Seeing Other People

1

MORGAN

My life is a graveyard of failed dates.

I'm hoping this evening's outing won't end the way of my past few unfortunate romantic misadventures. Hoping. Not optimistic. Huge difference.

I stand in front of my small closet, stressed. The guy I'm meeting for our first date has undoubtedly illegally double-parked outside my West Hollywood apartment. I'm six-going-on-seven minutes late, which means I'm mere moments from receiving one of those impatient Everything okay? texts. Or worse, he'll just drive off, deciding my lateness or flakiness isn't worth skipping football or jerking off to French cinema or whatever single men in LA do.

I want to make a good first in-person impression. I really do. This isn't self-sabotage. Dan was nice when we messaged on Tinder. I would gladly go rock climbing with him, if only I could get my shoes out of my closet.

Which just happens to be haunted.

Inside, my hangers rattle ominously on their own. I chew my lip. The haunting isn't confined to the small closet opposite my luxurious double bed, of course. My entire place is haunted. Everywhere I go is haunted.

I'm haunted.

It's the worst.

Often, the paranormal fuckery is focused on my closet, though. Something clatters in there, probably one of my hangers tumbling to the floor.

I could rent shoes from the semi-trendy Echo Park climbing gym where we're heading, I guess. But . . . rented shoes? Ew. I shouldn't be spending frivolously right now, either. No, I need to grab the gray pair shoved in the back.

I just know my ghost won't make it easy.

I jump when my phone vibrates loudly in the pocket of my leggings. Heart sinking, I check my screen.

Hey

any eta on when you'll be ready?

Right on cue, the closet rattles ferociously.

Groaning, I fire off a frankly overpromising reply.

One sec

Here goes nothing. I inhale deeply, summoning my courage.

"Please be cool, okay?" I say out loud into my empty room. "Let me have this. I haven't gotten laid in months."

I grab the knob-

The closet door swings open easily.

I exhale in relief. No scalding-hot knob. No slamming door. No clothes flying in my face.

"Thank you," I murmur.

Slowly, I reach for the gym bag containing the rock-climbing shoes I got when I lived in Colorado for my freshman and sophomore years of college. Rock climbing is one of my go-to first dates. I've gone on plenty over the past few years. Plenty of first dates, that is, not just ones involving multicolored handholds and climbing-gym harnesses.

They're kind of my specialty-or they were before my haunting-though the honor feels questionable. Like the romantic equivalent of rescuing my phone battery from sub-five-percent levels more often than most people I know.

Casual intimacy is where I'm most comfortable, though. Connection without commitment. Flings and fun, with a side of rough polyurethane handholds.

It's perfect, or so I promise myself. I get to experience everything the men of the cities where I live have to offer without putting pressure on myself to find love. Or worrying I'll screw something up, the likelier result. I can't ruin everything if there's no everything to ruin.

Do I ever wonder if someone out there will make commitment easy? Someone who'll replace flings with forever? Who will make me feel like I'm home, instead of just happily on the move?

I don't know. Maybe.

Believing in forever feels a little like believing in ghosts. But stranger things have happened.

For now, I'm holding on to those first dates like they're colorful handholds on indoor slabs of vertical limestone. They're fun. They're enough.

Hence, the five rock-climbing outings I've undertaken in Echo Park since I moved to West Hollywood. Eleven months into living here, it's the sort of shit I've found goes over well with men in LA, the low-key presumption of outdoorsiness.

I just . . . haven't gone on a rock-climbing date in a while.

I let myself look forward to this one. Which was stupid, I now recognize. Dan is undoubtedly checking the clock in his car-3:39 p.m., Nice going, Morgan-while I'm weighing whether I can retrieve my gym bag without risking living out The Conjuring.

The hangers shake, making my decision for me. I withdraw my hand hastily. You win, okay? Rented shoes it is.

The moment I close the closet door, my roommate screams.

I sigh. Savannah rushes into the room, eyes wide, hair disheveled, face ghostly pale.

"Dude," she starts, sounding the peculiar combination of pissed and remorseful I've become unfortunately familiar with recently. "I'm sorry, but I can't do this anymore."

Momentarily she eyes my rock-climbing outfit, then decides this is more important than my date. Which I understand. I wait wearily for her to continue.

