‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒  A SERIES OF DOUBTFUL THOUGHTS raged inward ; stuck with them? She made it sound so positive that he’d be there for their lifetime – or maybe just long enough until he was no longer of any friendship merit. A momentary pause took hold of the room as his arms would fold over his chest, a comforting, closed off motion needed to cool his anxiety creeping up his throat ; he dared not speak with a crack in his armor, vocalizations a squeak compared to the steeled manner in which he always seemed to embody. She, and the others, would eventually leave ; he wasn’t meant for long term relationships like his father or brother, their conversation skills far superior to Jake’s introverted lifestyle, much more akin to an animal that slept all day and awoke for its basic needs – a sloth? A koala? A cat? One of those ; he was around for some time and then gone whenever the owners no longer viewed him as a pleasure… It was only a matter of time…

        Despite whatever starry reality she wanted to think she saw, his destiny was written in solo, lonely, broken into fragments of pieces of past relationships gone awry ; after all, he’d once run away to the forest to avoid humanity and its necessities, only returning when he’d nearly died from a storm collapsing a tree upon him. The papers were a mockery, laughing at his ‘ stupidity ’ for thinking he could ever live without luxuries, failing to mention how long he’d survived without them (it was easier to make fun of a rich person who wanted to give it all up than one who kept it and flaunted it).

        When these people first met him, they had no idea who he was, thinking he was just some guy in a little car with those lever windows where you had to break your wrist reeling it like fishing line just to get a glimpse of fresh air ; they thought he was merely a hard at work low to middle class individual. Jake was, without a doubt, someone who didn’t talk about his wealth, thinking it a pointless addition to him when others were near. Once they knew about it, they swarmed him like piranhas, demanding more, more, more, until they had their fill. That’s why he’d kept his head lowered when they found out about the penthouse, the champagne, the cars, the internet, the apartments – his wealth he threw away at any point because he didn’t care for it. They’d remained longer than most who’d gotten what they wanted ; he’d thrown them all his money to get them gone faster, to avoid that…stinging reality of it coming eventually, but they remained, calling him for coffees and…picnics….and hiking… For some reason, they treated him as if he weren’t rich at times.

       ❝ No, it’s…I don’t know… ❞ His on fire commentary dropped off, biting roasts snuffed out easily by the repetitive clanging of doubts. Shoulders would shrug meekly, back pressing firmly against the door to keep it closed in case of pesky blond attempting to pry into the conversation, something he’d find even more reason to grow silent over ; he didn’t want to be made fun of for this insecurity ; he didn’t even want Shiloh to see him clam up over the thought of them sticking around. If this was true, then why did he still feel like they’d ditch him one day? Why did he feel like they were all still using him? Was he just so used to it that he couldn’t see anything winding up differently? Heavily inhale, shaken but not incapable, gave him steeled nerves to continue. ❝ If I have to stick around you all, I’m going to be driven insane – especially by him… You’re not so bad…for being a little dumb at times. ❞

Longevity was something that had come to be quite foreign to Shiloh, as it had never really existed in most aspects of her life. Not the aspects that she wanted it to exist in, at least. Family, friends, boyfriends, jobs, homes; they all came and went, and she’d come to expect it. It might have made her come across as being a little cold and negative to some, but keeping her hopes low lessened the inevitable blow of disappointment when it came back to punch her in the gut. Despite her good heart and generally kind nature, she was bad news, and she never blamed anyone for not wanting to get involved with her. In fact, she encouraged most people to avoid her. She didn’t want anyone else to get hurt by getting caught with her beneath the little black raincloud that followed her around.

Falling into a life of crime had never been something that Shiloh had intended, but when she’d found herself thrown into the mix of vastly different characters and personalities, smuggling drugs throughout the city and robbing casinos, she’d been left with little choice as to which direction she could head in. Forward was the only way to go now, dangerous as that path was. At the very least, it gave her some company for once, and even though they didn’t all get along sometimes, she appreciated having them in her life. Even Jake, who was often hard on her (and the rest of the group… and even more so, himself), she’d grown to like.

