In the dimly lit store that I run, we don’t usually get many customers. Sometimes there’d be the occasional student or two, searching for a snack to fill their stomachs after a tiring day of school, or maybe an elderly lady looking for the day’s paper. Yesterday, I’d only had one real customer, a young man with glasses who flew into a rage because I didn’t supply a magazine he’d wanted. I’d kicked him out, but he’d come back, apologizing for his behavior and getting an expensive drink and the day’s newspaper instead. I try not to stare much at the cover of today’s newspaper, all talking about yesterday’s accident. I don’t want to think about it. I’m too afraid to.
I haven’t had any customers come in the store since this morning. I suppose they all have gone to pay tributes to the little girl who died just across the street, but I can’t find the courage to go check the place out. The memories tied to that afternoon, to the street where I avoid looking at when I come to open up shop, are too horrifying to remember.
A tinkling noise enters my ears. I straighten up in my seat at the cash register, taking note of the teenager who steps into my shop. He’s the spitting image of a model, tall with mismatching eyes, one piercing black, the other a reddish hue, that sweep his surroundings. I’ve seen him in this shop a couple times before, when my husband was still helping me out. He notices me and gives me a tart nod before bowing his head a little lower and shuffling off to the candy aisle.
My eyes narrow a bit at his slightly suspicious behavior. He isn’t going to take anything without paying, is he? Just like that little girl yesterday, thinking she could walk out with whatever she wanted?
I bite my lip hard. I can’t think about it. I can’t. I have to focus on my job, on what is happening right now. What happened isn’t my fault. I had no control over what happened yesterday. I have to forget.
“What are you doing?”
I snap my head up. I can see the boy’s head from the nose up poking out from between the shelves. His head is turned to the side, staring at something beside him. There is nothing but empty air.
I get out from behind the counter and head over, speaking up. “Is there something wrong?”
He glances over and dips his head lower to his chest, mumbling, “Sorry, I was imagining things.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, stalking over to see what he actually is doing.
My eyes fall on the mess on the floor, bars of chocolate and other snacks thrown on the floor in disarray. I glare at the boy, my arms crossed as I demand, “How will you explain yourself, young man?”
“It wasn’t me,” he immediately responds. “It was his ghost.”
“Oh, please excuse me for not remembering that ghosts like fooling around in my shop,” I reply, the hint of sarcasm just barely noticeable.
He doesn’t say anything for a while, just staring back at me. Suddenly, he bends down and starts picking up the candy, taking a box of cookies and putting the snacks back onto their respective shelves one by one.
“What are you doing?” I ask, wondering why he’s putting everything but the cookies back onto the shelves.
He glances up and replies with a slightly confused look, “Well, you obviously think I made this mess even though I was telling the truth, so I thought I’d help put it back.”
“Not that,” I sigh, still eyeing the item in his hands. “Why aren’t you putting that back too?”
His frown deepens. “Don’t customers take what they want to buy to the counter?”
Realization hits me right in the face. “Right, sorry,” I tartly reply and retreat back to my spot in the shop. Of course, of course. What am I thinking? Not everyone is like that little girl, thinking they can take whatever they want. Wait, no, I can’t think about that. I can’t think about the girl, how she ran out the street, how the car came careening into view, how the chocolate bar she’d stolen was still tightly wrenched in her hand as she—
I pinch myself hard in the arm. Stop, I command myself. I have to stop thinking about it. There hadn’t been anything I could do anyways. It doesn’t concern me.
A faint coughing noise interrupts my thoughts, the boy blatantly staring outdoors at the intersection as he clears his throat. Right. I have customers to deal with. I have no time to dwell on those trivial things.
“Sorry,” I apologize, taking the items from the boy. “Is this everything?”
He tilts his head to the stack of newspapers behind me and asks, “Can I get one of those?”
“Sure,” I reply, turning to swipe the first copy off the stack. My eyes catch a glance of the dented car crashed into the railings, a small figure lying on the ground. I clench my fist. Just who had taken such a terrible picture? How can they be thinking of that instead of wondering about the little girl? They really are terrible.
“There’s several types of humans in this world,” the boy suddenly remarks, turning to face the intersection again.
“Excuse me?”
“People who accept their faults and people who find a way to blame others for them,” he continued in a slight monotone.
I put on a meek smile and reply, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
His eyes shift to the cover of the newspaper as he hands me a ten dollar bill. “It really was a terrible accident that happened here yesterday, wasn’t it?”
“I know,” comes a steady voice. I’m not sure where that tone is from, but I’m grateful for it. I’m not sure if I can trust myself to speak any longer as I continue, “I was so shocked that it happened right in front of my shop.”
I hand the boy back his money. He flips through the newspaper and remarks, “It’s a pity, really. If someone had stopped the little girl, she might not have died.”
