Monday April 28th 2008
Who: Fisher and Simon What: Freaking out Where: Beginner's Energies and Emotions When: About 2pm Rating: PG 13
Fisher was tapping a pencil against his notebook while Cherry takled to her class about... something. He wasn't listening. He was trying to ignore Simon. The boy had suddenly wafted inot the music room at four Sunday morning while Fisher had been falling asleep, and since had not left his side. It seemed Simon needed to tell Fisher something, and every time the boy tried to speak the medium cut him off. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to be the one who had to go to Cissy and deliver a final message from her husband from beyond the grave. He didn't want that responsibility. How could he look her in the face and tell her that Simon was still here, but she couldn't see him or touch him? It was one thing to deliver messages to strangers, to acquiantences, but to a friend... how could he do that to her? And she would always ask him if Simon was there, wouldn't be able to stop herself. He wanted none of it.
But Simon seemed determined, harboring a kind of will in him that he hadn't seemed to display in his living life, at least not that Fisher had noticed. Simon had stayed with him, followed him all over, sometimes trying to speak and sometimes just staying quiet, but always there. He looked scared, and Fisher didn't blame him. All new spirits looked scared.
Finally unable to stand having Simon just sitting there, watching him, Fisher dropped his pencil and turned to the ghost boy, hissing a whisper. "Go away!"
"I don't know where to go," Simon said simply.
"Well where did you go when you died?" Fisher asked, knowing already the answer he'd get. Silence. Any ghost he'd ever asked couldn't seem to speak about it. They seemed to want to, but something stopped them. Even now, Simon's mouth opened, but then a troubled expression crossed his face and he was silent. It was the rule of the dead, the one thing they could not do. They could not tell a living soul where they went, what happened, what came immediately following the departure. Simon wanted to, because it had scared him and he wanted Fisher's comfort, advice, anything. But his voice disappeared when he tried to vocalize it.
Nodding, Fisher sat back in his chair, arms crossed. Thankfully he was in the back of the room so not many people paid him attention as he held a whispered conversation with the empty desk beside him. "Doesn't matter," he mumbled. "I dunno what to tell you about where to go. I've never been dead."
This was the most Fisher had said to him, well, ever. Even when he'd been alive they never talked much. But Simon knew Fisher so there was a level of safety there, and Fisher knew Cissy. He needed to say this, even if it couldn't go past Fisher. But Simon just needed someone to know, though why he couldn't say. "It wasn't an accident," he said.
Fisher blinked. "Huh?"
"I killed myself."
The words hit like bricks. Fisher had not seen that coming. Jaw dropping, he turned to Simon, eyes wide in disbelief. "What??" he cried out, startling the rest of the class.
"You can't tell Cissy, or Ophelia, or James or anybody! Fisher, please, please!" It had to stay a secret. Cissy would be crushed, Ophelia edvastated. He'd been so stupid, incredibly stupid, he couldn't hurt them more with something like this. But he hadn't been able to keep it to himself anymore. "Please," Simon begged.
"No," Fisher said, shaking his head. Shit, oh fucking shit! Why the hell had Simon told him this, why had he dumped this secret on him, why had he made Fisher's life about a hundred times harder? How was he supposed to keep this from Cissy, from everyone? "No, no, you... you fucking... FUCK!!" Everyone was staring at him but he didn't notice, his head swimming. Simon had killed himself. Suicide. Baby on the way, new wife, ended his life. And Fisher wasn't supposed to tell anyone. Grabbing his bag, the medium got up from his desk, grabbing at his hair. "No, no," he muttered. This wasn't right. It couldn't be right. "You stay the fuck away from me!" he shouted at Simon as he rushed from the classroom, boots pounding in the hallway.