Alas, the joy that she felt while being in their company was fleeting, and she knew it. It was only a matter of time before everyone split and went in their own directions for one reason or another, including herself. She just needed enough money to be able to support herself in her traveling endeavors, and then she’d be gone too, leaving everyone behind because she knew that they’d be better off without her. Maybe in a year? Maybe five? However long it took for her to earn the cash and get her ducks in a row. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe that any of these people would be in her life forever, but she knew that they were stuck together for the foreseeable future, at the very least, and she was content with that for now. Better to have loved them all and lost them, than to have never loved them at all…

Even for someone like Shiloh, who tended to be quite observant when it came to the behavioural patterns and displays of other people, Jake’s inner turmoil was masked and invisible to her. She hadn’t noticed the way that he clammed up at the topic of the future, but then again, he’d never really given her much of a reason to be suspicious in the first place. In her eyes, he was strong and capable, with all of his shit together and a good head on his shoulders. He didn’t need any of these people, nor the money, and he certainly didn’t need her.

Normally, comments directed towards her intellectual integrity threw salt in Shiloh’s old wounds, but coming from Jake, it only made her smile. As a middle-school dropout that could barely read due to a rough case of dyslexia and a lack of effort in her education, the topic of her smarts exposed a sore spot whenever it was brought up, but she was always careful to mask the embarrassment and hurt that she felt by shaking it off with a laugh. This time, however, it was genuine. Coming from Jake, it was a compliment. “Wow, Jake,” she began, the grin on her face widening as soft laughter spilled from between her lips. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. Thank you!”

Maybe it was just bad manners, but Felix didn’t personally care about what kind of state he’d find Shiloh’s apartment in. He was used to hanging out at places that weren’t perfectly looked after, though he did have something to say about the people that made an absolute mess and turned it into an environment that nobody wanted to hang around. The bit of dishes, laundry and clutter that Shiloh had failed to deal with was pretty normal to him. Once she’d finished hurriedly tidying up the place (or at least the strewn about laundry), he took a seat on the couch and kept her company while she puttered around in the nearby kitchen.

Once the cake was finished and Shiloh guided him into the kitchen, a warning about the candle given beforehand, Felix spotted what was supposed to be a cake sitting atop the counter. It was visibly falling apart and the frosting looked watery, and indeed the overly large candle in the middle was strange and almost distracted from the rest of it. The raise of an eyebrow and grin on his lips was indication enough that he was quietly judging how the cake had turned out. He wondered then if this creation presented to him was even edible, but before he could make a comment on it, Shiloh had begun to sing happy birthday to him. For as small and simple of a song it was, which required no talent whatsoever, he could tell that she had a nice voice and was curious to hear a real song from her at some point. Only when she finished her song did Felix lean over the cake and blow out the candle, his hand then lifting to grab the plate and slowly turn it to get a better look at all sides of the cake.

“My wish was to not have to eat this,” Felix said, his gaze leaving the abomination to glance over at Shiloh and fake an innocent, toothy smile. “Just joking.” Well, sort of. “I know I can be an ass, but I really do appreciate the effort. I just need to know…what the actual fuck did you do to it?” Maybe it was one of those things where even though it looked bad, it tasted the way it was supposed to. He’d made some disasters like that before. Either way, it had been sweet of Shiloh to even think about attempting it in the first place, since he hadn’t expected anything at all from her. “It’s a bit of a Frankenstein,” he added before grabbing the pillar candle, pulling it from the center of the cake, and licking the partially raw cake from the bottom of it. It was unexpectedly salty.

Although Shiloh had done her best to feign offense as Felix dished out insults on the appearance of the birthday cake, the grin that was tugging at her lips was hard to mask. She knew that the Frankenstein-looking abomination was a pitiful excuse for what it had originally intended on being, and it was taking everything in her just to hold in her laughter as the tattooed male lifted the giant candle to his lips to lick off some of the runny frosting and unbaked batter that was stuck to the bottom of it.

Shiloh’s nose crinkled up at the sight of it, her gaze falling onto what was left of the cake now that the candle had ripped the top off of it. A small swipe of her finger through it for a little sample on her tongue was enough to make her abort the mission, her fist coming down to give the top of the dessert a soft punch immediately after. “So,” she began, looking up at the blue-eyed birthday boy. “Where do you want to eat?”