Dark orbs fixate on mine, dull and emotionless. A chill runs through me as I harden my glare. He doesn’t know, does he? That I was the one who chased the girl out and caused her to race across the street? But it was the girl’s fault for being so self-centered and arrogant. Was it possible for little kids to be like that?
Besides, there’d been no one on the street at the time. No one can be a witness to say that she’d run out of my shop with me chasing after her. I’m not the one at fault.
He takes the plastic bag from the counter and sighs, “It’s sad, isn’t it? That humans can’t see ghosts, their dead loved ones? Everyone should have the right to communicate with those of the other side. Then the girl might be able to tell everyone what happened, and maybe you’d be able to—”
That’s it. I slam my hands down onto the counter and snap, “Can you stop with this ghost business? First you ruin my shelves and now you’re talking so casually about an accident? Kids like you should be in school right now! If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were the one who ran the girl down, you delinquent!”
I watch as his eyes widen in shock, feet stumbling backwards. Without another word, he races out the shop, leaving me there, seething.
A horrible thought suddenly crosses my mind. Isn’t this like what happened yesterday? What if, what if the same thing happens?
I race to the doorway of the shop, praying nothing bad had happened. I let out a sigh of relief when I see the boy paused at the intersection, on edge as he waits for the light to turn green. I don’t leave my spot, even after he reaches the other side safely. He pauses before a bench on the other side of the street. After a second’s wait, he heads off to the bus station and gets on Bus Line 1, vanishing from sight. I sigh and head back into the shop. Thank goodness. I won’t have another death on my hands.
I freeze. What am I talking about? I have never had a death on my hands. I’m not a murderer. It was the girl’s own bad luck, that was all. In fact, it would’ve been a horror to see what the girl would’ve grown up to be like, with that arrogant personality of hers.
I shake my head, clearing my thoughts as my eyes sweep across the tiny shop again. There have been a lot of people had run out the shop before today, and they’re still alive. I know it’s really just my temper, but I can’t help it. People are always doing bad things, trying to ruin the shop that my husband and I have worked so hard for.
The candy aisle is a mess again. I feel my temper starting to flare up. It had to be that boy. He’d put on such a good act, offering to put everything back where it was. Sure, I should’ve offered to restore everything to where it’d been, but why should I have to clear up other people’s messes? It’s a good thing I hadn’t. If I’d had to take care of this mess twice, I might have broken a hand trying to punch the wall in fury.
It hadn’t always been like this. With my husband with me, we’d taken care of the shop just fine, but now, I’m not so sure about myself. Would anything ever be alright?
With a sigh, I bend down and start putting everything back onto the shelves. It’s strange. I imagine that there would have at least been some noise as the boy messed up my shop. It’s almost as if it’d been some ghostly being instead, silently throwing things on the floor.
I flick myself. What a weird thought.
Just as I stand up, my work finished, another tinkle reaches my ears. I look up to see a familiar red-headed figure enter the store, giving me a wave as I straighten up. Smiling, I walk over, calling out, “Hey, nice to see you again!”
“Yeah, same. Sorry, work’s been very busy for me these past days,” my friend apologizes.
I let out a light laugh. “Criminals just never know when to stop, do they?” I joke, giving her a quick hug. My friend’s been working in the police detective squad for quite a while now. In fact, she’s pretty famous among her peers, having solved more cases than her coworkers and landing herself a title of “Ms. Sherlock Holmes” from the media.
She just gives a tired, almost forced laugh. She shrugs and sighs, “Yeah, unfortunately. With everything happening, I don’t know if I have the heart to work.”
“Did something bad happen?” I ask, ready to hear whatever troubles are bothering her.
She just glances up at me, first in disbelief, but then replacing it with a sad understanding. She responds, “I forgot you don’t like reading newspapers. You know of the accident yesterday, right?”
I struggle to keep my response to a short, sad nod. Why does the accident always have to come up? Why does everyone seem to want to come in, to see just how I would react?
“Well, the girl who died was my daughter.”
My thoughts freeze, the whirlwind inside my mind vanishing in an instant. Daughter? The girl was her daughter? The arrogant little kid who thought she was so important, she was my best friend’s daughter? Sure, we’d never met before, but how… just how could fate be so cruel?
“Oh my gosh, I’m…I’m so sorry,” I mutter, my breath catching in my throat. Sorry isn’t enough to express myself. I’d indirectly caused my friend’s child’s death. It can’t be. How can I ever tell her that? It isn’t my fault. No, it isn’t, but why do I feel so guilty?
“It’s fine,” she just replies like she hasn’t thought much about it. “I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around it much because, well, I’m afraid if I think about it too much, I might, you know, break down and…”
She trails off, blinking rapidly as if to keep the tears from surfacing. I don’t say anything, just staring at her barely composed expression, the horror accumulating inside of me. Finally, she bites her lip and continues, “I’m such a terrible mother, aren’t I? Not only did I have to marry such an useless man, I never had the time to take care of my daughter because of my work. I can’t even cry over the…the accident because I have to catch a kid who killed his own parents.”
