Chapter 3: Memoir

Alessa quickly closed the door behind her, gasping for air; she hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath. The entire encounter had only lasted a few seconds, but she was overcome with exhaustion. Her heart was still pounding and she was trembling from her fingertips to her toes.

She leaned her back against the door, spreading her palms against the cool wood. Alessa looked up at the ceiling, releasing a deep sigh. These encounters always left her shaken and drained.

She didn't understand the tumultuous emotions that had hammered through her. The shock, the fear, the confusion - that was all natural enough. But her inexplicable attraction to the ghost… It was disturbingly magnetic.

She looked slowly around her room. Everything was in its place - the oversized original fireplace mantle, her twin bed and nightstand by the double window, her desk and minifridge across from the bed, and the large sliding door sealing off the closet to her right. It was amazing how such a familiar place could for those few moments feel so foreign to her, like another world she didn't belong in.

The sound of footsteps approaching from down the hall brought Alessa back to reality. She stepped toward the mirror to wipe away the tears that'd begun pooling in her eyes just as Janie popped through the door.

"Ready to go, Less?" Her bright smile faded into concern as she caught sight of Alessa's face. "Hey, what is it?" she implored, crossing the room to place a reassuring hand on her friend's arm. Searching Alessa's eyes, understanding slowly crept into Janie's countenance. "Alessa, did it happen again?" she asked gently.

Alessa puffed a deep sigh. She knew Janie was intrigued by her ghost sightings, but she really wasn't feeling up to discussing the latest one just yet.

All of a sudden, the room felt stifling. Alessa grabbed her bag and headed for the door. "Let's just go."

Janie set her mouth in a dissatisfied line, but she knew better than to push. Alessa appreciated that somehow after only a few weeks of knowing each other, her friend had already intuited that she would only talk when she was ready. "Okay…" Janie yielded.

Springing down the stairs of the house, Alessa set a quick pace down the cobblestone path that led across the sprawling lawn and back toward the quad, Janie following close behind.

She breathed deep and let the crisp fall evening wash over her. She always felt better being outside. The dizzy humming in her head started to clear as the cool November air lightly stung her eyes and worked its way from her lungs into her bloodstream, bringing the feeling back to her limbs.

Alessa could feel Janie eyeing her with concern as they wound their way across the quad, leaves crunching beneath their feet as they ambled past the stately brick buildings lining the walk.

A couple frat boys were tossing a frisbee across the lawn in the last rays of the fading sunlight while a gaggle of freshman girls stood huddled under a nearby tree, stealing glances at the guys and giggling to each other. Alessa watched a comically clichéd-looking professor in a classic tweed blazer replete with elbow patches hustle a stack of papers a foot tall towards the faculty offices. On the far side of the quad, a team of facility workers were blowing fallen leaves into a pile and raking them into the mountain heaped on the back of their truck. Taking in the ordinary college scene around her, Alessa began to feel almost normal again.

Alessa let her eyes rest on the façade of Van Husen Hall up ahead, its edifice laced with ivy, the heavy doors bedecked by massive old-growth trees still clinging to their last clumps of foliage as winter threatened to descend. The carefully placed up-lighting behind the trees highlighted the building's grand turn-of-the-century architecture and cast dramatic shadows across the entrance.

Janie followed Alessa's gaze. "I know it's not everything you'd hoped for," she murmured, "but the campus is beautiful, that much you have to admit."

Alessa nodded in agreement. She hadn't been entirely thrilled when she'd received her acceptance - Eastern State University wasn't exactly the elite private college she'd always dreamed of - but she supposed she was lucky to have been accepted anywhere after the debacle of the previous year.

Alessa sighed. "I just want everything to be normal again, Janie. Everything I ever knew is all just… gone." She held her empty palms out in front of her before dropping them feebly at her sides.

Janie flung an arm around her friend's shoulders and pulled her in for a firm squeeze. "I'm sorry, Less. I can only imagine what it's been like for you. Sounds like a nightmare of a year."

