Even Stars Die - 21. Chapter 21

I glare at Alex. Then back at the cell phone. I glance at him again and although my hands are trembling, I manage to back off a few steps.

'What's up, Keegs? It looks like you've just seen a ghost.'

I hold up my hand, stopping his advance.

'Keegs? You want to talk about this?'

I shake my head several times.

'Okay. Then I can't help you with this.'

I manage to splutter a few words, 'That was Jean. Here, you want to see what she wrote?' I hand him the cell phone with trembling hands.

IF YOU ARE WITH ALEX RIGHT NOW I WOULD SUGGEST YOU GET AWAY FROM HIM. LIKE FAST.

'What do you think she means, Alex?'

He steps forward, I stop him with a hand.

'I have no idea what she means, Keegs. If I did, I'd try to set the record straight.'

'Why does she say I should get away from you as fast as I can?'

He shrugs.

'Maybe she discovered something about you that you're not telling.'

He glares at me for a moment, then turns away. 'That's like you calling me a liar.'

'Are you?'

He takes me in the eyes. 'I have not lied to you.'

'Then what's this all about?'

Alex glances at me, then at the cell phone all this time in his hands, and returns it to me.

Our fingers touch. He steps forward and I allow him to come into my space. He takes my hand and caresses it.

'I need to tell you something. I want you to promise to listen. Listen with your mind, your soul your very being. Will you promise me that you will do that?'

'Okay. Spill.' I nod my head.

'WIll you promise me that when I tell you, you'll think very carefully about us, and who we are?'

'I don't follow; who we are?'

"Yup. Who we are. If you deny me, I'll disappear. If you love me, truly, with a pure heart, I'll stay for as long as you want me and you'll get to know the real me. What you see now is not who I am. I am tied down by the rules and there is certain information I can't tell you. But you can tell me.'

Rules? What kind of information? What is this? Alex, are you spying on me? Is that it? You're a government spy and you're going to tell me you have the low down on me and I should worry, right?'

'Eish...too many questions. let me try to explain.'

'I wait with bated breathe.' My voice is sarcastic as he thinks about how he will tell me whatever it is that Jean has found out about him.

He gulps. 'I'm not from here. I left here 8 years ago. I loved this place, this wonderful planet they call Earth. But, there's another place, where everything is better, where just the thought of having something makes it materialise before you. If you want a rose in your garden, you simply think it, and it's there.'

I nod and smile, 'Oh, yes. I've heard about this new phenomenon. Everybody's doing it. I've started doing it too. Wait a minute, this sounds very much like heaven.'

'It is.'

'You speak as though you've been there.'

'I haven't been there. I've been to that place between heaven and hell.'

'But you came back, right. You're alive and well and standing beside me and you're flesh and blood, right?'

He gazes at me with droopy eyes, sadness turning them red. 'I came back. They sent me back.'

'Hang on a sec, Alex, who sent you back?'

'The elders. My time on the earthly plain is limited. I have one mission, and that is to find out the truth, and reveal it to you.'

'The truth? Truth about what?'

'The accident.'

The accident? That was so many years back and I don't care to remember it. What is the truth, Alex?'

'I can't tell you. If I do my time here will be done.'

'Oh, just handy. You tell me you've come to reveal the truth about the accident but you can't say exactly what otherwise yourtime will be done, and you mentioned earthly plain earlier, and elders and hell knows what next, Do you know how ridiculous that all sounds? Why are you talking like this, Alex? Why don't you just freaking tell me and get it over with?'

'Because if I do, i'll be whisked back into oblivion and you'll never see me again, I'll never see you again and I will never remember this took place and neither will you. Do you want that?'

'Alex, are you telling me that you're a ghost?'

He doesn't say anything. Stares at me. Our eyes lock.

'You're a ghost?'

'I don't have to be.'

'You're a freakin ghost!' I step back. He grabs me by the hand and I'm trying to get away but his fingers move right through mine. I turn and run back a few paces.

'Please, Keegs. Please, try to understand.'

'Underfuckingstand! Understand that you're not real! Understand that I've given my feelings to a liar, a fucking lying ghost. That explains it all, doesn't it? Appearing, disappearing, knowing things that no-one can know. Your powers. Your blackouts. And I'm the one who is a sucker here. Me! Do you understand that?'

'I can stay. I don't have to go back, Keegs. I can be with you always if you love me. We can make a life together.'

'Who says I want you to stay? I mean, all those times we made love. Today. I have been making out with a ghost? Unbefuckinglievable.'

He moves towards me, hands outstretched.

'Stay away, Alex. Just, just stand your ground. Don't try to come closer.'

He stops, stares. 'I love you, you know that I've loved you from the moment I saw you.'

Damn him! Love me? How can a ghost love? How is it possible? Yet I touched his skin. I kissed his lips. I gave my soul and body over to him.

'You just hit me with this total bullshit of a revelation and you expect me to just drop everything and say that it's okay? Alex, it's not okay. It's far from okay. I'm human, for crying out loud. Human!'

'I can be too, if you'll let me.'

'No! Not like this. I can't do this anymore. I want to live a normal life with a normal human being who can feel me and not have his hands slide through mine every time he wants to hold me.'

'We can be like that, I promise we can.'

'No. Alex, just stay away. Stay away!'

I turn and walk away.

I don't look back.