Spirits of Spring (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 4) (25 page)

“Guess I’ll see you around then,” I mumbled as I opened
the door with tears already forming in my eyes.
Why did I
always do such stupid things? Why did I let my emotions take
full control when I was in a bad situation? If only I’d waited
until I was less traumatized by being outted, I wouldn’t have
quit my job in the first place. And why couldn’t I have at least
responded to the multiple messages she’d left me in the
meantime? I had to be the queen of stupidity.

“Not so fast, young lady! This isn’t about work. You
don’t even know why I’m so mad at you, do you?”

Umm…I
thought
I did but obviously I was wrong. “I
guess not,” I said quietly while still facing the door. Now it was
my
turn to be afraid to look
her
in the eyes. She was about to
reveal a level to my stupidity that I didn’t even know existed. If
I could have hidden under one of the display tables for the
upcoming conversation, I totally would have.

“I know what happened at school. I know why you quit
your job. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t come to
me for advice? I’m probably the only person you know who
completely understands who you are and the weird range of
emotions you’re going through. I never really thought of myself
as your boss. I thought of myself as your mentor—your
friend
.
I would have given anything to have had someone like me in
my life when I was your age. I’m mad because you don’t seem
to appreciate me.”

“Oh, Rita!” I said, no longer fighting back the tears. “I
do
appreciate you—more than you will
ever
know! I’m sorry
about how I acted! I was just so, so…
devastated
by what
happened! Please forgive me!”

Rita rounded the counter with her arms outstretched.
“Get over here and give me a hug!”

So after a few blubbery
girl moments, Rita fully
accepted my apology and I had my job back. Since I’d already
made plans
for this
weekend
when I thought
that I was
permanently unemployed, Rita said that it was okay for me to
start next weekend instead. With all of the job details out of the
way, I presented her with my latest problem and begged for her
help.

“You didn’t just dream about him, he was actually
in
your dream?” Rita exclaimed with a look of sheer incredulity.

Her reaction did nothing to soothe me. “Yes. He knew
what I dreamed about and it was like he was more conscious of
what was going on than I was.
How common is something like
this?”

“I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Ruby—I’ve never
even heard of something like this happening. Which is why I
really wish that you would reconsider going to that paranormal
convention with me. I may not be able to give you any answers
on the subject, but someone else there might provide some
insight. Even if you just sit and listen—I won’t try to force you
to talk about your experience with Alison. But if you don’t
mind, I’d like to tell your story for you.”

“Well,” I replied hesitantly, “As long as I don’t have to
give any speeches and you promise not to reveal the fact that
you’re talking about me, I guess I’m okay with it.”

“I promise! Now, will you go with me?”

“I suppose,” I said then watched as Rita performed an
impromptu “happy dance” in celebration. Why did stuff like
this get her so excited? I did everything I could to stay away
from it yet she reveled in it, practically
thrived
on it. I had come
to accept my strange fate but I would never get excited about it.
Never. Flashbacks to the many times Lucas used to say to me,
“never say never” made me want to hurl. I don’t know which
was
worse—thinking
about
embracing
my
weirdness
or
thinking about Lucas. Both thoughts were infinitely repulsive
to me.

So I returned home with my emotions torn in opposite
directions. I was happy to have my job back, that’s for sure. I
was super happy to have Rita back on my friends list, so to
speak. On the flip side, I was still rattled by the fact that Clay
had entered my dream and that Rita wasn’t able to explain how
it happened.
I used to love horror movies so much but now it
felt like I was truly living in one.

I thought back to the first time I saw
A Nightmare on
Elm Street
.
I was only eight years old at the time and way too
young for that kind of carnage. But like most horror movies, it
seemed so enticing that I snuck out of bed in the middle of the
night to watch it on Cinemax.
My dad never knew that I
watched it. He also never knew that I wet the bed that night. I
cleaned up the mess myself and barely slept for an entire week
after that. I was too afraid that someone would kill me in my
dreams. And let’s face it—I didn’t want to wake up in a puddle
every morning.

Was my connection to Clay the only reason that he was
able to interact with my subconscious mind? What if it wasn’t?
What if the next ghost I encountered wasn’t as friendly as he
was and actually
did
kill me in my sleep?
While I had checked
one of my many worries off of my list today, I ended up adding
a new, more frightening one to it. While I wasn’t scared that he
would hurt me in
my
dreams, what if something
entirely
different were to happen between us? Accidentally, of course.
My dreams were far beyond my control. I did have that one
dream about Lucas that I would rather forget but at least that
wasn’t actually Lucas that I was with. If I had a dream like that
about Clay, it really
would
be him. Asleep or not, I would still
consider that cheating on Zach. I decided that sleep wasn’t on
my
to-do list for the night.
Instead, I armed myself with
caffeine and
an iron will and
watched TV
with
Clay
until
morning. I didn’t tell him why I didn’t want to go to sleep but I
was pretty sure that I didn’t have to.

16. The Grass isn’t Always Greener

No sleep and a recent lack of fun in my life left me giddy
by morning at the prospect of going car shopping with Zach
later. So cars weren’t really my thing but I looked at it this
way—shopping of any sort
was
.
And of course I enjoyed
spending time with Zach, too, even though he hadn’t really been
himself since the wreck. Fighting with his dad drained him of
his
usual sunshine and
turned him
into
more of a dim
moonbeam. Lately, he reminded me more of…
me
. Hopefully,
once he had a new set of wheels he would be a little less
gloomy. Gloomy was supposed to be
my
specialty, not his.

