the bridge.

THE CASSANDRA EFFECT. an independent, private, and highly selective portrayal of melinda gordon from cbs' ghost whisperer, exploring unending compassion, loss, and what it means to be a mouthpiece. 18+. uses beta editor. loved by willow. #HELPSCROSS.

the month is different now; it no longer cradles her like it used to. instead, she feels the light for what it is: hot, suffocating, the clay of her heart cracking at 2000 degrees. part of it, melinda knows, is her own fault. grief has hooked its way around her ribs, and she makes it known to all the spirits she’s been avoiding out of the corner of her eye. they press in on her, seeping into her skull so that even her dreams sink under the weight of them. and it hurts— not just in pushing back the pounding of her head each morning, but the way her loss has consumed her in a way it hasn’t before, making her abilities more a curse than a gift. melinda almost laughs at the irony of it. she has always held hands with the inevitability of death; how strange and awful it is now that her bed’s a tomb.

❛❛ livvy! breakfast! ❜❜     or whatever this is, she mumbles under her breath. even now, looking down at the misshapen, charred pancakes in the pan, do the pins and needles of her grief stick in her throat. jim loved to cook. loved to cook for melinda specifically, even on his longest days. he kept her safe; in the tenderest act of love, he made sure she ate well. she can’t give her foster daughter half of what he could ( in more ways than one ), but every morning she gets up, wipes back the tears stuck to her cheeks, and vows to try. for her. forcing a smile in her voice this time, she calls again,     ❛❛ c’mon, sleepyhead! i promise i only burned it a little this time! ❜❜     a beat, and then,     ❛❛ liv? ❜❜

she’s used to the silence by now. it’s different than how it was after… everything ( melinda thinks, carefully stepping around her sadness ). not uncomfortable, not empty, but constant, like the lull of a ship at sea. it’s the first time in melinda’s life that quiet means something good— that livvy trusts her enough to allow herself to be whatever she needs, even if it is a wisp of smoke drifting around the house.

but then the illusion shatters like glass from the other room. 

in the moment before she moves, melinda suffocates under what she’s so clearly been ignoring: the migraines, the hum of voices in the back of her head, the fuzzy auras and anger ghosts give when she tries to push them away. was it weighing on @pyreshe like it weighed on her? did she feel it when she kissed her head goodnight last night, set a glass of water at her bedside like she did every evening since she’d arrived? has the haunting pushed past her yet again, just like it did with andrea, and jim, and all the other people she’s inadvertently dragged down with her?

at least she knows there’s someone here who loves it as much as she does.

❛❛ y'know, it's a good thing jim's building the house. ❜❜     melinda chuckles from the floor, cross-legged and twisting a dismantled desk leg between her hands. the store smells thickly of coffee and the bagels she’d brought from home, a bribe, she’d joked, to make up for andrea coming in.

when a regular had stopped in and offered a tattered writing table free-of-charge— her only stipulation that she’d see the restoration before being shipped off to the highest bidder— melinda had to hold herself back from spitting out an overwhelming yes. truth be told, the most she knows about refurbishing comes from her weekly 'fixer upper' binge— unlike andrea, apparently, who’d done a lot of the heavy lifting this morning while she herself dawdled between nuts and bolts. she makes it look so easy, but then again, that was andrea— grace and passion and secrets melinda peels back the layers of each day.

she enjoys the vulnerability of this. the normalcy. here, she doesn’t have to be the link between the living and the dead. all she has to be is a woman sitting with her best friend— the one she always wanted, but never had.

❛❛ oh, shoot, ❜❜     melinda exclaims out of the blue; the second desk leg practically crumbles in her hands.     ❛❛ i must’ve dropped a screw somewhere! ❜❜     her gaze sweeps circles around her, leaning forward to dig haphazardly through the pieces strewn about. she can feel @venustrape's laughter before she even looks up; giggling, she drops her hands in her lap and quips,     ❛❛ ha ha. very funny. laugh at the girl who sees ghosts for a living.❜❜     as if to toy with her, the screw rolls out from under her foot. melinda grins, grabbing a screwdriver with the confidence of someone who knows far more than she does, and asks,     ❛❛ how are you so good at this, anyways? were you a carpenter in a past life, or something? ❜❜

jim had been the first to bring it up in the casual way they shared their love, gentle and sweet.     ‘ how many rooms should we put in the house? ‘     he’d asked a few months into their engagement, and melinda had said,    ❛❛ well, we need an office, don’t you think? ❜❜     she danced with his baby niece on a lazy sunday afternoon in the kitchen when he said,     ‘ you’re gonna make a great mom someday, ‘     and melinda, grinning with all her teeth, had kissed his cheek and replied,     ❛❛ i probably make a better aunt. ❜❜

and that was the game they played. he’d roll the ball into her court as gently as he’d hold her, and she, ever-stubborn, would always push it back, afraid of what that future could mean. as much as her mother tried to pretend, the truth was always there: her family’s gift had stretched three generations now, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to make it four— even if she did coo at every baby that passed her by, or lay in bed and dream of how amazing a father jim would be. 

but now…

now, jim was gone, and there was no room for dreaming anymore. suddenly, what she’d always wanted to say but never got to stretched to all the corners of the house, through the doorway he carried her through that first night— his clothes in the hamper— a glass of water, untouched, on his side of the bed. and yes, melinda knows in a way only she can that he’s not really gone. jim was just on the other side of the window, his fingertips tracing the silhouette of her hair, his lips at the corner of her own, waiting until he could reach past the pane and pull her into his arms again. but the light doesn’t bring her much comfort now. it doesn’t bring back the chapters that were ripped so unceremoniously out of her life, or the family that should’ve filled the pages full 'til the epilogue. she sat in that quiet, empty house all alone, in a bed twice as big as her, and made the only decision that made sense in a long time:

family would have to mean something else.