     “You’re one of those people, always going for the red candies. Lemon and lime are both just as good as cherry,” Felix pointed out, though he knew that it ultimately just came down to preference. Why cherry seemed to be the fan favorite, he wasn’t sure, but maybe it made sense  since there was a lot of different drinks that had a cherry flavor added to them–like cherry Coke or Pepsi. He’d tried the lime and lemon kind before, and they just weren’t nearly as good.

     As the minutes ticked by, Felix found himself winning round after round. Clearly, he still hadn’t lost his touch at the game. It wasn’t as if he had to try really hard either to strategize, so sometimes it puzzled him as to how he was always able to beat people. He could see Shiloh getting increasingly frustrated every time he would ‘poison’ her, as they liked to call it, and he had to wonder how much longer she would want to go for before getting too fed up with it. It was kind of addictive, honestly, and it wasn’t like there was much else for them to do in this place. Maybe he’d try to find a movie to watch on the old, shitty television. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had a whole shelf full of VHS tapes. Again, on the twelfth round, he had won and Shiloh had finally voiced her annoyance with his winning streak. He began to laugh, but was quick to deny the accusations of him cheating. “Wait what? –No, I’m not cheating.” 

     Tic tac toe was way easier of a game to ‘cheat’ at, or at least tie with because the board was so damn small. Connect 4 had so many more options, and it really just came down to making different paths while also ensuring to look for what your partner was planning, and cutting them off before they could get very far. “I’m just a god or something. Dude, imagine how rich I’d be if they had competitions for this shit,” Felix added while continuing to drop chips into the slots as they’d started another match. Sure enough, after a few more turns, he had poisoned Shiloh once again so she had no choice but to lose with whatever move she made. “I mean, there’s a little strategy involved of planning ahead, but it’s just connect 4. I don’t know what to tell you,” he laughed. “I think you just suck. Or you’re missing a few braincells, but at least you’re pretty.” Of course, he was only playing around with her. She didn’t strike him as dumb. “Being serious though, I’ve played this before and everyone went through the same bullshit with me. It’s not just you.”

Although she had no idea if there was even a plausible way to cheat at connect four or not, Shiloh suspected that if there was one, Felix would have absolutely figured it out and used it against her. Still, regardless of her suspicions, she was on a losing streak and getting quite frustrated over it, and so she didn’t feel like drawing out her misery any longer. “Whatever,” she huffed, her fingers gripping the slider at the bottom of the panel to tug it to the side, allowing all of the plastic chips to come crashing out of the board and scatter across the table.

Despite Shiloh’s frustrations, however, there was a hint of a smile on her face. It was silly, and she would be the first to admit that, but she was happy that he’d called her pretty. Whether he’d meant it or not, she didn’t know, but it was nice to hear anyways, especially while she felt so low. “I swear to god, if I ever find out that you were cheating, you’re a dead man,” she threatened him, pointing her finger at him as she walked past where he sat on the couch.

The brunette disappeared into the bathroom then, returning shortly after. “The weather is getting nicer,” she commented, glancing out of the window towards the bright blue sky. The ground was still covered in puddles, but she was sure that within a few hours, they would all dry up. “I could make us some coffee and we could sit outside for a bit? The fresh air might be good for you.” She stepped closer, kneeling down in front of him. “I should change your bandages again first though.” Her gaze dropped downwards onto the wound that she’d bandaged earlier that morning.

After Shiloh had turned around without another word, leaving Felix to wonder if he’d seriously offended her or not, he followed her up the rest of the stairs and into her apartment. The ugly green door was closed behind him and for a moment he felt a little out of place, as if he had messed up in some way or wasn’t supposed to be here. That wasn’t true, of course, and it was only because he was still getting used to the fact that Shiloh wasn’t like most of the girls he knew. The two of them had hung out many times before without any sexual acts taking place, but he had yet for it to feel like it was normal.

“What things have you tried to get rid of the ghosts?” Felix asked, footsteps carrying him into the bathroom that Shiloh had turned into. He wasn’t sure how the supernatural worked or if it was anything like what he saw in horror movies, but after what he witnessed in the stairwell, he could confirm that at least the hauntings could be as extreme as the movies made them out to be. “This brings a whole new perspective on horror movies based on the supernatural. You think it’s all fiction, but now…What the fuck.”

