This is the seventh part in a series, so if you have not already done so, you might want to read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI before continuing.
I scream, my arms flailing in the air as though to beat Addie away from me, but when I turn around, there’s just the bathroom wall.
I turn back to the mirror and Addie is still there. It looks like she’s standing right behind me, staring at me in the mirror over my left shoulder.
Keeping my eyes on the mirror, I reach my left arm back and wave it around in the space where the mirror is telling me Addie is standing.
My hand moves freely through the space, but it’s cold. Like I just stuck my hand in the freezer.
I shudder and pull my hand back, tucking it into my chest for warmth.
Addie grimaces, like I pissed her off by shoving my hand in her ectoplasm or whatever.
I grimace back at her through the mirror. “What do you want?”
She doesn’t say anything. Just points a finger at me.
“I didn’t do anything, bitch. You took those pills all by yourself. If you want someone to blame, look in the mirror.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize the irony of what I’m saying.
I heave a sigh at my own stupidity before going back to my room, slamming the bathroom door behind me. I know ghosts are supposed to be able to walk through walls or whatever, but it still makes me feel better to put a barrier between us. Maybe it’ll at least slow her down.
Maybe I can go to bed and forget all about this horrible nightmare.
To my surprise, I fall asleep quickly, but when I wake up in the night to pee, I can’t go back to sleep.
Addie was no longer in the bathroom, at least not that I could tell, but I couldn’t get the image of her face staring at me out of my head.
I tossed and turned the rest of the night, my head spinning from Addie’s ghostly face to the school suspending me to my social media accounts getting suspended to worrying about Jake, back to Addie.
Round and round I went until the sky started to lighten and I gave up on sleep for the day.
I recovered my phone from the floor – thankfully it hadn’t suffered anything worse than a cracked screen as a result of my tantrum the night before.
I pulled up Siri and asked, “Are ghosts real?”
Siri: No, ghosts have not been scientifically proven to be real; there is no empirical evidence supporting their existence, and scientific investigations have failed to provide concrete proof. While many people believe in ghosts and have personal experiences they attribute to them, these encounters are often explained by psychological phenomena such as hallucinations, sleep paralysis, and cognitive biases, or by natural occurrences like shadows or noises misinterpreted as supernatural.
I considered what Siri had told me. “these encounters are often explained”? “Often” is not the same as “always.”
And saying ghosts have not been proven to be real is not the same as saying ghosts have been proven to be not real.
I changed tactics.
Me: How do I know if I’m being haunted?
Siri: Signs that you may be experiencing a haunting include unexplained sounds like footsteps or voices, objects moving on their own, sudden cold spots, flickering lights—
Siri cuts out and my bedside lamp starts to flicker.
Nope. I jump out of bed and run downstairs.
To be continued…