Chapter Text
Beatrice leaves the window open a fraction so I can feel the air. She says ghosts don’t need oxygen; I say love does. It’s easier now. I don’t flicker as much. I don’t fade when she looks at me. Maybe it’s her faith that keeps me here, the stubborn, ordinary kind that makes tea, folds laundry and survives.
She’s stopped talking to me like I might vanish mid-sentence. We speak the way we used to: overlapping, teasing, finishing each other’s half-thoughts. If she reaches for something on the counter, sometimes our fingers brush, and nothing breaks. I lift small things now. A pen. A scarf. The photograph of us from a trip to a nunnery, I joke all the time, we could have been Nuns who corrupted each other. She responds Ava, you would never make it as a nun. She's right, the edges are worn from her hands touching it so many times. The first time she caught me holding it, she didn’t speak, just stared until her eyes filled, and she said, "Maybe being nuns would have been safer; we could have done missionary work together." I smiled softly.
Nights stretch long and dark. She reads under a blanket, hair escaping its knot, glasses slipping down. I hover by the heater pretending to feel warmth. Every so often, she glances up as if to check I’m still there.
“I think you’re getting stronger,” she says one evening.
“Or you’re getting better at seeing me.”
“Maybe both.” She pats the bed. “Sit with me.” I do.
Our shoulders almost touch. The static between us hums not electric, but alive. After a while, she closes her book. “Do you ever sleep?”
“Not since you started snoring.” She laughs, head tipping back, and the sound fills the room. When she looks at me again, the laughter stays in her eyes.
The next morning, she sets two mugs on the table out of habit. Steam curls around us like breath. “Try it,” she says. I reach for mine. This time, my fingers don’t pass through; it takes less focus.
The ceramic is warm, solid, trembling slightly under my hand. “I can hold it, it's easier,” I whisper.
Beatrice’s smile is the kind that could end wars. “Then maybe you’re not as gone as you think.”
We make a ritual of the ordinary. She edits photos; I rearrange the fridge magnets into constellations. She hums old hymns while cooking; I stir air beside her, pretending to help. Sometimes she lets the music fill the house, piano pieces we used to dance to, without calling it dancing.
The more she laughs, the more real I become. My shadow shows faintly on the floor. The scent of her shampoo lingers on my hands after I touch her hair.
One night, the snow starts again. We stand by the window watching flakes drift down, streetlights turning them into gold dust. “Remember last year?” she asks. “When you made me chase you through the square because you wanted a snow angel competition?”
“I won,” I tell her.
“You cheated.” She reminds me.
“I died, let me win something”, I remind her.
“Pretty sure that only counts when you're alive.” She nudges me with her shoulder, light, deliberate. The contact holds. Her skin is warm. Mine isn’t, but she doesn’t pull away. The air between us folds in on itself. When she turns, her hand finds mine. No barrier. No flicker. Just touch.
I feel every heartbeat through her palm, and for a moment, I think I could melt the snow outside with it. She whispers, “I swear I can feel you.”
“I think so too.”
“Stay.” I don’t promise. I just nod, because here right now with her hand, the snow, the warmth threading through the cold is the closest thing to heaven I’ve ever felt.
Later, she writes on the fridge: Day 45: She held the mug. I held my breath. And in my notebook, hidden, I write: Day 45½: Love has weight. I’m starting to feel it.
By the end of the week, we stop pretending this is something we can define. She talks to me while cooking, mutters at me from the bathroom, and leaves space for me on the sofa without realising it.
The house turns into its own small world: coffee rings, polaroids, laughter echoing against the windows. Every time Beatrice smiles at me, I feel a little more here. She hums while brushing her teeth; I steal her hoodie just to feel the fabric, solid against my skin. She scolds me for leaving it draped over the lamp. “You’ll start a fire,” she says.
“Good,” I grin. “Then you’ll finally have to admit I make you hot.” Her snort turns into a laugh so bright it almost hurts.
“You’re insufferable.”
“You love it.”
“Unfortunately, yes.” The air hums when we’re like this, teasing, breathless, on the edge of something bigger.
I’m stronger now. I can touch things again, light switches, door handles, her camera. The world doesn’t reject me anymore. “Maybe you’re evolving,” she teases.
“Ghosts don’t evolve.”
“You do.” Sometimes she tests it, brushes her fingers against mine when she passes by. Every time she does, the air glows faintly, a shimmer between us that looks like static and feels like home.
Snow starts again one afternoon. Thick, slow flakes. Beatrice pulls me outside, barefoot in her hoodie. “Come on, garden now”, she laughs.
“Snow angels.”
“I already am one.”
“Self-proclaimed doesn’t count.” I sink beside her. The snow doesn’t hold me perfectly; it dents just slightly, a shadow of a shape. She stares at it, smiling like it’s a miracle.
