Neighbors Part 2

We spent the rest of our freshman, sophomore, and junior year together. After three years she was my partner. There was no denying that given the chance I wanted to be with her every day.

Obviously how we hung out changed.

Our parents put more rules in place.

We had times we could be together.

And we weren't allowed to be alone together as much. But we found ways to spend time alone. All of those teenage firsts you look forward to came and went. First kiss, first hug, first Christmas gift, first dance together, we shared them all together. It was the happiest I'd ever been.

All of our friends later told us they knew it was going to happen the first time they saw us get off the bus together. We planned to laugh about that together years later. She even met my grandmother on a Christmas break trip her parents allowed her to come on.

Everything was fine.

Until it wasn't. And the day wasn't as normal as any other. They say that you have that feeling that something is wrong. But that isn't true. We were at my house. It was a normal Saturday. We were doing homework together and just hanging out when she suddenly sat bolt-upright in the chair.

"I think I hear my mom.

Hold on let me run next door and see what's up." She said.

I smiled at her and nodded. "Yeah go for it." Those were the last words I said to her. I mean I didn't expect what happened.

The first hour she was gone I didn't even panic. When dinner came and went I decided to go next door. I knocked on the door and no one answered. I called from my cellphone and I heard the home phone ringing but no one answered.

I thought to myself maybe someone was sick and they took off. I was worried now but not panicked. It was when day 3 of her being gone that full-on panic set in. No one had seen her at school. Her other friends couldn't get ahold of her. No one. Not one person had heard from her. It's like she disappeared from the face of the earth. We called the police but they said there were no signs of foul play.

Every couple of days I'd peer into the windows looking for signs of life. A light on here, or a window shade moved slightly.

Weeks turned into months and we put up posters. We scoured the internet for signs. Nothing.

Panic turned into grief, grief turned into anger, and anger turned into desperation.

I muddled my way through the last year of school. I walked the hallways of the school, looking at the faces of the other students who looked at me and whispered muttered phrases. Everyone knew she was gone, some suspected I had done something, and others gossiped about my grief. Even our friends kept me at a safe comfortable distance. Her absence was a shadow that cast its dark form over every part of my life. Even my parents were a little softer on me for fear of my reaction. Which wasn't fair. I never lashed out at anyone, I honestly bottled more of it to myself than I ever let leak out.

I held that bottle, deep inside. I labeled it Marie and everything related to her went into that bottle.

I kept it locked away.

I focused on school and went I wasn't doing school I researched everything I could find. I started mowing their lawn to keep the weeds in check.

Just in the hope that maybe they'd reply to that. It kept me closer to her house and in some way inside it made me feel closer to her.

My parents secretly thought it was unhealthy. They discussed moving just so I wouldn't be constantly reminded of her. They felt like I needed to have that constant reminder removed so I could move forward in my life.

The only bright spot was graduation. I somehow managed to pass the year and my classes. I didn't excel, no one expected me to. I got b's and wasn't truant but my heart wasn't in it.

The day in May that we had to walk that stage I put that bottle as far away as I could and gave my all to giving the best day possible to my parents. A small present for them. I faked the happiness. That's the problem with being depressed for so long. You learn how to hide it.

We went through the speeches, I kept staring at the spot she would have sat. We went through the songs and shows on the big screen with pictures submitted by our parents. I stood in line and waited as we lined up to get our diplomas. I shook the clammy, moist hands of our principal as she handed me my diploma. I saw the knowing looks in the eyes of the staff as I walked the line giving handshakes to each. Each handshake had that soft clammy cold feeling as I could tell each was looking at me, gazing into my soul wondering if today was the day that I would break.

But I didn't. I made it through. The songs ended, the caps were thrown, and family gathered outside the venue to take photos and slap my back. Giving me stories about how my life was finally beginning.

As the night ended and my parents started to walk back to the parking lot I finally broke. That bottle leaked out just a little as I started to cry every so softly. And it was then that I started to see ghosts.

Running across the parking lot I saw her coming at me. But young, the same age as me when I first met her. I broke. I started crying and stood there looking at this ghost. It was true, she was dead and this was her chance to come and tell me what had happened.

She ran straight at me and grabbed me in a hug. "I don't have long. Something has gone terribly wrong."

I cried my eyes out.

