A thud alerts Rose to her brother down below her. The two are outside in the sun, and although the heat is brutal, Heath is still dressed fully covered in a heavy sweater, a mask even though no one’s around, gloves and long pants. He had told her in advance that he likes to garden. She’s reading out on the balcony wearing a pair of his sunglasses on what she considers her last day being a free woman. School starts the following day and she’s not at all eager to experience those crammed, noisy halls. Whenever she thinks about homework again she is filled with dread. She had gone to a small private junior high in the past, which she knows won’t prepare her for the cut-throat experience of high school.

A fat squirrel crosses Heath’ path, unaware of what’s to happen next, blissfully oblivious.

Rose looks back down to her book, only looking up when she hears the animal screaming. Heath has it in his clutches, and he snaps its neck with a sound so soft she can’t hear it from up above.Her jaw drops with a gasp. Then, she jumps up from where she had been sitting. “What the hell, man!” 

Heath looks up at her. “Oh!” He gives her a weak wave. “Sorry!”

“You just enjoy killing innocent animals for fun?” she hisses. “Is that it?”

“Rose, I–” 

Rose storms off, stomping from the balcony to her bedroom. She throws her flower-covered journal open, flipping through its pages to find the one after her last entry. Her therapist had instructed her to document any day where she’s experiencing extreme emotions, and her fear and anger are combining and making her insides twist. She presses the end of her pen, and the tip springs up. She puts pen to paper and begins to scribble down her thoughts furiously.

I can’t BELIEVE it! Heath just MURDERED a squirrel right in front of me!!! how screwed up is that?!?!?! for like no reason like some kinda sick sadist. like I haven’t already been through enough jesus freaking christ!

“You shouldn’t say Jesus’ name in vain,” chastises an unfamiliar voice.

Rose whips around to see a scrawny, hunched over old woman staring back at her, so close that she can see her pores. She has frizzy short white hair with a blanket draped across her dainty shoulders. Rose falls off her chair, hitting the white carpet in a way that she knows will bruise.

“Holy shit!” she shrieks.

“Wait… You can see me?”

“Duh! What, are you some kind of ghost?”

The woman nods, and Rose’s heart pounds. “I died in 1781 waiting for my grandson to return from the war… He never did come back, but another fellow did, many years later.” She begins to pace back and forth, hobbling and shaking a crooked finger. “That young man who lives here, he’s…. very kind. To people, anyway. Maybe not to animals… He turns the newspaper pages over for me in the early morning. Very nice man indeed.”

There’s a series of knocks on the door. “Rose?” calls Heath.

The woman begins to fade. “Don’t tell him I was here,” she whispers. “He told me not to try to talk to you just in case. But I don’t let men tell me what to do anymore.” She gives her a wink and disappears into thin air. 

Three more knocks. “Rose? Can we talk?” 

Rose gets up and heads over to the door. She opens it, heart still racing. “Hi.”

“Hey. Listen, the squirrel attacked me. I think it was rabid… I’m sorry, though– you didn’t have to see that. So, um. Yeah.” He shifts from one foot to the other nervously.

“It’s okay, Heath. Can we go out to eat? Like, now?” Rose is eager to leave the house, having nearly pissed herself from the random apparition. She wonders if she dies in the house, if her spirit will be trapped, too. She wonders a lot of things.

<><><>

“So. You met Agnes.”

They are at a restaurant called Benny’s, which looks a lot like a knock-off Denny’s to Rose. Rose didn’t want the ghost to overhear them discussing her, hence she asked for the change of venue.

“You could’ve warned me, you know,” she says, digging into her pancake after drowning it in maple syrup. It’s the afternoon, but breakfast there is all day. 

“I didn’t want to freak you out,” he admits.

“Well, it sure would’ve been nice to know!”

“I’m sorry…”

Rose sighs. She’s sick of hearing him apologize. “It’s whatever,” she says, rubbing her eyebrows. “It just spooked me, that's all. Are you sure you don’t want to eat anything?”

“I’m good. I ate earlier.”

Rose squints at him. “Uh huh.”

“Anyways, Agnes is 100% harmless. She’s respectful of people’s privacy, too. Usually. The only reason she was reading your diary was because she thought you couldn’t see her.”

“So, she’s only nosy when she knows she can get away with it,” Rose corrects him.

“That’s a good way to describe it,” he says thoughtfully. 

“Can I take a mental health day tomorrow to recuperate and skip school?” she asks, hope painting her voice in a last ditch attempt to postpone the inevitable.

“No,” he answers with zero hesitation.

“Ugh.”