"I went to sleep with my laptop open," she says, "and when I woke up, Shark Week reruns were playing again. I tried to close the tab and it just wouldn't."

I wince. "Maybe your laptop is buggy? You did spill water on it that one time," I venture hopefully.

Not optimistically.

Savannah's eyes round even wider. "You mean like a year ago?" she retorts.

I shrug.

"Then, when I closed my laptop, my door flew open and slammed back shut," she continues.

"Dang," I venture. "Drafts are the worst!"

"No." Savannah's eyes are stern.

I know what's coming. I knew what was coming when I brought Kyle-or Lyle, or something-to my bedroom, only for him to claim my sheets were trying to suffocate him. I knew what was coming when Lee insisted he saw a shadow in my rearview mirror sitting in my Honda's back seat.

"This place is haunted and I can't stand it anymore. I'm going to go stay with my parents. If you haven't exorcised your ghost by the end of the month," she declares, "I'm moving out."

Panic shoots through my tardiness worries. My roommate's constant, reasonable complaining is one thing. But moving out? "Savvy. Please."

I use our oldest nickname, hoping to win friend points. We were roommates when I transferred to UNC for my last year of college, way before my lovely little haunting. I never forgot how decidedly cool she was when I dropped out. When I shared my plans in our junior-year dorm room, I expected maudlin sympathy or judgment or, if I was lucky, complete carelessness.

Instead, Savvy hugged me and said, "You're awesome. You're going to be fine," and it was the last conversation we had on the subject. It was kind of perfect. Naturally, we kept loosely in touch, leading me to hit her up when I was figuring out my LA plans.

"I can't afford this lease on my own," I remind her. "Seriously. And how am I supposed to get a new roommate when"-I swallow- "when . . ."

Savvy looks smug.

"When you're haunted?" she finishes.

Not cool. My shoulders slump in defeat, and her wild-eyed expression softens.

"I'm really sorry, Morgan. But, like, this shit is scary," she explains. "I can't live like this."

My heart starts to pound in a way not even rattling hangers or poltergeisted rearview mirrors can provoke. You know what's spooky? Ghosts. You know what's scary? Rent in Los Fucking Angeles.

"I know," I say softly. "I get it."

I really do. The truth is, I can't live like this, either, but I can't escape it. I wish my romantic failures or my roommate's computer were the only haunted parts of my life. Instead, the paranormal follows me everywhere. When I go to work or the grocery store or the spicy noodle restaurant three blocks down from my building-where I'm no longer welcome on soy-sauce-eruption-related charges. Even the dentist. When the water tube squirted on poor Dr. Parsekian three times unprompted, I knew what was up.

Savannah-whose friendly nickname I revoke, the traitor-smiles sympathetically. "Thanks," she says. "I really hope you find a way to get rid of . . . it."

I nod in defeat. Me too.

While she grabs her laptop and keys and hastens out the door, I sink onto my bed. With miserable timing, my phone hums once more in my leggings. Whatever. Dan will have to wait one more minute while I wrestle with my misfortune.

I'm fucked, honestly. I cannot afford my rent without Savannah's half, and I can't get out of my lease for five more months. My parents can't help me. They haven't been able to retire due to still living paycheck to paycheck.

No, that's . . . not true. They do live paycheck to paycheck. But they would help me.

Which is exactly why I can't beg them to. I've imposed much, much too much on Ellen and Steven Lane of Jefferson City, Missouri. Or finally of Jefferson City. My dad worked in "location surveying and management" for most of my life, only retiring last year. Yearslong contracts would move our entire family from city to city, state to state, where he would coordinate land contracting, construction, and ongoing maintenance for new hotels or superstores.

The everywhere-and-nowhere upbringing earned me my itch for never sitting still. Which earned me my itch for . . . dropping out of college. I spent my freshman year studying social anthropology, then switched to video production for my sophomore year. Then, for my junior year, I switched from University of Colorado Boulder to University of North Carolina, where I met Savvy.

The whole while, I felt this . . . pressure mounting. To become someone. To know who I was. To make decisions that would lead me or force me to stop making decisions. My mental health suffered. Until one day, I worked up my courage or my selfishness and called my parents with my decision. To my enormous guilty surprise, they supported me. Three years of tuition, hard-scraped from my dad's moderate salary, just . . . gone.