olivia’s last foster mom was in a hurry to usher her out. melinda stood and ignored the laughter of a full house just past the door, shaky hands balled into the pockets of her coat. she was nervous in a way she didn’t expect when she’d first spoken to the social worker, but then again, she supposed there was a difference between words and action. she smiled down at the girl and said—

❛❛ hey, livvy. i’m melinda. it’s nice to finally meet you. ❜❜

she thought of her grandma as they stood face-to-face, the car running behind her, ready to pick up a girl she’d only known from a distance. the first thing she noticed was how small she was— smaller than the pictures made her seem— and the fragility of it sent her heart into her throat. to make matters worse, though the crisp autumn air bit at her own nose, livvy wasn’t wearing a jacket. who let her out without one? melinda went to ask, but the only other adult had disappeared back into the house again, front door ajar so the light of the living room spilled out onto the driveway.

in the brief silence between them, they shared a moment.

livvy looked up at her with a gaze too old for her age, and melinda nearly flinched. it was a look she recognized, not just then but from her own childhood, too, the hollowness of her eyes too big for her tiny body. when mary ann had come eleven years too late and whisked melinda from the only hell she’d ever known, did they share this same glance? did her grandma worry she wouldn’t be enough, too?

the moment was gone as quick as it came. the woman returned, interrupting to drop a trash bag at her feet, and, with a mix of both horror and anger, melinda realized that was all the girl had.

❛❛ don’t do that. ❜❜     she’d snapped, and could’ve screamed at the confusion the other wore.

‘ sorry? '

❛❛ treating her stuff like it’s garbage. how do you think that makes a kid feel? ❜❜

her irritation eats at her the whole car ride back. olivia ( livvy, she rehearses in her head ) knows so little about her, and melinda perhaps too much. what kind of anger has she seen that the social workers hadn’t? is she afraid of her already? can melinda make the empty house a home for her, even though it’s hardly one for herself? 

she tries to push back her anxiety with each turn of the wheel, chattering now and then to fill the space between them; she even does her best to ignore a spirit staring at them from the side of the road, thumb up for a ride to gods-knows-where. it’s still not enough.

❛❛ okay, so… ❜❜     melinda begins after they’ve brought @pyreshe's things upstairs, pacing around the girl’s newly-decorated room ( frilly comforter and all ),     ❛❛ we’ve got nightlights, and, uh— some books. i know the bedset’s a little much, but i figured after you get settled, maybe we could have a girl’s trip, just you and me. oh! and— where is it— ❜❜     she remembers what she’s looking for even before she’s finished talking. turning over her shoulder towards the nightstand, she opens a drawer to pull out a whiteboard, shiny and new. a clean slate.     ❛❛ ta-da! ❜❜

melinda’s not expecting an answer, and knows there doesn’t have to be. she remembers the years she crawled into the jaws of her own heart, tucked behind the teeth she’d been taught to bear. she meets the silence with softness, kneeling down slowly so her gaze can meet livvy’s— so she can coax the girl out of the wolf’s mouth.

❛❛ i’m sure this is all a little scary, ❜❜     she says, and cringes slightly at how much of an understatement that must be,     ❛❛ if it makes you feel better, i’m a little scared, too. you know more about this than i do. but… ❜❜     she pulls out a marker from the pack in her hand, holding the whiteboard out to her.     ❛❛ maybe we can be scared together? ❜❜

the sun hangs oppressively in the sky,     rolling against the back of melinda’s neck in waves. maybe it’s the heat that has her head swimming as she wanders through the flea market, threading herself through the throngs of people; maybe it’s the fit of nightmares that had possessed her last night, catching her in a cold sweat and shivering whole-bodied.

          or, perhaps, it could be the spirit that clings dutifully to her elbow now, his voice harsh in her ear, the bone of his fingers pressed deep into her skin.

          my sister, comes his murmur, brushed with white noise,  you have to tell her…

          ❛❛ not now. ❜❜     she mumbles under her breath. a woman casts a shifty glance towards her before looking away. melinda clears her throat, pretending to toy with a bar of handmade soap at a booth. her pass at ignoring the ghost only draws him closer, his arms reaching icily through her.  you can’t ignore me forever, little girl.

          his death had been a gruesome one, to say the least. he’d been ever-so-kind enough to give her the gory details in all of the haziness he could recall it with: perched back in a la-z-boy, the thick smell of blood permeating the air; his tv flipping through channels of static; his brother-in-law curling the pistol in his lifeless hand. charles had been rich for most of his life, and had been cruel for even longer. many people wanted him dead.

          it seems his sister’s husband had gotten his wish.

          her arms feel heavy all of a sudden, a dim throb knocking at her temple. charles leans closer to her, the fuzziness of his laugh rising to a choppy crescendo.      ❛❛ stop it. ❜❜     melinda forces weakly, but the urgency in her tone only pushes him further. the same cadence flips over and over again like a laugh track out of tune, shadowing her in its grasp. the static grows, grows until her eyes shake with it, grows until her head pounds in pain. she feels herself stumble into someone’s back— her apology comes out slurred, reaching a hand up to press against her brow. people are staring now. she can feel their hot gaze rake across her expression, her bumbling footsteps as she tries to keep herself standing. louder, and louder, and louder, until—

          ‘ are you alright ? '     she faintly recognizes through the ringing in her ears. she squints against the sun towards the other, barely making out a shape. somehow in her fog she had braced herself against a picnic table, sticky with syrup from a local stand. she lets go of a shaky breath, willing herself back into the moment. charles had disappeared just as quickly as he came, and with that, had only left melinda slowly collecting the pieces of herself once again, the passersby hesitantly waning their attention from her.