[November 20, 2042]

Later, after dinner, Mel was watching Cal. They were in Room 01 together, the curtains of the window closed to the night. He was at his desk, writing something on a tablet, which looked like nothing that Mel had ever seen when she was alive. For the most part, bound to her father’s house, Mel was isolated from the ways the world had changed technologically in the decades after she had died, but occasionally she would be reminded by some object or incidental comment that the city she could see from the lawn was likely different in many ways she could even imagine.

However, that was not on the ghost’s mind right now. Rather, her thoughts and emotions from the day were still welling up within her, and she had a strong inclination to resolve them somehow. So, with a dry mouth, Mel floated up to Cal, her toes a half-inch into the carpet, and looked at him with wide blue eyes. She bit her lip nervously, looked away, and then looked at Cal again.

Cal, sensing something was wrong, studied her silently for a moment.

“What is it?” he said.

“Can you…” Mel broke off. Her voice faded into the silence of the room, and then she tried again. “Can you… touch my face? Just for a moment. I want… I want to make sure I exist.”

Cal opened his mouth, and then decided to not say anything in response to the strange words. He stood up and stepped in front of Mel. He touched her face, its physicality, its contours. The slope of her smooth cheekbones. The small chin. He ran a finger along her hairline, amazed by how solid her body felt — he could feel her warm face, the shivers resounding through her body, the oil in her hair.

As he did this, a strange, unfamiliar feeling rose in him, like a firm and hot pressure in his bones.

“Can I say something weird?” Mel’s voice was slightly muffled. She had pressed the side of her cheek into his chest, as if she was trying to listen to Cal’s heartbeat.

Cal smiled softly. “Weirder than usual? Go for it.”

“I’m serious,” came the muffled tone of annoyance.

“I know. Sorry, go on.”

“I think…” Mel paused. She didn’t seem to be sure if she wanted to continue her thought, but her mouth moved anyway. “Don’t laugh. But if you weren’t here… I think I might die.”

Cal eye’s met Mel’s. It was like he was looking into two strange and otherworldly pools. “Mel, you’re…”

The ridiculousness of the comment almost made him smile again, but the seriousness of Mel’s voice made her words sound too sincere to tease — despite the clear humorous irony of the statement.

“I know, I know.” Mel said impatiently. One of her hands had tentatively rested on Cal’s back. It felt like a small crab. “Don’t smile, don’t tease, don’t do any of those things you do. Take me seriously, like you do with Bridget or Ram. I think… I think if you hadn’t seen me that day, I would be dead. Like I wouldn’t even exist. I wouldn’t exist.”

“Did something happen today?” Cal didn’t know what else to say. Mel’s hand had begun to slowly trace his shoulder-blades. “Where did this come from? Did someone say something to you?”

For a moment, and for a reason she couldn’t understand, Mel glanced at Cal’s shadow, which was cast upon the carpet like a dark puddle. Then she met his eyes again and leaned her face even closer.

“You saw me.” Mel said in a soft, airy voice. “You saw me and made yourself irreplaceable. Do you understand that?”

Cal didn’t say anything. He averted his eyes. He heard the words and internalized their meaning, but he didn’t understand quite what she meant. All he knew that he wasn’t used to his heart racing for this long, wasn’t used to the blood racing to his face. He found himself uncertain and not composed. Half of him wanted to break away from Mel’s embrace, and half of him wanted to lean forward and fall into her eyes.

“Do you understand?” The ghost repeated her words. Louder, more insistent. The softness left her eyes, and the grip on the back of Cal’s neck intensified. Her words were no longer a suggestion, they were a request. “Do you?”

Cal gulped and answered honestly. “No. I don’t.”

That hurt her. He saw it immediately, the confidence and passion breaking in her face. Mel took a step back (or as much as that movement could be replicated while floating in the air) and her fingers felt lighter on Cal’s neck, less corporeal. Her lip quivered for a movement, and then realigned itself as an ironic smirk. She pretended the words hadn’t affected her.

