August 28, 1984, 3:36 AM

“Reese? Reese, wake up.”

“Leave me alone,” Reese groaned barely comprehensible. She snatched a pillow up and tucked her head under it.

“Reese, come on, wake up.”

“Luke, I’m sleeping.” Her words trailed off as she slipped back into sleep. Then she felt his hands jiggling against her back, trying to rouse her. The mattress springs creaked from the jostling.

She snapped out of sleep, tossing the pillow in the direction she thought he was. But he wasn’t there. Reality slowly seeped in as she remembered her annoying twin brother couldn’t have woken her. He was dead.

“Reese?” Luke’s voice was hardly audible. Her annoying twin brother’s spirit woke her up.

“Luke? Where are you? I don’t see you.” She crawled into a sitting position and reached over for the lamp on her nightstand, the one surviving lamp in her room. A low glow of yellow light brightened her immediate surroundings. No Luke. Was she dreaming?

“I’m here.”

His voice was next to her, but there wasn’t a speck of his willowy form.

“I can’t see you.”

“I’m here,” he repeated.

She nodded and dropped her head into her hands. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. “What’s up?” She said with her mouth still gaping from the yawn.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I had lived and you had been murdered. I’d be going out of my mind.”

They were quiet as the words settled around them. Reese wondered if she would have returned as a ghost had she been the one to die. The thought should have freaked her out, but it only made her sad. She wasn’t so sure she would have contacted Luke.

“Luke,” she started in a sleepy tone, “how come you’re a ghost and not crossed over? Didn’t you see a light or something when you died? Or Gramps? He wasn’t there to greet you?”

“I don’t remember. The first thing I remember after I was dead was seeing you look at my mural.”

His words woke Reese up a little more. “Yeah, what was up with that? I didn’t know you could paint that good.”

“I don’t know. It was fun. I was going to surprise you with it. Do you like it?”

Reese nodded. She pulled her feet up and sat with her head propped on her knees. “I did. It’s really good. Who’s the guy handing the flower to Heather?”

Luke went silent almost like he wasn’t in her room anymore. How Reese wish she could see his facial expression. Why was he not visible?

“Luke?” She said quietly.

“I’m here.”

“Did you hear my question?”

“I did. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Just because.”

“Is it Gregory?”

“No.”

“Then who is it?”

“Reese, I don’t want to talk about it.” Luke’s tone had an edge to it, and Reese saw a shimmer of silvery sparkles to her right where his voice was coming from.

“Why? Does it have to do with your murder?”

“Reese, I’m telling you I don’t want to talk about it.”

She hesitated for a second, not wanting another display of aggression from Luke, but then she changed her mind. “But I do. If I had been the one to die, you would stop at nothing to find my killer.” She was fully awake now. She waited for a response. He was just as pig-headed in death as he had been in life.

The air became heavy like it gets right before a summer thunderstorm lands. Reese tossed the covers off and stretched her legs. Maybe he would never tell her anything. Maybe he couldn’t remember.

“You have the wrong guy,” Luke’s voice finally split the dense air.

Reese was stunned by his words. “The wrong guy? What are you talking about? You said it wasn’t Gregory.”

“Dad didn’t kill me.”

Reese felt like she took a blow to her back; her lungs heaved in the rush of expelling her breath. “Why would you say that?” The trembles started in her extremities and crept along her arms and legs until they collided at the core of her body.

“You think Dad killed me.”

“I do not,” she said as she shook like the time she had slipped on snow along the creek’s bank, freezing her wet ass off the whole walk back home.

“You think it’s possible,” Luke said.

She started to deny his accusation again, but instead said, “he said he was responsible for your death. Besides, how do you know he didn’t? You said you don’t know who killed you.”

“It wasn’t Dad, Reese.”

“You just don’t want to believe it might be him.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Luke’s voice was soothing and calm.

“He had a gun at the creek. He was going to kill himself. Probably from all the guilt.” Reese had no idea if he had planned to kill himself or not, but what the hell was he doing with a gun?

“Listen to me, Reese. Dad did not kill me.”

“How can you be so sure?” Her words were slow to roll out of her mouth. She wanted to believe him. But she wasn’t sure. She didn’t think he could ever do something so horrible, but he was a different man. She barely recognized her father anymore. It scared her. “How come you don’t want to find your killer? And why won’t you tell me who the man in your painting is? Is it supposed to be dad?”

“You have the wrong guy, Reese.”

Reese sniffed. Her nose was running in response to the overwhelming need to cry. She hated crying. Babies cried. “I don’t understand. Why would anyone kill you?” She grabbed a pillow and buried her face into it. Nothing was right anymore and now with Heather gone with apparently no intentions of communicating with Reese, she didn’t want to live. What was the point? Nobody gave a shit if she lived or died. No one would even miss her. It would be days if not weeks before her mother even knew she was dead. She balled for a couple of minutes with Luke cooing reassurance that everything would be okay. It only enraged her more. How could he say that? Nothing was ever going to be okay again. One single thought registered with Reese. If Luke couldn’t be with her, then she would be with him.

She used the pillowcase to swipe at her tear-streaked face and wet nose. She tossed it to the side and stood from her bed.

“Where are you going?” Luke asked.

She ignored his question. She climbed down the stairs and found exactly what she needed in the kitchen. Her mother’s paring knife. Not that her mother had cooked a single meal in three months.

Knife in hand at the base of the stairs, she looked up to the stream of light cutting across the carpeted hallway. She didn’t want to do it in front of Luke. He would be horrified and would try to stop her. She shuffled to the downstairs bathroom and wedged herself between the vanity and the wall. She sat with her shoulders squished and her legs stretched out. Her ankles peeked about an inch from the bottom of her pajamas. For a second she thought it was funny her body had continued to grow during the summer, nearly half an inch, despite the world stopping. When Luke had died, she toppled him by almost three inches. It had been a sore spot with him. Thinking about that made her think about how she would never see him grow alongside her, and then likely grow taller than her.

She didn’t think anymore. She reacted. The small knife was sharp and made for slicing flesh. The first cut hurt like a bitch and she seethed through gritted teeth. But as the blood welled and flowed fast enough to run down the side of her wrist, she lost sight of the pain. The second cut was deeper and longer. It stung and the sheer might of the pain made her vision blurry.

She leaned her head against the cold tile wall and closed her eyes. She would see Luke soon. Her lips parted in the tiniest of smiles. The warmth at her wrist spread and when she opened her eyes again, she was astonished and fascinated at the pool oozing and pumping from her wound in sync with her pulse, which was oddly slower than normal. She watched the flow of blood, too transfixed to do anything else.

Mesmerized by the red river of her life exiting through a gaping slit, she did not see Luke enter the bathroom. She barely saw him as his translucent shape squatted in front of her. His words meant nothing to her. All she wanted to do was sleep. Sleep.

“Reese? Reese, what have you done? I’m sorry. I didn’t know how important it was to you. Please don’t die. I’ll tell you who it is in the painting. Don’t die. Please. It’s Mr. Albreck. He’s giving the flower to Heather. Please don’t die!”