊

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