I hugged this ghost that felt almost too real. I knew at that moment my mind had broken. "You left me.

They all thought you were dead. I guess it was true." I pulled her in tighter, realizing how much smaller she was than me now. I wrapped my fingers in her clothes trying to keep her close as long as I could.

She looked up at me, smiled that smile that I had seen a hundred times, and pulled herself out of my desperate grasp. "You always think I'm dead. Honestly, we don't have time. Something is horribly wrong. Take this book. You have to read it. I need you to follow the instructions exactly and do what it tells you. As soon as you do you will understand."

I tried to pull her back in.

"I don't want a stupid book, I want to know why."

"The book tells you why.

I don't have time. I have to go. I haven't left you. Just do what this says." She said as he finally got out of my grasp. She looked at me, I saw fear in her eyes. Not just any fear but that deep fear. The same one I had when it sunk in something had happened. "I haven't left you. But you need to do this for me. I love you.

I can't be seen, I have to go."

She turned and ran as quickly as she could. I dropped everything in my hands and took off after her. I followed her through cars, screaming at her to wait while I tried desperately to catch her.

She went between two cars and that was when I lost sight of her. I started looking under cars, I watched every car that left. I asked everyone in the area if they had seen where the girl went. Everyone just shook their head. Those that knew me assumed I had finally snapped. I didn't correct them either. I was emotional to even respond. For a brief second there she was, but my brain couldn't wrap around the how or why now.

My parents found me standing in the parking lot looking out at the cars as they filed out side by side.

They saw me looking in the windows.

My mother stood at my side holding all the things I had hastily discarded in my rush to catch her again.

I spent the next few weeks broken. My bottle was broken. Everything from the last year spilled out and I let it run out. I knew then she was dead. I knew the universe had given me a sign. That last little glimpse. Or my mind broke in an effort to help me heal from what everyone else already knew.

She was gone, forever.

It was nearly October before I touched the pile of things in my room from my graduation. I stared at that book. It was the only reminder that maybe it was real. But I was too consumed with grief to look at it. I lost so much weight from not eating that I couldn't bring myself to even acknowledge it. I assumed it was a prank or a figment of my imagination.

It was one night when I finally picked it up, expecting it to be one of those books full of motivational stories about how to face the challenges in life.

The first page broke me.

There in her handwriting was a note about how much she loved me. How much she hated that she was gone. She briefly explained why she had to go. The story was ridiculous but the tone and word choice were distinctly hers. I could hear her voice as I read them.

The pages that followed were filled with diagrams. Wiring and circuits that are unlike anything Id ever seen. Icons for components I didn't recognize. And at last pages and pages full of binary code. I flipped through the pages so many times. I looked at each and saw how she had them numbered out.

The last page was just a photo of us and the key to her house. The photo showed us sitting on my grandma's couch. There is 100% proof she was real. And a moment I remembered vividly in my own mind.

I spent my college years trying to take the courses that would help me understand the documents she sent to me. I started writing the circuits out in one giant schematic. I would sneak next door to her house. I still mowed the lawn. It was therapeutic. I did it now as a reminder of the sweet times we spent together.

Years later I graduated college and started to understand the schematic. I started building components for each schematic. Some of the parts she described didn't exist or had to be manufactured. I started to make IC components no one had seen or heard of. I became that hermit that researched and developed new parts.

My name got out but I was focused solely on my work. This book, the only reminder of her, told me she would return. I became obsessed with completing it. I thought that bottle of grief was gone but it stayed with me.

Thoughts of her became my sole reason for completing this. If my grief manifested in this book, if she was a ghost who passed this on to me, I had to know why.

Years turned into decades.

I finally just moved into the house next door. No mortgage turned up. I started paying taxes for it each year. My parents tried to talk me out of it but I couldn't be dissuaded. I left the furniture there. I moved into what was the guest bedroom. Her parents' bedroom and her room were still exactly the same.

I turned the garage into my workspace, pushing her parents' bland gold-colored 4-door car out into the driveway to sit under a car cover.

My parents aged and watched me from next door. They would come to visit. I still did family holidays with them. I was aging normally, except I never opened my heart to anyone else. Those old high school whispers of second and third-hand rumors never died. Moving into the old home did nothing to calm them either. I didn't care. I knew what I had seen. And I knew I could get an answer.