Leaning against the wall beside the counter, his gaze settled on the brunette’s trembling hands. It would seem that even after all these years (or so she claimed) of being haunted by ghosts, it still managed to scare her pretty bad. Could it be something anyone could ever get used to? It seemed unlikely, especially since Shiloh had claimed that they’d never been able to make contact with her like that until now. “Let me know if you need help.” Tending to scrapes was pretty basic care that didn’t require a lot of fussing over, Felix being all too familiar with disinfecting his own cuts and using ice to prevent bruising, but the offer was there if she wanted to take him up on it.

As Felix moved to stand behind her, Shiloh’s gaze wandered away from her own reflection to settle on his eyes, taking note of the direction that their attention was pointed in. It was clear that he could see just how shaken up she was, but even with his gaze upon her, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from trembling, try as she may. “I’m fine,” she told him through a sigh. Although she genuinely did appreciate his offer, she was a big girl and she was more than capable of handling the cleaning of a few small cuts and scrapes herself. She’d never liked being looked after, as it always ended up feeling to her like a form of pity. It had caused more than a few headaches for Hunter in the past, back when they’d first begun dating, and now she was right back to square one.

“Anyways,” Shiloh continued, pouring some of the disinfectant onto the cotton pad before gently pressing the solution to the scrape that ran along the edge of her cheekbone. It made her wince, but it wasn’t unbearable. “I’ve tried everything. Everything that I know of, at least. Priests, exorcists, burning sage, medication,” she listed off, rolling her eyes as she listed the latter. “When I was younger and I first started seeing all of this shit, my parents had me institutionalized. I got diagnosed with schizophrenia.” She scoffed out a short, bitter laugh. “Obviously not the case. Medication does fuck all to get rid of ghosts.”

There were a lot of questions that sprang to mind after Shiloh had agreed to his proposal, but Felix figured it would be best to wait until they were in the apartment to discuss it. Mainly, he wondered what kind of spooky bullshit he would have to deal with. For all the time he’d known her now, there had been nothing to indicate that she was dealing with anything out of the ordinary. At least until today, when he’d witnessed a ghostly encounter on the stairs. Even so, it wasn’t as if he himself was being haunted by the ghosts that liked to hang around her. The thought of such an extreme form of supernatural existing was indeed intimidating, but he saw no reason to back off just because Shiloh was being haunted by them. Maybe it was crazy of him, maybe he was making light of the situation, or maybe he just didn’t know enough, but it was hardly baggage in his eyes. Likewise, because Shiloh wasn’t someone he was dating or visiting daily, she probably wouldn’t be getting all of the baggage that he came with either.

Coming to a halt behind Shiloh, who had paused on one of the steps before turning to face him, Felix arched a brow while he listened to her question. Actually, it was less of a question and more of her guiding him towards the answer that she wanted to hear. Had she expected that to actually work? Maybe with someone else, but Felix wasn’t about giving someone the satisfaction so easily. It was funny to him to watch them squirm a little and get frustrated.

“Uh, yeah, actually. You kind of did strike me as a friendless loser, and I figured that’s why you liked dogs so much. Because they basically love everyone who’s nice to them,” Felix shrugged. He was about to continue on with the teasing, but when his gaze found Shiloh’s tearful, dark eyes with mascara staining her cheeks, he suddenly felt a little bad. Silently admitting defeat, he gave a roll of his eyes. “For fucks sake. If you weren’t crying, I would keep up the act. I’ll give you a break this time since I’ve already pissed you off enough and you just had a wrestling match with a ghost. Now turn your ass around so we can get the fuck outta here before Mr. Smiley returns for round two.”

With how quickly Felix could bring a smile to her face and then instantly take it away the very next moment, Shiloh was certain that she was going to get some sort of mental whiplash from this boy. When she’d inquired as to his opinion on her, she’d genuinely believed that he’d have no problem handing over a compliment, especially given their current situation, but he’d instead caught her by surprise once again with another insult.

