But that was just my lady parts talking. My head and gut told me to abruptly look away and say, "I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for your help," and shut the door. Perhaps I should have been a bit more grateful to him.

Needless to say, I was exhausted when 10 a.m. rolled around and I was rudely awakened by my phone.

I pried open one eye and was met with a grey, overcast gloom that appeared to seep in through the windows and settle in my room. I rolled over and grabbed the phone, eyeing the screen with my blurry vision.

s.h.i.t. It was Shay.

I cleared my throat and quickly answered it. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Perry," she said in an oddly professional voice. "How are you feeling?"

"Um," I rolled over onto my back and scrunched up my forehead with my hand. How to answer that? "I've been better but I'm doing OK."

"Oh that's great to hear," she said, as if I had just told her I was feeling like a million bucks. "Listen, would you mind popping by today?"

"To Port-Town?"

"Yes. This isn't a shift. I just wanted to talk to you."

Uh oh. I was suddenly overcome by a wave of nausea, followed by a stab of hollowness in my chest.

"Oh...OK."

"Don't worry," she said but then didn't elaborate. "Just come by before three."

"I will. See you then," I said blankly and stared down at the phone as I heard her hang up. I gradually pushed the b.u.t.ton to end the call and placed the phone beside me.

I'd been down this path before. I knew what was up. It didn't matter that she told me not to worry. I knew what was coming.

Though, perhaps I was always too eager to jump to the worst case scenario. Shay just wanted to see me. She wanted to know if I was feeling better. Shay was a nice woman; she was almost a friend. She liked me, didn't she? She wouldn't fire someone just because someone was sick. I mean, that was illegal, wasn't it?

I let out a huge intake of air. She probably just wanted to see me in person and work out some sort of schedule, instead of doing it over the phone. Shay was personable like that.

I took in another breath and then got up to start the day.

I was a flaming pile of nerves when I parked Put-Put outside the store and walked in through the gla.s.s doors. Even though it was the busy lunch-hour rush, I still felt like everyone was staring at me, whispering to each other "hey it's that girl who went postal." Of course, no one noticed me and I didn't see any of the regulars who would have thought such a thing. Being in regular clothes and not a uniform helped.

But there was no hiding from Ash or Juan, a student from Columbia with whom I'd worked only a few times. I gave them both a small smile as I awkwardly made my way behind the counter. They were busy trying to handle the customers so they couldn't really talk to me but I preferred it that way. The less that was said, the better.

I observed Ash's face. It was warm and casual, like it usually was, but there was something different about the way he was looking at me. He looked at me like I was about to lose my nut again, watched me like a caged monkey in a zoo. My mother had watched me like that earlier as I made myself runny oatmeal. I should have figured Ash would change once he saw the "real" me. He hadn't once called or texted me to see if I was doing OK.

It stung but I tried to shrug it off and made my way to the back door, eyeing the bathroom as I went past, my nostrils flaring at the smell that was still present, that now evil and foreboding scent of death.

I heard Shay's m.u.f.fled voice say "Come in" after I knocked, and I opened the door with anxious hands and stepped into the room.

She was unpacking a box of coffee that had just been delivered, bags of beans tucked haphazardly under her arms, and looked up at me with her dark hair falling in front of her face.

"Perry," she said, straightening up awkwardly. "Hi, come in, have a seat."

She gestured to the one folding chair and desk we had in the room.

I went and sat down as she shoved the bags on the shelves and wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n.

"You seem much better." She looked me over appraisingly as she perched her b.u.t.t on the corner of the desk.

That wasn't true. My face had taken on this gaunt look since I wasn't eating much, and the hollows under my eyes made me look like a walking skeleton. For once I didn't give two s.h.i.ts about the weight loss.

But I knew she was trying to be nice and instead of refuting the compliment, I thanked her and then waited with bated breath for whatever was coming next.

It came first with a kindly smile, the type a mother gives to her crying daughter when she can't have the Barbie she so desperately wants. Then came the drawn out, melancholy-inflicted, "Perry, we really like you here," and then it went into a whole humiliating spiel about company needs, my performance, my illness and the bottom line. Which was money. It was always money.

I just sat there, numb to it, and numb to everything.

I was being fired.

Again.