“Yeah, of course not. Because you’re stupid.” Mel said glibly, maintaining her composure.

Cal performatively raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Let me explain it again.” Mel took a deep breath. Her fingers sank into his skin. She was less real, less solid. “A student accommodation is sort of a transitory place for its inhabitants, right? A sort of in-between place, in-between work and school, youth and adulthood, one location and another location. All of you are going somewhere. The princess and her butler and the robot and the glutton…”

Mel closed her eyes for a moment, rediscovering her train of thought. “And you. I feel like you’re always going somewhere. Like you have your eyes on something in your future or in your past. And you’re not really in the moment.” Her voice quivered a little, before returning to normal. “But me… there’s nowhere for me to go. Not anymore. This is my house, and nobody else can see me outside of it. I don’t even know if I can leave the premises. I’m too scared to try. So when you all leave, I’ll still be here.”

She was nowhere now. Lighter than air. Through her translucent body shone the orange sunlight and the titled lamp on the end table and the floating motes of dust. Her hand was in his body and felt like nothing. Mel the ghost girl seemed ready to disappear at that very moment.

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“I’m not… I’m not going anywhere,” Cal managed to say.

“Liar.” Mel’s response was automatic. Her shoulders shook as she ran her fingers through her dark hair. She had withdrawn from him completely now. “I know you don’t feel the same way. I know I’m just one of the girls that you consider and play around with. But… goddammit!”

She pumped a fist. “I get a little lonely and depressed, alright?! I do! Being a ghost is depressing sometimes! Every now and again I start thinking about things too hard and it’s like the whole world sinks into the pit. I don’t want to be that way, but I am. So pay a little more attention to me and spoil me a little! …I’m not so strong that I can live without that sort of warmth. And I can’t die without it either.”

Mel took a shuddering breath. “You’re irreplaceable. You’re what I return to in this little orbit of existence I have. And I know you don’t view me that way at all. But if you pretended a little bit, that would make it all feel so much less scary-”

Cal interrupted, somewhat uncharacteristically. “Don’t decide that all on your own.”

Mel blinked. “What?”

Cal narrowed his eyes, something close to anger hovering on the top of his voice. “Don’t decide that on your own! — that I’m ambivalent to your feelings and don’t care about them at all.” His voice was slightly raised and Mel was so stunned by this unusual occurrence that she forgot to position her body so that it wasn’t halfway in the wall. “You’re not an unimportant part of my life.”

For a moment, Mel felt like her body was melting at these words, but the feeling vanished instantly as something uglier replaced it. She curled her mouth into a sneer. “Thanks for the lip service, Cal. You can be sweet and sentimental when you want, but we both know that that isn’t really true, is it?”

Mel was surprised by her own words, words that she did not mean entirely but still felt in the back of her throat. Bitterness and resentment and frustration, built up over the course of some weeks were now being regurgitated into her speech. Mel felt strangely cognizant of this fact as she spoke and sneered — half ashamed by her own pettiness and childishness, half relieved to express the thoughts that had been churning in her head. “The truth is, I don’t think you think of me that much. I don’t think you really care.”

She had messed up. She knew that. The look on Cal’s face immediately broke her heart, an expression of sincere hurt that she had never seen before.

Why did I say that? Mel wondered to herself. I was about to confess, wasn’t I? Why did I say that?

A scary moment passed. It wouldn’t have been surprising to Mel if Cal turned around and walked out of the room and never came back. The heightened frenzy of her emotions made such a thing seem to her entirely possible and entirely deserved.

Cal’s face changed again, became itself: calm, neutral, unfazed. “You’re being a little mean today, Poltergeist. And I think your characterization of me is cold and unfair.”

Mel didn’t say anything and turned her head towards the window. She wanted to evaporate into thin air. All her insecurities had come to roost at the same time in the worst possible type of expression.

Her form shimmered. She was floating up slightly, towards the ceiling, as if she were just remembering now that gravity had no sway on her.