The smile fell from the brunette’s face and she began to frown instead, the expression she wore the result of confusion and frustration, rather than genuine anger. Her eyes narrowed as she searched for a hint, be it in the tone of his voice or the lines in his facial features, that would indicate whether he was joking or not, and she soon found one when he’d uttered a defeated sigh. Just as she’d guessed, he was only pulling her leg to get under her skin again; something that she’d noticed he liked to do often, and something that he was good at. Still, even though she’d realized that he was only playing around with her, he still didn’t give her the compliment that she’d been trying to pull from him. Perhaps if it wasn’t for her tear-stained cheeks and the lines of mascara that were painted down them, he might not have given up his charade at all though. She supposed that she should take it as a win, be it the result of a pity party or not.

Turning, Shiloh headed back up the stairs, climbing each set until they’d reached the top floor and had pushed past the green door of her small living quarters. “You can come with me if you want to,” she told him, gesturing to the bathroom door as she tossed her bag aside. “You can keep me company while I clean up some of these cuts.” The wounds that covered the various areas of her body were beginning to sting now as the adrenaline wore off, the random spots of pain popping up sporadically and causing the brunette to glance at them for the first time.

As Shiloh began to explain more in depth about the ghosts and why they were drawn to her, Felix gave a slow nod of his head as he attempted to keep up with what she was saying. She sounded like she was high, or like she was one of those people who were overly obsessed with fantasy and took it to the next level. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d seen some weird shit go down, he probably would’ve labeled her as crazy (not the fun kind, but rather the stay the fuck away kind) and ditched out.

With the offer to follow Shiloh to her apartment or leave, Felix remained in place as he took a moment to debate on what to do. It wasn’t as if by being her friend that he was getting involved with some sort of serial killer. It was just a girl with a ghost problem, which sounded really fucking absurd and was probably even worse than a serial killer, but yet Felix also thought it to be kind of cool. It wasn’t every day someone stumbled across someone who dealt with the supernatural in a way that was beyond Ouija boards and over-exaggerated bullshit. Giving a shrug as if to say fuck it, the tattooed blond climbed the flight of stairs.

“I’ll put up with your bullshit if you’ll put up with mine,” Felix suggested after he reached Shiloh’s side, his head turning to look at her before a crooked grin took shape on his lips. “I can’t believe you deal with ghosts. That’s fucking badass,” he went on to say as they made their way towards the other’s apartment. “No wonder you don’t want people living with you and you have no friends.” Realizing that his words may have been delivered more harshly than he intended, he was quick to try to lessen the blow. “No offense.” Aaaand back up to ten on the scale.

After spending most of her free time with Felix over the course of the last three months, Shiloh thought for sure that she would have been able to figure him out and predict his reactions, and yet still he was surprising her time and time again. At this point, she wasn’t confident that she would ever figure him out entirely, but she supposed that that was a good thing. He kept her on her toes and held her back when she was constantly wanting to settle into one depressing routine after another, like she’d always done before. He wanted to stay. Even after finding out the sort of baggage that she came with, he still wanted to stay.

As Felix spoke, a smile began to creep back onto the brunette’s tear-covered face, although she never looked back at him as she continued her ascent towards her apartment. “Deal,” she told him, her heart warming at the notion. It was a nice feeling, having someone want to stick around, but the more logical side of her was careful not to forget all of the red flags that came with the situation. Just as he would be signing up to carry the extra burden of her demons, she would be signing up for his as well, and she knew that he had a lot. There was no guarantee that he wouldn’t leave when it all became too much for him to handle. After she was attached and used to having his company around. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

To Felix’s relief, Shiloh hadn’t continued with yelling at him to leave her alone. By the sounds of it, she was willing to talk to him about what happened. Difficult to explain or not, he wanted answers to make sense of what he’d just witnessed. To him, it looked like she was dealing with a ghost, which was just plain and simple stupid. He believed that such things existed, but not like that. Appearing in windows or getting glimpses of them in supposedly haunted buildings, sure, but they remained harmless. Whatever he’d just witnessed now looked like it was something straight out of a horror movie, and he wanted to be able to logically make sense of it. If that stairwell really was so dangerous, then why the fuck was Shiloh still even living here? There were countless other cheap places in the city that he could think of that she could move to.

