Secret Admirer

Lucy

“Fine, you want me to say it?” I said as I looked my best friend square in the eyes, “I’m in love with a ghost.”

She looked down, shaking her head. I could tell she wanted to be supportive, but then she said what I knew she’d been thinking all along.

“You know you sound crazy, right?”

“Yeah, well, maybe I am,” I retorted, trying not to show that I was hurt.

“Lucy,” Carla’s voice softened, “you didn’t even know the guy when he was alive, how can you be in love with his ghost?”

She was right. Jake and I had never met when he was still a living, breathing being. I had admired him from afar, but he hadn’t a clue I even existed.

The first time I spotted Jake was during fresher’s week as I climbed up the never-ending stone steps that led to the main hall on campus. It was three in the afternoon, and the hot summer sun was beating on my skin, giving me ugly sweat patches under my arms and sticking my hair to my face. Around me, the university campus was alive with that first-week buzz of nerves and excitement.

Someone bumped me coming up the steps, almost knocking me over. I turned around to the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen, flashing me a wide, dimpled smile. He mumbled a quick “sorry” and gave me a cheeky wink before disappearing up the steps. I had to stop to catch my breath, not because of all the steps I had just climbed, but because his smile literally took my breath away.

After that day, I would see him every so often around campus, or at the odd party, usually surrounded by a team of equally good-looking guys and girls. I watched him flirt with girls who were not in my league. To quote Taylor Swift, “they wear short skirts, I wear T-shirts,” so I knew I wasn't exactly his type—and that was fine, I kind of enjoyed being his secret admirer.

Then, tragically, in one of those freak accidents that usually only happen in movies, Jake died. It happened at a house party, with the usual drinking and dancing and an overcrowded balcony that was not meant to bear the weight of fifty drunk students. When the whole thing collapsed, everyone was badly injured, but Jake was the only one who didn’t survive.

After that, strange things started happening. At first, it was nothing that couldn’t be explained by logic. Like, Jake’s face would appear in my dreams, almost every night. He’d be smiling like he did on the steps that day, but since his picture was all over campus and social media, I just put it down to that.

Then, I’d get peculiar sensations, like someone was watching me. One night, while I was alone in my dorm room trying to study, I heard a voice whisper my name:

“Lucy.”

I brushed it off, thinking it must have just been the wind, that my mind was playing tricks on me. But then a few seconds later, I heard it again more clearly.

“Lucy.”

“Who’s there?” I said, jumping up from my bed as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I didn’t dare look outside the window or open my bedroom door, so I sat catatonic on my bed until my roommate came home. When I told her, she obviously laughed it off, and I tried to do the same, until it happened again a few times around campus. I’d hear my name being called, but every time I turned around, no one was there. I never connected any of those events to Jake—at least, not until the day I passed by the campus library, where flowers and handwritten notes had been left in his memory. I stopped in front of the piles of bouquets and notes that had started to wilt and fade in the sun, taking a moment to remember the guy I’d spent months being besotted with.

“Lucy”

That voice again. There were people all around me, but no one I recognised. I was beginning to think I was losing my mind when a sudden gust of wind lifted a photo of Jake from among the piles of notes and sent it flying in my face. That’s when I knew—it had been Jake all along.

Just to be sure, I decided to hold a ‘seance’ of some sort. So there I was, sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor, in the dark, surrounded by dozens of vanilla-scented candles, with Jake’s picture resting in my lap. I had no idea what I was doing.

“Hi Jake, it’s me, Lucy.” I felt ridiculous talking out loud to thin air. “It’s ok, I’m not scared. Let me know if you can hear me.”

The room was still and quiet, the light from the candles casting distorted shadows all over my bedroom walls. I was very aware of the thumping of my heart against my ribcage and the sound of my short, sharp breaths. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, and just as I was about to give up on the whole thing, a tingling sensation crept up my back, like fingers tracing along my spine. It felt sensual, electrifying—a rush of pleasure pulsed through my entire body. I closed my eyes, and Jake’s face appeared, startlingly vivid, letting me know it was his invisible hands caressing me.

“Hello? Earth to Lucy!” Carla shouted, snapping her fingers in my face. For a moment, I had forgotten where I was and that we were in the middle of a conversation.

“Sorry! I got distracted,” I said, feeling myself blush as my body still tingled from the memory.

“Did you hear anything that I just said?” she asked me. When I gave her a blank look, she sighed. “About Josh?”

“Who’s Josh?” I racked my brain, trying to remember if she’d ever mentioned a Josh. Was it her latest crush?

“He’s that cute guy in our philosophy class, the one who keeps staring at you? But of course you don’t notice, you’re too busy being in love with a dead guy!”

The conversation with Carla replayed in my mind as I walked back to my dorm. I couldn’t blame her for judging me; I’d probably do the same in her shoes. But how could she think I’d be interested in some random guy from class? I had a vague idea of who Josh was, and sure, he might’ve been cute in a preppy, boyish kind of way, but he could never compare. What Jake and I shared was transcendental—a love caught between life and death, incomprehensible to those who haven’t lived it.

When I reached my room, I found a beautiful bouquet waiting for me at the door. My pulse quickened as I picked up the bunch of pink and white lilies, their sweet perfume invading my nostrils. Holding my breath, I opened the handwritten note attached:

Roses are Red

Violets are Blue

Lucy, you have a secret admirer

Guess who?

My heart nearly leapt out of my throat when I saw the initial that was signed at the bottom: J.

***

Josh

There goes the girl of my dreams. I watch as she walks straight past me, not even a blink in my direction. I’ve tried so hard to get her to notice me, even asked her friend Carla to put in a good word, but clearly, I’m not her type. I saw the way she would look at that Jake guy, with his flashy hair and white teeth—she’d practically drool whenever he was around.

I can’t say I was too upset when he died; he was kind of a jerk. But it doesn’t change anything, because she still has no idea I exist. Even when I call her name, she looks right through me, like I’m invisible.

I almost completely blew it that night I went over to her dorm and stood outside her window calling her name. I don’t know what I was thinking. Sure, I was drunk out of my mind, but thankfully I chickened out. If she’d seen me there, she probably would’ve thought I was a total creep.

Carla told me I had to do something bold, so I dropped off flowers outside her room yesterday. I thought it would at least get a reaction, but today she acted like nothing happened—didn’t even thank me. It was the stupid note, I’m sure. I thought keeping it mysterious would be romantic, but she probably just thought it was lame.

Maybe I’ll have to accept that she’ll never see me—that to Lucy, I’m nothing more than a ghost.