I promised them I would get myself together. I would be independent. Established. Adult. The words people use for not your problem.

Then there was the whole shit with Michael. I didn't plan on breaking our engagement, obviously. I just got in over my head. I was desperate to prove I'd dropped out for the right reasons, to prove I was self-sufficient, to prove I was on my own path-which, funnily enough, were the wrong reasons for overcommitting myself to Michael Hanover-Erickson, who was seven years my senior.

It took my panicky retreat from the life I planned with him for me to understand what I know now. When I commit, other people get hurt. Keeping my relationships casual isn't just fun or easy. It's mercy.

When I fucked everything up with Michael, my parents were there. Despite everything they put into my happiness, the promises I made them-the promises I made everyone-when I needed to run, they understood, or pretended they did. They were ready to waste more money and effort and compassion on me.

It's enough to make a girl feel like a living, breathing problem instead of a daughter. Enough to keep her from visiting home very often, which ironically-or helpfully-only makes her feel even less entitled to demand more help from people she's burdened plenty. If I could pay for therapy, I'd go. But I'd start with paying rent first.

I close my eyes, exhausted. The weight of my housing problem quietly overwhelms me. I literally don't know what I'm going to do.

Which is when I feel the familiar tingling sensation of someone's hand hovering over my shoulder. Except I know there's no one. My room-my entire apartment, unfortunately-is completely empty.

Sort of.

I shiver. "Can you please just try to be less creepy?"

Opening my eyes, I know what I'm going to find.

He's seated next to me on my bed, leaving my floral comforter undisturbed by his weightless presence. He's maybe six one, stocky, sort of boyishly handsome, with floppy chestnut hair he flips from side to side and unshaven stubble. Forever unshaven, now. I doubt he cares.

Next to me in my empty room sits the ghost of the last man I went rock climbing with.

"I prefer spooky to creepy," Zach says. "It's not like I watch you when you sleep."

He doesn't sound indignant despite my characterization. If there's one minuscule silver lining in my haunting situation, it's this. I have, somehow, wound up with the chillest ghost in the history of hauntings.

Obviously it's a small comfort when his incessant shenanigans have cost me my dating life, my favorite noodle restaurant, and now, my roommate and my financial stability. "Why were you tormenting Savannah?" I demand.

Whenever Zach feels an emotion, his entire face responds. Right now, indignant incredulity rounds his blue eyes and shoots his eyebrows up. "I wasn't!" he insists. "I swear. You know I can't control this stuff. I love Savannah," he says to me about the woman who's never spoken to him because she never knew him in life. "Even if it stung when she called me 'it,'" he complains. "I'm not an 'it.'"

"You're so an 'it,'" I shoot back in frustration.

"That hurts, Morgan. That cuts me deep."

"Nothing cuts you deep. It would go right through you."

Amused by my admittedly good comeback, Zach grins.

I groan. "Could you just go haunt someone else? I mean, we had a nice enough first date, but I wasn't even planning to go on a second date with you. No offense," I add.

Zach shrugs with equanimity.

Our first and only date was three months ago. We went rock climbing. I wore the shoes in my closet without fretting over supernatural phenomena. Imagine that! I made out with him in my car afterward, but I never felt the need to see him again.

I doubt he did, either, but I suppose we don't know for sure, because apparently, he died shortly thereafter. Shortly after that, he appeared in my bathroom mirror and scared the holy living fuck out of me.

"There have to be people who knew you better who you could spend your afterlife with," I press him.

Now Zach looks petulant in the fake way he does, like frustration never fully reaches his happy-go-lucky vibe. "Like I want to spend eternity with you!" he shoots back. "But for whatever reason, we're stuck together. Our shitty date is the only thing I can remember. If you had bothered to learn my last name, then maybe we could look me up and find my family."

I wilt. Okay, Zach has me there.

Frankly, I did not expect my noncommittal dating style would leave me with the surname-less specter who is presently, if unintentionally, ruining my life. "Hey, I'm sure I learned your last name," I reply weakly. "I just . . . forgot it."