“I’m really sorry,” I mumble, not sure what I am really apologizing for. Is it for my friend losing her only daughter? Or maybe, is it for the fact that I may have taken that away from her?
She just puts a hand to her forehead and forces a smile. “No, I’m sorry for bringing up such tragic news even though we haven’t seen each other in a while.”
No. She shouldn’t be sorry. If only what happened yesterday hadn’t happened, nothing, none of this would be happening. How can she act so cheerful when her loved one had died? I suddenly remember the boy’s words before I had chased him out. It would be wonderful, if somehow my friend can see her daughter again, even if it turns out that I am at fault, even if we no longer are friends.
But is it really my fault? No one can charge me for murder, can they, since it was really the girl who’d run out on her own? But it can’t think about it like that, can I, now that I know she wasn’t just a stranger? What I do now? There’s an uncomfortable pain in my chest, my heart pumping the guilt and the excuses into my body as my mind struggles with itself.
“By the way, have you seen this boy?” her voice breaks my thoughts as I jerk my head to the picture in her hands. It’s of the boy who’d been in here just moments before, the one who’d messed up my shop.
“Yeah, he was in my shop earlier. Did he do something wrong?” I ask, glad to move on from the topic.
She gives a solemn nod. “He’s the one I was talking about earlier who killed his own parents.”
“What?” I exclaim. A killer, in my shop? I’d even provoked him. The thought of what might’ve happened had the boy gotten angry instead of afraid chilled me.
She gave a light laugh. “Don’t worry,” she reassured me. “The boy’s not a serial killer or anything. He ran away after he committed the deed. We think he’s been wandering the city and killed his parents to be free from them. Also, just a side fact, but I’ve heard he claims to be able to see ghosts.”
“Really?” I muse. No wonder he had been bringing up ghosts so much, though really, what kind of ghost can he have imagined haunting my shop? The only person I can think of is my late husband, but really, it’s such a stupid thought.
“But anyways, did you see where he went?”
I nod and respond, “He went to the station across the street and took Bus Line 1.”
“Thanks for the tip,” my friend responds, giving a small smile. “I guess I’ll see you later then.”
Just as she steps out the shop, I call out, “I’m really sorry about what happened to your daughter.”
There’s a long pause before she replies, “Thanks.”
The door closes after her and she’s gone. I stand there for a while, not quite sure what I’m waiting for. Maybe I’m waiting for her to suddenly come back, realizing the truth behind her daughter’s accident, returning to accuse me of my crimes.
I finally turn and do another quick check-up of the shop. Sure, no customers had entered since then, but that doesn’t stop me. Enough of thinking about what happened yesterday. I have a store to run, a reputation to keep.
I find myself back in the candy aisle. Again, to my great dismay, candy has been strewn on the floor once more, irritating to the eyes. I’m about to grumble something incoherent when a thought hits me.
Just who did this?
It can’t have been her. I’d been talking to her the entire time. The only entrance to the shop is the front door, and no one had come in as far as I know.
It…can’t have actually been a ghost, right?
Just as I bend down to start picking up the bars of chocolate, my hand pauses over the brand. My husband and I used to love eating this type of candy. Whenever we gave each other one, it was our silent way of telling each other we loved each other.
Tears suddenly start to form in my eyes as I collapse onto the floor, sitting there, holding the bar of candy in my hands. I’ve never been good and doing things by myself. Even when we’d started this small shop, it was all thanks to him that we had been able to succeed for so long. What am I without him? I scare away customers, I caused a little girl to die. If only he were here to tell me what to do, if only he could tell me what I should do.
Something suddenly clatters onto my head. I look up just in time to see the familiar gold wrapping fall away, hitting the floor with a dull thud. Another suddenly appears out of nowhere, falling right into my hands. The brand of chocolate we both loved, the sign that he still loves me.
The day’s events hit me hard in the face. Ghosts, they are real. He is still with me. I’m not alone. Suddenly, all the fear, the terror, it all vanishes in an instant as I break down into tears, not caring how anything had happened, just that I’m not alone, that I can still face forward with him by my side.
What happened to the girl had been an accident. I can’t be held responsible, but I have to be able to face it. It isn’t as hard as I once thought it would be. As long as I’m not alone, I feel like I can face all the wrong I’ve done. Whether or not I can fix it doesn’t matter. At least I’ve tried, and at least I’ve admitted my faults. I don’t have to be afraid anymore.
As if it’s a sign, another piece of candy appears in front of me, the kind that the girl had so arrogantly tried to steal yesterday. I clutch it in my hand. It had been wrong of me to get angry, I realize. I’m still not so sure about what ghosts are to the world, but in the end, I can only see one way to apologize, to free my guilty conscience, to move on with my life.
So I pick myself off the ground and wipe my tears, and with a box of candy in my hand, I go and pay a tribute to the young girl across the street.
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