"You could say that again," Alessa somberly agreed. Alessa had started her senior year of high school with a flawless resume and her dreams right at her fingertips. Then everything had fallen apart.

Janie sighed. "I know your parents would be proud of you, for how you've handled everything."

Alessa shrugged, water pricking at her eyes. What she wouldn't give to hear them say it.

"Tell me again what happened," Janie pressed gently.

"It's not going to change anything," Alessa protested. She'd already told her the story what felt like a dozen times.

"It's better not to bury your memories, even the hard ones."

She wasn't sure why, but Alessa thought she caught a glimpse of desperation in Janie's eyes before she glanced down at the neatly lined pavers under their feet. Maybe Alessa was seeing things… she wouldn't put it past herself lately, she thought with a wry smile. With a heave, she once again recounted the worst night of her life - an abbreviated version, since she knew Janie already knew the details.

"My mom grounded me after a stupid argument the morning before homecoming, I don't even remember about what." Alessa clenched her hands in frustration. She had so many regrets about that day. "And that night, my parents went out to visit a friend, and I'd fallen asleep on the couch watching re-runs of some terrible reality show. And then… and then…"

Alessa could still hear the ding of the doorbell in her head, still feel the confusion knotting a pit in her stomach when she stumbled to the door in a daze. She knew right away when she answered it, didn't even need the officer to speak - his face said it all. "Are you Alessa Khole?" he began. And in a matter of moments, her entire world had shattered.

"My parents were in an accident," Alessa whispered. She took a deep breath. "There was nothing they could do. They were already dead." She swallowed, the familiar shroud of stone settling over her countenance.

Over a year later now, Alessa still couldn't quite believe that this was her story, that this was her life. She still couldn't quite connect to it. When she actually said it out loud, it felt like she was talking about some character from a book or movie or something. It felt surreal. And yet, it had happened, just like she'd heard of it happening to other unlucky families over the years. She just never thought that one day it'd be hers.

Alessa glanced up at her reflection in the neighboring building, her tired green eyes shadowed deep in the dark window nestled into the ornate mahogany doors. She was surprised at how haggard she looked. Mercifully, her glossy chestnut locks hung straight in long, neat layers that framed her face. If an outside observer didn't look closely, they might not notice the bags under her eyes, or her lackluster skin, or the jeans hanging loosely from her hips. But Alessa noticed, and she didn't like it - she didn't look like herself. She realized the sandwich she'd just had was the first thing she'd eaten all day.

She wrapped her arms around her midriff, hoping to quell the queasy, unsettled despair that had descended on her since her latest run-in with the ghost. That dark, heavy haze brought Alessa right back to the previous fall, when the world had come crashing down around her.

Not surprisingly, her grades had nosedived in the wake of her parents' accident, as she struggled through a thick depression. And when December had rolled around - bringing with it college application season - she'd tried her best to pull together a few halfway decent submissions to the list of selective schools she'd been planning to apply to.

But reality had set in once the rejection letters started piling up in late March. Luckily, a few big state schools were still accepting rolling admissions, and one - Eastern State University, home of the Fighting Gophers - had been willing to overlook the disaster of the last seven months.

And that was how she'd ended up here, still clumsily picking up the pieces of a life that she didn't even recognize anymore. Whenever that life wasn't being ransacked by a ghost, at least.

"Hey," Janie interjected softly. "I'm glad you're here now." She smiled gently.

"Thanks, Janie. I'm glad you're here," Alessa reciprocated. "I don't know what I'd do without you," she added quietly. And she meant it. Janie was the one bright spot in an existence that Alessa had had difficulty feeling more than apathetic about lately.

Janie was quiet for a moment, then her smile widened into an impish grin. "Probably be holed up in your room with an even sadder social life," she ribbed, snickering.

Alessa moaned and rolled her eyes, even though it was true. "Come on," she griped, cracking a smile in spite of herself. "Let's head home."