I Don’t Believe by J. Millard Simpson
“I don’t believe you’re real,” I say to her.
She laughs, then blows softly into my eyes. I have to blink. When I open them again she’s still there. “See? I’m as real as you are,” she says.
We lay there in bed for hours facing each other, me under the covers, her on top. We say very little with words but everything with our faces, tiny smiles and darting glances from under half-lowered lids, sometimes laughing together. This is heaven, staring into each other’s eyes in the dim half-light from the windows. The city is still alive even this late, but that’s Out There. We are In Here, and we are together, and it is all I have ever wanted and more.
But eventually the moment comes.
“I have to go,” she says. “It’s time.”
“Will I see you again tonight?”
“You have to sleep sometime.”
“I’ll sleep today, I promise. Only come.”
She smiles softly at me. “All right.”
I live in a tiny studio, a fourth-floor walk-up west of the Park that a hundred years ago wanted to grow up to be a castle. Instead it became sixteen rental units, some even smaller than mine. It reeks of cabbage and dead rats in the walls and something worse I can’t identify, and rent costs most of my paycheck. I used to hate it here. Now I can’t wait to come home at the end of the day.
I work at Hamid’s on the corner, sometimes running the register, sometimes stocking shelves. The old man likes me, and lets me take some of the stale pastries from the case when we restock. They’ll do for breakfast and lunch. He’d pay me more if he could. This is one way he tells me.
His son is also Hamid, and he likes me too, but in a different way. “Why don’t we go out tonight after work?” he asks for the fifth time.
He’s shy, sensitive, sweet. Lovely skin, jet-black hair, perfectly groomed. Stylish even at the shop. His father wonders about him, but doesn’t judge.
“I have someone waiting for me at home. You know that, Hamid. I’ve told you before.”
“You should bring him in sometime, so I can meet him,” he says, half-taunting, hinting he doesn’t believe me while still being polite. Always, always, so painfully polite. Dear Hamid.
She’s not a him, I think, but I know he won’t understand. “Maybe someday, but we work the same hours,” I say instead. It’s kind of true.
Hamid smiles at me, though it’s strained. “Sure,” he says. He’s a little sad, because he thinks I’m making an excuse to reject him. I like that he’s polite about it, but I wish he could understand. It’s not about him.
When I go home that night, I’ve got an extra pastry plus two cans of soup that just expired. The old man wouldn’t mind, I know, but I feel bad because I didn’t ask. I’ll ask him tomorrow, I tell myself, though I never do. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m afraid he’ll say no.
Maybe I’m afraid he doesn’t care as much as I think he does.
I heat my soup while I shower, then eat and go to bed. I’m very tired. I haven’t been sleeping anywhere near enough and she knows it, but I also know she’ll come anyway. I couldn’t bear it if she didn’t.
When I wake up she’s here, lying beside me, above the covers as always.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” she whispers. “You looked so peaceful.”
I smile at her, blinking sleepily. “I’m glad you did,” I say. “I’ve missed you.”
I reach my hand out toward her, almost touching. It’s so cold, so very cold. It’s October and the landlord still hasn’t turned on the heat. Even when he does it’ll still be cold.
“If you get in with me, I can warm you up,” I say.
She just looks at me, not smiling. I see a tear start in the corner of her eye, then roll down onto the covers. I hear it strike my quilt with a muffled thud, loud in the silence.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t mean—”
“Shh!” she says. “I know. It’s all right.”
But we both know it’s not.
Too soon, it’s time again.
“Dawn is coming. I have to go,” she says.
“I don’t want you to.”
“I know. But I’ll see you again tonight.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” she tells me. She leans in and kisses the tip of my nose. Her lips are icy, and I feel a fire inside me rising to meet them. I move suddenly, raising my lips to hers for a brief moment, and we kiss, and it burns so wonderfully. It is heaven.
Then a stray beam of sunlight comes through the blinds and she fades away to nothing. I get up, yawn and stretch, and start my day.
I never believed in ghosts, not until now. Part of me still doesn’t.
On the way out the door I glance in the mirror and see my lips are badly chapped, almost burned. I’ll have to get something to put on them once I get to work.
I’ll pay for the ChapStik. It costs less than answering questions.