I tried to
force
myself
to work
on various
school
assignments while Zach was at the shelter.
Normally, I had
excellent concentration skills but not this time. I spent twenty
minutes trying to memorize my most recent French vocabulary
list but barely retained a single thing. Switching subjects felt
like the smart thing to do so I pulled out my Calculus book.
Doing math problems
usually
helped me regain focus.
Usually.
Unfortunately, I fared no better. I needed sleep and I needed it
bad
.

Logically, I knew that I couldn’t go without sleep for
very long. But since I’d never been a slave to logic before, why
start being one now?
For two agonizing hours, I poured in the
caffeine and slogged my way through my worst study session
ever. Finally, I gave up and slammed my book shut. In spite of
the fact that I was merely weeks away from my eighteenth
birthday, it was time to ask Shelly to babysit me for a while.

On my way downstairs to find her, I instinctively began
to concoct an artful lie to explain why I needed her to watch me
while I slept. I had a fairly plausible reason in mind when a
foreign thought struck me—I didn’t need to lie about this. Now
that
Shelly
knew—and
accepted
—the
true
depth
of
my
weirdness, I could simplify everything by just telling her the
truth.
Funny. I wasted so much time avoiding the truth over
the past ten months when it was never necessary to begin with.
The thought of skipping the theatrics and not having to worry
that I was going to slip up at some point was liberating. The
truth
did
set me free. At least at home anyway.

Shelly didn’t so much as bat an eyelash when I asked
her to watch me while I napped or even while I explained why.
Her only reaction was uncontrollable giggling when I instructed
her to wake me up instantly if it appeared that I was having too
much fun in my sleep. She agreed to my strange requests and
said that she had a script that she could work on while she
watched me. I sank into the couch in her study and fell straight
to sleep.

When Shelly woke me up three hours later, I marveled
at the irony of the situation. The one time that I have backup in
the real world, my dream was completely harmless. She said
that she awakened me at the first hint of a smile then asked me
what I was dreaming about. I got more uncontrollable giggling
when I gave her my answer.
Shoes.
I was dreaming about
shoes.

Now that our connection seemed to be spiraling out of
control, I thought it might be a wise idea to warn Clay when I
was going to be undressing or doing anything else that I would
be embarrassed to death to have him watch me do. So before I
took my shower, I called his name and told him that I needed to
talk to him about something important.

Talk about awkward.
Once I started to explain my
game plan to him, he nervously scooched as far away from me
on the futon as he possible could. I didn’t go into graphic detail
or anything but I let him know that I needed him to respect my
privacy when it came to “girl issues”. He agreed that it was a
good idea and said that he would try to close his eyes as soon as
he felt himself being drawn toward me. I don’t know for
certain what he was like before he died but as a ghost, he was
certainly a top notch gentleman. If Lucas were the spirit I was
dealing with, he would have made it a point to catch me off
guard. Once again, I asked myself how I could have been stupid
enough to trust someone like him.

With Clay fully warned about what
not
to do, I picked
out the cutest spring outfit in my closet then showered for my
date with Zach. We hadn’t spent much time together because
of school, track, work, and my epically out of control life. So
even if he decided to protest, I was going to insist that he let me
take him to dinner after we got done at the dealership. All I
wanted was some quiet time alone with him in the coziest
unoccupied booth we could find at City Lights.

I pulled into the shelter parking lot just as he was
turning the key in the lock. He looked tired but happy to see
me. On the way to the dealership, he talked about how Foxy
seemed to be making a full recovery and of how attached he
had become to her.

“I know you are,” I said as I pulled out my phone and
handed it to him. “Here, there’s something I want you to see.
Go to the video that I have saved in there. I think you’ll like it.”

I waited patiently
while
he
brought it up onto
the
screen. Once it started to play, I snuck a quick peek at his face.
What I saw was the biggest smile I’d seen from him in a long
time.

“Oh, Ruby! Why didn’t you tell me you took this video?
It’s great, I love it!”

 

“I was waiting to see whether or not she was going to
make it. If she didn’t, I wanted you to have something to
remind you that you did everything in your power to save her.”

He smiled as he hit replay and watched the video again.
“That has to be one of the most thoughtful things anyone has
ever done for me. Thanks, sweetie!” As I brought the car to a
halt at the car lot, he threw his arms around me and pressed his
lips to my cheek.
One word accompanied the following kiss.
“Mwah!”

We’d been together long enough now that my knees
didn’t get weak every time he showed me affection, but today
was an exception. He hadn’t called me by that name or used
that one dorky little word in a long time. Slowly but surely, all
of the damage I’d done to our relationship over the winter was
being repaired.

As we strolled through the lot, I felt like I was gliding on
air. While most aspects of my life sucked, my relationship with
Zach only seemed to be getting stronger. I considered myself a
lucky girl that I found a boy who was incredibly forgiving.
I
was in such a good mood, that I almost let him sway me from
my original plan. Almost.

It took me awhile to notice the pattern but eventually I
caught on to what he was trying to do. Every time I approached
a suitable SUV, he would mysteriously see a car that he just
had
to go check out. After about five consecutive times, I called his
bluff.

“You’re going to try to change my mind about buying an
SUV, aren’t you?” There was no need to wait for him to answer
me. I already knew what he was going to say so I told him that
his little plan to get me to spend less money on a vehicle for
him was pointless. “My mind is made up, Zach. It’s an SUV or
it’s nothing—take your pick.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I once
again knew exactly what his response was going to be. “I take
that back,” I said to clarify my point, “It’s an SUV—period.
We’re going to need something big enough to haul both of our
things to Ohio, remember? That car’s nice but there isn’t even
enough room in that thing for my shoe collection.” I pointed to
a nice red SUV across the lot. “Let’s go take a look at that one.”