Remaining quiet to allow Shiloh to attempt to explain what happened to him, she had voiced exactly what he had been both thinking and doubting. Ghosts? Was this girl serious? A look of uncertainty was present on the blonds face as he listened to Shiloh’s past and history she had with ghosts. She sounded absolutely crazy, but then again, how else would he explain what he saw taking place in the stairs? Shiloh was being pushed and pulled around and struggling as if there was a real person there, which again, wasn’t possible to be fully acted out. If it truly was a ghost that was lingering around the stairwell, then it would definitely explain why she was so hesitant to go up them to get to her room.

“I won’t lie, you sound completely batshit and I’m leaning towards believing you acted that whole thing out,” Felix began, pausing briefly to think of how to word his thoughts to her properly. “But then that brings me to the question of why would someone bother faking something like that? For the whole time I’ve known you, you’ve never struck me as a compulsive liar or someone who likes to make a scene for attention.” In fact, Shiloh was quite the opposite. She was pretty chill and didn’t do anything to get the attention placed on her. “You’re weird, yeah, but a good kind of weird.” He was about to continue when another thought crossed his mind, causing him to fall silent for a few seconds and process the encounter he’d had. Soon, he began to frown.

“Wait…Oh, shit. Remember that time we hung out super late and I carried you up to your apartment?” Felix asked, though didn’t wait for a response before continuing to speak. “I heard something in the stairwell. It sounded like footsteps and mumbling, but I couldn’t see anyone. Eventually it sounded like it was right in my ear and I thought I was just tired. So…say ghosts really do exist, was that, uh, whatshisname – Mr. Smiley?” He felt ridiculous even asking the question, as if he was playing into some child’s idea of make believe, but he was one of many who wouldn’t be that quick to accept and believe it to be true.

As Felix voiced his thoughts aloud, Shiloh remained silent, her breath repeatedly getting caught in her lungs whenever she would forget to remind herself to stop holding it in. He’d gone on to question her further, both literally and rhetorically, which she’d expected, but he hadn’t walked away yet. That was a good sign, she thought, although she wasn’t too quick to get her hopes up. At any moment, he could get overwhelmed and walk away.

A nod of her head was given after Felix described to her the sounds that he’d heard while he’d been carrying her up the stairwell a few months back. “That was him,” Shiloh confirmed. She hadn’t heard about that incident until now, but it didn’t surprise her, as Hunter had, on numerous occasions, interacted with her ghosts as well. “I don’t really know what it is or what causes it, but I’m sort of an… energy source for ghosts. For some reason, being around me makes them stronger. That’s why they’re able to make contact with me, and probably why you were able to hear him too.” She nodded again, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

With all the time that Felix had spent with Shiloh over the past few months of knowing her, he had figured that they had gotten past that part of her rejecting his offers to hang out. He still couldn’t understand why she had been that way at the beginning, always reluctant to spend time with him, but he assumed it had something to do with not wanting to get involved with more bad news. Admittedly, in some situations, he didn’t always know his boundaries and when enough was enough, and the end result this time around was Shiloh getting genuinely pissed off at him and angrily telling him to fuck off. It greatly confused the blond, who had been picking up on hints that she maybe liked him. She wasn’t as obvious about it as most of the girls he knew, who would be very clear about what they wanted from him, but Shiloh also wasn’t most girls. It made it a little more difficult for him to make sense of, and the fact that they hadn’t even slept together after all the times he’d walked her up to her apartment only went to add to his confusion.

Pulling out his phone from the pockets of his jeans, Felix had been in the process of texting a few of his contacts to make new plans for the remainder of the night when he heard a voice coming from the stairs. It was Shiloh, who he thought he heard saying go away to someone. It couldn’t be him she was talking to, since he hadn’t followed her up the stairs. If he had, he had zero doubt in his mind that he would’ve left through those doors with an angry red handprint on his cheek, and he didn’t need to make matters worse for himself. She needed time to cool off before she’d come back around. In this case, he had decided to go check on her to make sure she was okay. He had just started climbing the stairs when he heard her scream, panic promptly settling in and his pace quickening into a sprint to get to her faster. What he saw when he arrived was something he could not make sense of no matter how hard he tried. It looked like Shiloh was struggling and being tugged around, and yet there was nobody there for her to be fighting with. He’d been fully prepared to beat the shit out of whoever was bothering her, but that plan had come to a halt for obvious reasons.