“You’re getting heavy.”
“Rude.” She flicks snow at me. It hits. We both stare. Then she bursts out laughing.
“Oh my god, you’re actually solid!”
“Careful,” I grin. “Next time, I might be able to tackle you.” She tilts her head.
“Promise?” The space between us collapses. The snow catches in her hair. She’s beautiful in a way that makes it hard to breathe, real, flawed, alive. Inside again, she hands me one of her scarves. “You’re shivering.”
“I can’t be cold.”
“You complain enough about the cold for someone who can.” She stands, so I follow suit. I tug the scarf until she stumbles forward, crashing gently into me. She laughs against my chest. “See your cold?” she murmurs.
“Warmth is transferable, so stay close.” Her breath catches when I say that.
“Ava…”
“Say my name like that again,” I say, and her eyes fall to my lips. I can feel her heartbeat against my chest.
"Ava", she breathes out, and I swallow my eyes nearly roll back, god, she's so beautiful.
She kisses me, soft and unsure, like she’s checking if the universe will break. It doesn’t. I kiss her back, and for a heartbeat, the world forgets we’re not supposed to exist like this.
After, we can’t stop smiling. She presses her forehead to mine, breathless. “Teenage hormones don’t respect cosmic boundaries.”
“Never did.” She laughs, radiant.
“Good.”
The days blur into something brighter. We cook together, she cooks, I stir air beside her, pretending to help. We nap on the sofa, her hand resting against mine like gravity finally remembered me. She snaps photos of me constantly now, light flares, shapes forming where I stand. “You’re easier to capture lately,” she says.
“Maybe because I feel alive again.” We don’t hide it anymore. The affection, the teasing, the wanting. We’re nineteen and in love, something neither of us understands, all raw edges and holy mistakes. I whisper things I shouldn’t say just to watch her blush. She throws popcorn at me when I make bad ghost puns. I let it hit me just so she’ll laugh again.
“You’re getting stronger.”
“Yeah. That’s good, maybe?” I look at her, the girl who rebuilt me from grief, who keeps giving me reasons to stay. “It feels like it should be good, I'm scared it will stop.” She nods, but her hand trembles. Because she’s Beatrice, and she’s already thinking ahead, wondering what happens.
Later, she writes on the fridge: Day 48: Laughed until the lights blinked. Maybe the universe approves.
And in my notebook, I write: Day 48½: If love makes me solid, what will it cost us?
The night ends like all the best ones do, quiet, half-frozen, full of warmth. She’s lying on her stomach, sketching something in her notebook. I’m beside her, tracing shapes in the air on her back, letters, stars, invisible poems.
She hums under her breath. “You’re staring again.”
“Yeah”, like I would lie, I openly stare at her, my girlfriend is hot, girlfriend shit, is that what we are?
“Why?”
“Because I used to think only heaven could feel like this.” She turns, eyes soft, lips curved.
“Ava.”
“What?”
“Don’t disappear.”
“I’m trying not to.” She reaches out, hand resting right over where my heart used to beat.
“You’re doing a pretty good job,” she murmurs, her voice half a laugh, half a prayer. I stare at her fingers on my chest, the weight of them light but anchoring.
“Bea?”
“Yeah?”
“If I were alive,” I start, and her eyes lift instantly, wary and soft, “I’d ask you to be my girlfriend.” It's a half-truth. If I were alive, I would freak out and then, like I did while dead, fall in love with her anyway and probably never say a damn word through fear until we fell in love so blatantly, and just marry her.
Her mouth curves. “You think ghosts can’t date?”
“Pretty sure it’s not in the handbook.”
“Good thing I don’t believe in rules.”
I grin. She so believes in rules. “So… what, are you saying yes?”
She tilts her head, pretending to think, like she’s choosing between sense and disaster.
“Yes,” she says finally. “Obviously yes.”
“You didn’t even hesitate.”
“Oh, I did for far too long before now,” she says, shifting closer until her breath is against my neck. “I’ve been in love with you since we were fifteen, so technically I’ve been your girlfriend for years. You just finally caught up.”
I laugh, the sound startlingly human, full-bodied. “Then it’s official. I’m dating a genius.”
“And I’m dating a ghost with terrible flirting skills.”
“Hey, I’m improving. I just made a girl say yes to being my girlfriend.”
She smiles, the slow kind that melts winter. “You did. And I’m keeping you, Ava Silva. Dead or alive.”
She leans forward, kissing me once, soft as ever, sure as ever. The lights flicker, the room hums, and for the first time since I died, I don’t feel temporary.
Later, while she sleeps, her head tucked against my shoulder, I write one thing in the notebook: Day 49: I asked her. She said yes. Maybe heaven isn’t a place. Maybe it’s her.