Cal continued talking, his voice toneless and controlled. “It’s a shame if that is your impression of me in this time that we’ve known each other. I apologize if I ever gave you an impression of sincere disinterest or ambivalence.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “I’m not a person very good at expressing their emotions. I was never taught how to do that. My adoptive parents weren’t… kind people, and so they weren’t able to express themselves with much sincerity or passion. So if I seem that way to you, that’s why. But please be assuaged of the notion that how I look on the outside is indicative of what I feel on the inside. And I do feel things, Mel. Even if it doesn’t appear that way,”

He ran an anxious hair through his dark hair. “You were my first friend, did you know that?”

Mel’s eyes widened, her silence broken at this unexpected information. “What? You’re… messing with me. There’s no chance that’s true.”

“It’s true,” said Cal, with finality.

“You’re… well, you’re not extroverted but…” Mel grasped at the air. “You’re intelligent, responsible, and kind. You’re…”

She began to drift downward from the ceiling now, the hem of her dress rustling with an invisible breeze. Gravity had returned.

“It’s true,” Cal said. “If we’re not counting my sister. You were the first friend I made on my own.

Cal extended his hand, and gently grasped the ends of Mel’s small fingers. He touched her — made her solid through his eyes and warm hands and the clear aura the ghost could see pulsating around him — and with a gentle pull, brought her down from the ceiling and into his arms.

“Let me speak plainly. Let us no longer misunderstand each-other.” Cal said, patting Mel’s hair softly as her cheek leaned against his breast once more. “Since you’ve come into my life, only good things have happened. Only warm things, only fun things. I can’t remember a time in my entire life that I’ve been happier, where I actually felt comfortable and safe. And I don’t want it to end. You are my irreplaceable, precious friend.”

He looked into Mel’s wide eyes, which were sparkling with emotion. “Do you believe me?”

Mel nodded, blushed red like a spring tomato, and buried her face in his chest to hide her embarrassment. “Yeah,” she said, her voice muffled. “I do.”

“Good.”

Her voice shook. “I- I said some dumb things. I’m really sorry.”

“So am I.”

Mel turned her face slightly, enough so that he could see her blue eyes, which were welling up slightly. “I didn’t mean most of what I said… I just… I'm just so damn lonely, sometimes. I know it doesn’t make any sense. But I do. I feel so far away from anything. Even when I was alive. I was never close to anything that mattered.”

He continued stroking her hair and whispered comfortingly. “Yeah. I get it.”

They stayed still for a moment. Mel’s hands rested at her sides, like she had gone limp in the embrace.

“Let’s make a deal.” Cal said, slowly leaning away from the hug so that they could look at one another face to face, though he kept his hands gripping Mel’s arms. “I think I’ve got an idea that will satisfy both of us.”

“Oh?” Mel sniffed, but a glint of humor had returned to her eye. “I wouldn’t have thought you were the type to form a contract with a wayward spirit.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re really intimidating.”

“Of course,” Mel smiled, despite the redness around her eyes. “I’m a super scary ghost. I’ll haunt you for the next million years. This is all actually a really elaborate plan to get you to put your guard down. My machinations have gone unsuspected… ”

“Alright, it’s a contract.”

Mel blinked. “What?”

“You’re scared of loneliness, of being left behind, right?” Cal leaned forward his head a little, his dark eyes pensive and concentrated, a sight which made Mel blush again. “I don’t want to leave my first friend, and I don’t want to leave this place, at least for as long as possible. Our goals align. So here’s my offer: I don’t leave you behind and you don’t leave me behind.”

“Swear it. One million years.” Mel said firmly. Her eyes were hard. There was no joke or glibness in her words — she meant it.

Cal met the stare and grinned. “One million years, Poltergeist.”

Mel’s lip quivered, and she beamed. She then placed a finger on Cal’s nose. “Our contract is sealed, beyond life and death.” A pause. “Hey, Cal.”

“What?”

A smug smirk crossed over the ghost’s face. “Gotcha.”