This time because I just wasn't normal enough for them. That's not exactly what she said, but that was pretty much what she meant. Especially when Shay brought up what Ash had told her. Apparently, he had stopped keeping his mouth shut about my little headaches, cramps and dizzy spells since I'd started. That was all out in the open now, cementing the idea that this wasn't just a one-time incident, that this was what I was made of and that I, Perry Palomino, would always be a problem.

And how could I argue with that? I didn't even try. I didn't know what I could say because I didn't know myself. It certainly seemed like for the rest of my life, I was never going to be normal. I would never have normal friends or hold a normal job, because someone, somewhere decided I was going to be a focal point for the afterlife. It wasn't even a flaw I could talk openly about. I couldn't go into future job interviews and say, "Well, my worst quality is that I'm often haunted by ghosts. That and procrastination."

I was numb until Shay was done talking. She looked at me with enough guilt in her eyes to say that she didn't like the hand she was dealt either, and that was enough to start the water works.

The tears fell out of my eyes, hot and fast, streaming down my cheeks in mascara-ridden rivers. It was all too much.

Too, too much.

Sleeping with Dex, then being spurned by him (my best friend, the man I'd loved!) and having to cut him out of my life, the loss of friends and the show, the loss of my purpose, the depression that followed, the pains that plagued me, the b.l.o.o.d.y miscarriage, Abby following me here, ghosts terrorizing me, getting involved with Maximus, having my parents threaten me with more psychiatric treatment, thinking a demon wanted to possess my very soul.

And now this. I was fired from a f.u.c.king coffee shop, of all places, for something that wasn't my fault and would never be my fault, yet I was tethered to it like a dog on a short chain. No matter how hard I barked and growled and tried to run, I was choked back, chained for life, and would never ever be free.

I was only 23 years old. I never did anybody any harm. Why me?

WHY ME?.

"I don't deserve any of this!" I spat out in an ugly, wet cry. I succ.u.mbed to convulsions and the feeling of drowning that only came with hysterical, throat-tearing bawling. I could sense Shay was still there, with no idea what to do or what to say, but I felt alone in my grief, this terrible, debilitating grief that erupted out of my mouth like a dying scream. I dug my nails into head hard enough to draw blood and rocked back and forth on my seat until I heard one word out of Shay's mouth.

It was faint and faraway and I couldn't see anything but stars against wet blackness.

"Doctor."

I snapped my head up and tried to see her through the haze, the smears of tears and makeup, the hair that clung to the dampness of my face.

"W-what?" I asked in between raspy gulps of air.

"I think you need a doctor," she said. "I'm going to call someone."

She walked over to the office phone but I reached out and grabbed her by the wrist. It wasn't rough but the surprise, and a bit of fear, showed on her face.

"No," I stammered, trying to find my breath. "Please. Please, no doctors. You just...you have to understand. You have no idea what I'm going through."

She gave me a sad smile and let her arm drop.

"I know I don't, Perry. I really wish you the best of luck. You're a very likeable girl, we all like you, especially Ash. But you shouldn't be worried about working or keeping a job. You're not well and you need to work on yourself."

"It won't do me any good," I muttered. I sniffed the snot up my nose and wiped my tears away with my hands.

"Promise me you'll try," she said. She raised her hand as if she were to pat me on the back or shoulder but she hesitated and cleared her throat awkwardly instead. "I've really got to get back to stacking."

I nodded dumbly, feeling useless, rejected.

Unreliable.

Unwanted.

Unloveable.

She continued to make small talk about my last paycheck and saying goodbye to Ash and Juan and something about keeping the uniform if I wanted but it was all in one ear and out the other. None of it meant anything to me.

I just turned and walked out the back of the store, into the cloud-laden day that felt as heavy as my heart, leaving another attempt at a normal life behind me.

"Perry, what's wrong?" my mother called out as I streamed past her on the staircase and went straight for the bathroom. It was the only room with a lock.

"Nothing," I cried out through the door, even though I knew she saw my tear-smeared face and could hear the hoa.r.s.eness of my throat.

I heard her turn and come up the stairs, pausing outside the bathroom. She was silent but you always felt the presence of your mother. She was listening, trying to piece together just how damaged I was.

I sighed and sniffled as she rapped softly on the door.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I said nothing!" I shot back, glaring at the door and imagining her face on the other side. My patience was gone. "I just want to be alone."

"Well, all right, pumpkin."

Pause.

"Don't do anything stupid."

Don't do anything stupid? What the h.e.l.l did she think I was going to do?