Naturally, Felix followed Shiloh up the rest of the stairs when she had made a run for it, and the furious reaction he’d gotten when she noticed his presence did little to deter him. Yeah, she was mad, but he wasn’t following her to annoy her or go against her wishes. He had been genuinely concerned about her safety, and that feeling wouldn’t cease until he was sure she was alright. After what he witnessed, he wouldn’t just want to turn around and leave in case something else happened. And so the blond stood his ground and decided to carefully ask exactly how mad she was at him on a scale of 1 to 10, since that would at least help him determine his best approach. Through her anger and tears, he could observe a hint of a smile on her lips, which in his mind made her a little less angry than a ten. Maybe a nine.

“Okay, fine. You’re a hard ten mad at me and you can punch me in the face if you really want to, but can we talk first about what the actual fuck just happened?” Felix asked, his head turning a little to look over his shoulder and make sure it was clear. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, since he hadn’t even seen anyone interacting with Shiloh, but that whole thing had just been weird and he felt like he had to keep watch.

“Seriously. Dude, what was that? It looked like you were fighting the air and I thought you were having a mental beak of some sort, but people can’t – people can’t move that way on their own,” he went on to further explain, the image of Shiloh being tugged backwards still fresh in his mind. Even if someone was trying to act like they were being attacked, there were certain motions that simply wouldn’t be possible to do without the aid of another person or force. “Are you okay?”

Although her nerves were still completely rattled and her mind was still chaotic with a mess of swirling emotions, Shiloh found herself calming down as Felix spoke to her. The faint hint of a smile that had graced her lips was gone again, fading just as fast as it had appeared, but her voice had calmed and the fire that she’d been putting the tattooed blond under was slowly fizzling out into a black smoke. It wasn’t fair to be spitting venom at him, even though he’d gone against her wishes. It wasn’t his fault, and she knew it. He’d followed her because he cared about her… or whatever.

“It’s kind of difficult to explain,” Shiloh began, her body still rigid as she stood still, her back against the wall and her muscles tense. Although the storm had been calmed, the heavy pounding of her heart in her chest refused to cease. “It’s a really long story.” Her anxieties were creeping back up again, and although she’d found a sense of relief in the way that Felix had chosen to react to everything that he’d just witnessed, she almost felt as though this was just the beginning of a slow-burning letdown instead. She could already see him turning and walking out of the door as soon as she explained everything to him, leaving her in his past without much of a second thought or a concern for her feelings. He would probably call her crazy, maybe tell her that she needed to be locked up? The usual.

As Shiloh’s dark brown eyes found those pale blues again, her heart softened, the memories of the last few months coming back to her. She’d genuinely enjoyed his company, and although he was more trouble than he was worth at times, he’d been a breath of fresh air. It was because of that that she’d given a nod of her head, caving and allowing him to slip past her walls and defenses, even if just for a moment.

“Remember a few months ago, when I told you about that guy that bothers me in the stairwell sometimes?” Shiloh questioned, wiping the tears away from her face and ignoring the sting that she felt as the back of her hand made contact with the abrasion on her quickly-bruising cheek. “That was him.” She sniffled and paused, but only for a moment, deciding that she needed to rip all of this off quickly, like removing a band-aid, if she was to actually follow through with the explanation without losing her nerve. “He’s a ghost. I see ghosts. I’ve been seeing them since I was little, for as long as I can remember. I know that it probably sounds like total bullshit to you, but I swear, it’s the truth. I don’t know why I can communicate with them, but they seek me out. Most of them can’t touch me, but every once in a while, I get some that can. Like that one.” She gestured with a nod of head towards the stairwell, where Mr. Smiley had once been. “That one has been following me since I was about three years old. I used to call him Mr. Smiley because of the weird smile that he’s always looking at me with.” Her skin crawled at the mention of his name aloud, deciding not to go into further detail on his description. “He’s only been able to touch me a few times. Never like that though.” She glanced down, noticing, for the first time, the injuries that she’d sustained.