The Ghost

ghosting

Dictionary

Definitions from Oxford Languages

/ˈɡəʊstɪŋ/

the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.

At first I didn’t realise that Lisa was ghosting me. We’d spent the last few hours hanging out not doing much. Which was totally normal, or at least I thought so. I think looking back, maybe it had been a bit strained because instead of staying over Lisa said she was probably going to go home. I’d made her dinner and she didn’t eat much, just sort of pushed the food around her plate. I wasn’t offended because she never eats that much, but now I’m thinking about it, maybe she was nervous. Or maybe my cooking was gross, I don’t know. Everything looks worse in retrospect, the whole world warps when you glance back over your shoulder. We were just talking about stupid stuff really, like how hilarious Jeggings are and how we thought Britney Spears should do what she wants but also how cringe her instagram posts were. Lisa even laughed a couple of times at something I said. Then later when I was washing up, I turned around and there she was, just standing there wearing a bedsheet over her head.  

The sheet wasn’t classic ghost white, but to be fair it was almost white. It had little pale yellow flowers on it. I thought it must have belonged to her, or at least I didn’t think it was from my linen cupboard. Maybe it was one from right at the back with the tea towels that don’t absorb enough water. 

She’d cut two little holes out where her eyes go, so she could see me but didn’t bother cutting a mouth hole. It would have looked creepy if she had to be honest, but also she didn’t plan on saying anything to me, ever again. So, you know, no mouth hole.

I laughed at her at first, because I thought she was being funny, like she’d made a quick awful halloween outfit. But she didn’t laugh, she sort of just looked uninterested. She just stood there and would keep just standing there for the rest of the time I’d know her. Uninterested and a bit annoyed. Because that’s the downside of ghosting someone. Sometimes it can take a while for the recipient to realise its happening. That’s hard, especially if the person isn’t very bright or doesn’t get the hint right away, or seems to care too much. Then it’s a real test of stamina. I’d known Lisa since we were teenagers and we talked all the time. And I mean ALL the time. At least once a day, for like, twenty years. When we were sad or happy or even if we didn’t feel anything much at all. We still talked. So yeah, it took me a while to realise. Even though she was standing right there in her ghost outfit, ghosting. 

I kept doing the dishes, because I didn’t really believe that something was wrong. I just thought she was being silly and I had a lot of soapy water on my hands, all the way up to my elbows. So I just kept washing. I wish I’d stopped. Stopped that one thing that means nothing and everything at the end. 

She did leave that night, but came back a few mornings later. It was like that, sort of unpredictable. Like she needed to remind me that she still existed, just not for me anymore. Sometimes she would be at my place in her sheet. Just standing around. Sometimes she’d leave and I’d follow her. She’d get in her car and take her sheet off. Then she was Lisa again, open and  available for the rest of the world. I’d see her texting in the car and I’d wonder who she was texting. Not me obviously.  I’m pretty sure I almost caught her patting my dog once. It was one of the times where she was standing around ignoring me in my house. I’d left the room in a huge pissed off mood, this was right at the beginning of the ghosting, and when I came back in she was bending down near my dog Pluto. She stood back up right away, but Pluto was wagging her tail. Which is a dead giveaway. Pluto loved Lisa. 

 

I followed her to tennis. We used to play together when we were younger in the girls under 16’s but she was much better at it than me and kept it up as an adult. She took her sheet off to play tennis and laughed with her tennis partner even though she lost the game 3/6. I laughed because she was laughing. When she spotted me at the end of the game, I was still smiling, because I’d forgotten for a second that I wasn’t invited. She just sighed and put her sheet back on before leaving, walking too close to a wall so she wouldn’t accidentally brush my arm on her way out. 

I decided to burn our past. If Lisa didn’t want to be a part of my future,I decided I didn’t want to be reminded of everything that came before. That we used to understand each other. So I took all our past conversations, every single one and piled them in the backyard. Covering them with match sticks and gasoline, I lit them up with my fury. The pile burned high and hot, reaching up into the trees. Soon the trees were on fire and then the house and then the entire neighbourhood. It all burned under the sheer volume and weight of a life we had shared together. 

Lisa wasn’t at my house when it burned. Or in the neighbourhood. She had gone on holidays with a group of people I didn’t know and have never met. The fire didn’t make the news and she doesn’t ask mutual friends about me. My guess is that she will never know how much our ashes burnt my nose or how sad I was that day. And I will never know if she was ever sad underneath the sheet. 

I stopped following Lisa eventually, albeit a long time after she stopped coming around to remind me she was gone. I let Pluto out for a wee one morning and found the sheet in a pile on the driveway. I guess it was mine after all. I picked it up and washed it with all my other sheets and towels. It wasn’t a good sheet and especially not now it had two little eye holes cut out, so I folded it up and put it right at the back of the linen closet with the tea towels that aren’t any good because they don’t absorb enough water.