"I'm going to take a bath, mother!" I sneered. I wasn't planning on it but one glance at the tub, and I imagined floating away in a bed of hot bubbles - and it seemed like the only thing worth doing. While I was in here, with the door locked, no one could hurt me. I could be alone. And I alone could agonize over what I was going to do with myself.

She didn't say anything to that and while I walked over and ran the taps, I felt her leave the door and go somewhere else in the house.

I exhaled loudly and then stripped off all my clothes, piling them on the floor. I was glad Ada was at school and I could hog our bathroom without her pounding on the door and demanding I get out. Though lately, Ada was trying her best not to annoy me. After everything we'd gone through together, me being the messed up teenager, her being the fussed-over perfect child, she was still on my side. She cared. She really did.

That's something, right? I thought to myself. It was something but my ability to care about nice things and make myself feel better was put on hold indefinitely.

I grabbed a bottle of lavender-scented body wash and poured it into the hot running water in little spurts, until the tub was filled with a calming, glinting, froth. When it was just hot and full enough, I shut it off and stuck my foot in. It was a little too hot but I was in a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic mood.

Lowering myself in, I took in a few deep breaths, happily distracted by the scorching water that was turning my skin a bright pink. I took it slow and soon I was submerged in floating numbness. I rested my head against the cool tiles behind me and closed my eyes.

I was trying to focus on nothing at all; I just wanted empty s.p.a.ces and empty thoughts. I wanted to not exist for a little while. But I couldn't turn off my brain, which was running around at breakneck speed and tripping over itself. I was bombarded with images, the scenes of what had happened with Shay. Then what had happened when I was fired from my last job at Allingham and a.s.sociates. And then it was finding out my college boyfriend, Mason, had cheated on me, followed by just about everything to do with high school. The girls who called me fat, the boys that laughed at me, the teachers who were afraid of me. The nicknames I had. The number of times I ate alone in the library, sneaking in chips past the librarians when they were busy. I saw Jacob's face before he died. I saw Jacob's face after he died. I saw the way he haunted me, the way he warned me about the other side. I saw Dr. Freedman's calmly disbelieving face as I told him the truth of what happened. Then, abruptly, I saw faces I didn't recognize. Random people, old and young, white and black; the only thing they had in common was a look of terror. Their mouths flew open, saying screaming something I couldn't hear and they whirled past me in a vision of haunting realism, ten, then hundreds, then thousands until there was nothing behind my closed eyes except blackness.

And one singular face in the darkness that started out as a blurry speck and came closer and closer, the edges of cheekbones bleeding out like black oil against deep s.p.a.ce. A grin as welcoming as a rusted rake. Eyes that swarmed with red hurricane clouds.

This face of a monster was laughing, silently.

At me.

And I couldn't breathe.

Warm liquid pierced my nostrils. My nose had dipped below the waterline.

I raised my head and opened my eyes to the harsh bathroom light, sputtering. I had almost fallen asleep in the tub. Or had I already been asleep? My heart was pounding wildly in my ribcage. I could have died. After all this, what a way to go.

I composed myself and pressed my hands on the bottom of the tub until my shoulders were safely above the water, the remains of bubbles clinging stubbornly to them like cartoon dandruff.

How long had I been out ? My skin was pruney and a greying pink and only a few tufts of bubbles remained floating in the oily water, which was cooling fast.

I wasn't ready to face the world yet. I didn't know if I'd ever be ready. I leaned forward and turned on the hot water faucet, prepared to stay in the bath forever.

The tap shuddered and gave off a strange, metallic grinding noise that shook the blue and white tiles around me.

But no water flowed. It was dry.

I twisted the k.n.o.b further.

Still nothing.

I started to wonder if perhaps my parents were having plumbing work done to the house, when a terrible sound - that could only be described as a scream - emerged from behind the faucet fixture, followed by a weird scurrying noise.

I instinctively inched away from it until my back was flush against the tub.

A drop of water dripped out, creating a ripple on the water.

Then a black, moving drop; a tiny spider. It also created a ripple, but instead of floundering in the water, it moved its little legs in a hurry, as if it were swimming toward me.

"Oh, ew," I cried out softly, and began to splash it in the opposite direction.

Another shudder shook the whole bathroom. Someone, somewhere laughed.

Suddenly, black water gushed out of the tap, flowing so fast and strong that I was frozen in shock.