The Wisp in the Water

"Please, baby. I feel us drifting apart. I know it's my fault and I hate it. I don't want to lose you. What if... what if we just had a little get away. Only me and you."

He had smiled like he meant it.

And she had shaken her head. But he’d known right away that wouldn’t be her final answer. Her voice was so soft: “You betrayed me."

And he had seen the hurt in her deep brown eyes.

That’s the thing he had always liked most about her. Or what he used to like most: How expressive her eyes were. Less a window to her soul and more a direct broadcast of her inner workings.

He’d always been able to read her like a book.

That was why he had pursued her. He had always needed control, and he’d learned from a young age that you could never control a person unless you understood his or her thoughts and feelings and motivations.

She’d been easy.

So he had decided to conquer her.

And what satisfaction!

Until the times when he’d looked into her eyes and read things he didn’t like. Little criticisms here and there.

Judgments against him….

Well now those judgments were front and center, and harsher than ever. But even they were outshone by the hurt of betrayal.

It made her eyes glitter, wetly.

She was a pretty when she was sad. It was almost too much to look at.

Looking to closely was like staring at the sun. So captivating that it hurt. But he forced himself to hold eye contact— to swim in her agony.

Good… he’d thought. if her pain is this close to the surface, she’ll be easy to convince.

"You're my dream girl. My soul mate. And I'll never forgive myself for what I’ve done. I betrayed your trust. But I don’t even want her! Honestly I’m disgusted with myself for ever stepping out— it was just a moment of human weakness. But I she knows I don’t want her. She knows that!”

He mustered a tear of his own. "And I know you don’t trust me. I don’t blame you for that, it’s my fault! But I will earn your love all over again-- even if it takes my whole life. I have to. Because I never stopped loving you."

She'd bought it.

And in the weeks leading up to their getaway, there hadn't been a single fight. Only more of the cold grey silence that muffled their home.

And now they're finally here, just the two of them. Here they are, his body on hers. Both of them, releasing all the tension they've been carrying, both of them releasing all that unspoken ache, all that resentment.

Her brow is crinkled and bowed, the same way it always gets every time she cries.

But what of her tears?

Lost among the ripples.

And the algae.

She looks up at him through the shimmering water. He can see that stunned hurt in her eyes all the clearer now-- those deep, brown eyes, so full of accusation.

But also weakness. He muses that were he to pull her up from the water right then and there— were he to render some fake tears of his own and use them to beg forgiveness she’d probably be stupid, or stupid, enough to forgive him!

He squeezes harder. And the power he feels in his forearms and palms feels magnificent.

She is nothing, in comparison to him.

There aren't any air bubbles rising from her nostrils at this point, but there are still a few little ones clinging to her eyelashes, they shine like jewels.

Like reverse tears.

She blinks, her brow relaxes.

And then, all at once, she's not looking at anything anymore. Her eyes lose all their focus, and the moment gives him an unexpected chill.

"You done crying now baby?" He laughs, to have it all done.

He looks at her eyes. It’s morbid curiosity. He wants to know what it’s like to read the eyes of the dead:

They are empty— betraying nothing because now there is no longer any feeling to betray.

Her soul is gone.

If her body is not a temple, it is vacant building.

And the windows might as well be boarded up because all they show is an interior darkness and an empty so deep it could be a noun.

It’s a big moment.

Such a big moment that he knows instinctively: it might crush him if he is not careful.

He must not let himself regret this act.

So he forces himself to feel proud.

And the turmoil makes his stomach lurch.

He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth and he chuckles to cool his nerves.

His shoulders tremble as he rises.

He flicks the water from his fingers.

Before he turns to go, he looks down at her, one last time.

Her summer dress is nearly translucent in the water. It flutters in the soft current-- like a wisp of smoke. But it clings to her form and makes her flesh look as pale and fragile as porcelain.

She's never looked so beautiful, so ethereal.

He looks at her lips.

Such a waste of a perfectly good-- he flinches back and stumbles through the water.

Had she...? He could have sworn that her eyes flicked up towards his-- locked onto his.

And had he read something there? Some righteousness? Some new depth of accusation?

No, of course not. She was dead! And the dead don't stare.

It's just his nerves getting the better of him.

But he does not look in her direction again.

Though he does think of her, as he's driving back to their grey, silent home.

And he remembers her stare. Not from when she was crying under the water. But afterwards. After her last blink.

He can feel her eyes boring into his soul. Not pleading. Not begging. Only judging. Condemning.

He can see them, clear as the roadlines in his headlights. Dead, pitiless, beautiful eyes. Deep and brown, but no longer laced with pain. These eyes carry only vengeance and they're looking right at him. Right at his soul.

And he knows in his heart, even though his mind wont admit it: that was real. That cold glare, he hadn't imagined it.

He turns the heat up in his car.

He needs a hot shower.

He pushes the pedal harder. He wants this grueling drive to be over.

He tries to cheer himself up, with thoughts of all the freedom he'll have.

He needs gin. And he needs some company.

He paws at his cell phone, and taps out a text to one of the women he’d swiped right on a few nights back.

Maybe she'll meet, now that he has the whole house to himself--

You betrayed me

Her voice, as clear as spoken word. Not like a memory, but like a cold, wet whisper so close he can feel the dampness of her breath in his ear.

He cringes away— jerks his head up and there she is, hovering in the road ahead, dancing and swirling and racing towards his headlights!

Her summer dress whips around her like water and grace and smoke and wrath and her body is devoid of all softness.

Her eyes burn with livid retribution.

He cuts the wheel hard to the right-- not for fear of hurting her, no, only to get away.

But she moves with him.

Then she's on the hood. She presses her pale face against his windshield. Her dress trails across the glass like the moldering wings of a dead bat.

Her eyes are gloating.

Those deep brown eyes, they are mirrors now. And he cannot look away. Through her glare he bores into his own soul. He wishes he could shy away from the rot festering there inside himself, but it cannot be ignored.

His heart gallops so hard he worries it might break— and he sees his own fear in her polished gaze.

Yes, he is afraid. To his very core, he is terrified of his dead fiancé who isn’t be even there— who surely can’t be there.

He tells himself not to be such a fitful, imaginative bitch.

But it all feels too real. His heart gallops harder, it’s getting away from him.

A pain shoots down his left arm. His eyes bulge.

And his car flies over the shoulder and collides, at top speed with a tree.

***

One of the EMT’s shakes his head. “One in a million chance! Look at this.”

And he pulls the blood spattered garbage bag away from the ruined and crumpled hood.

“It was pretty windy last night. I think this must have blown into the road, gotten caught on his windshield. Look how it’s tangled up in the wipers. Fella probably couldn’t see.”

The other EMT nods. “Poor guy. Look at his shoes, doesn’t that look like seaweed?”

***

Author’s note:

I general don’t bother writing ghost stories— that’s just not a sub genre I get excited about. But I had this idea in my head for a while. Hope it works and I’m wide open to feedback if it doesn’t :)

Anyway. The idea came from just seeing a bag fluttering in the wind while I was driving. And I thought if by some freak chance it cling to somebody’s windshield that could be disastrous.

But I wanted to write it happening to somebody who kinda earned it. Hence the manipulative, a emotionally abusive killer in this story. I know the violence in here seems over the top and sociopathic, that’s deliberate. It’s also mainly symbolic, of the way abusers sort of emotionally deaden the people they prey upon.

Here’s the songs I had playing during my first draft: (possum kingdom by the Toadies and love, hate, love by Alice In Chains.)