Chapter 4
Jeremy wasn’t really paying attention to the time at all. He didn’t care. Everything just hurt and he wanted it to stop and he knew how to make it stop, he knew it, but he refused to do it. He had a job to do, and he had people counting on him. He wouldn’t let down his friends like that. Still, this whole cycle of pain and crying kept him caught in his head, which was why he jumped pretty badly when he heard a knock.
It wasn’t from the door, that much was clear (part of him wished that it was). Jeremy was still curled up against it, and he didn’t feel the knock. And besides, it sounded like it came from the wall his cupboard was against.
“Hello?” he called softly, wincing at how wrecked his voice was.
“Jeremy? What happened?” Christine asked before her head poked through the wall, Brooke following behind a second later.
“Stuff I really wish didn’t happen.” Jeremy sighed, curling back up. “Dad and Marshal just proved me right, and I wish they hadn’t.”
“Brooke, sit with him. I see some blankets and I need to work,” Christine said before zooming to where Jeremy’s sleeping bag and blankets were that he found easier.
Brooke hovered over, sitting next to Jeremy. “Do you want to talk about what happened or do you want to talk about something else?”
“Something else, please,” Jeremy muttered. “Can you tell me a bit about... you?”
“Oh, sure. What would you like to know about me?”
“What music do you like?” Michael had once told Jeremy that you could tell a lot about a person by their music tastes. Jeremy believed him. Michael was a great judge of character despite struggling with things like social cues.
“Well, I guess it depends. I like softer piano music, like Clair De Lune, but I also like some pop music. Anything that’s come out since 2011 or 2012 though. It started getting whiny and annoying then. I also like some of the musical music Christine introduced me to,” Brooke listed. “Little Shop of Horrors will always be my favorite musical though.”
“I like that musical.” Jeremy nodded with a small smile. “Michael made me watch it when we were ten. He made the popcorn all by himself and I was so impressed.” That was a nice memory. It didn’t hurt so much since it was old. “We watched a lot of musicals... and I have lots of bootlegs on my laptop.”
“Which musical is your favorite?” Brooke asked as she tugged the sleeves of her cardigan up to bunch at her elbows.
“Um... I’m not sure. I do kinda like Heathers.” Jeremy hummed. “I also enjoy some of those Disney original musicals? Like, when it was little I actually enjoyed High School Musical. And Lemonade Mouth was my favorite of them.”
“I think those were past my time. Geez, I feel old,” Brooke said around a laugh. “Well, I remember High School Musical. I was in high school then. I didn’t ever see Lemonade Mouth though. Did you, hun?”
“Nope!”
Jeremy giggled a little at that. “They’re cheesy and stupid and fun, and the music in some of them is actually really good,” he explained. “I liked watching them when I was having a bad day.”
“Well, you can watch a lot of things online now. Maybe you can show them to us eventually,” Brooke offered.
“I’d like that.” He really would. He hadn’t watched one of those movies in years. “What musicals do you like?” Maybe Jeremy had a bootleg of it. He had a lot. He had a whole external hard drive dedicated to his bootlegs, which he updated and maintained almost religiously thanks to Michael’s constant stream of links. Which meant that he was getting behind. Oh.
“Tell him in the blanket nest. It’s complete,” Christine sang. “Come on come on, come over here!”
Jeremy blinked out of his depressive thoughts. “You made me a blanket nest?” he asked, peering at the pile of softness and plushies that Christine had made. It seemed to be centered around his sleeping bag, with all his pillows, cushions, blankets and plushies being used to make the actual ‘nest’ aspect. The Sandshrew plush which Michael had given Jeremy when they were five sat on the top, and Jeremy scooped him up oh so carefully as he wobbled over. “Thank you so much, Christine.” He climbed in, cuddling Sandshrew tightly as he curled up and relaxed.
“Of course. These always have helped me when I was upset. If we still had our stuff, I would’ve made it bigger and fluffier,” Christine explained as she sat next to Jeremy on one side. Brooke got comfortable on his other side.
Jeremy shook his head as he nuzzled against the soft walls of the nest. “This is perfect as it is.” He smiled weakly. “Thank you.” He held Sandshrew close and closed his eyes.
“Michael gave me this plushie,” he started after a moment. “We were five, and we’d just become friends at school. I had been crying all lunch time since some of the kids were picking on me and pulling my hair and stuff. The next day, Michael brought in Sandshrew and gave him to me, because Sandshrew always made him feel better when he was upset and he thought I’d need it more than he did. I kept him but he belonged to both of us after that.” Jeremy sniffled a little and scrubbed at his eyes. “S-sorry. Didn’t mean to ramble.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m glad to know more about you and Michael. We both are,” Christine reassured Jeremy and Brooke nodded in agreement. “He sounds like he was a very nice kid.”
“He was.” Jeremy nodded, tearing up. “He was the best. The very best person I knew.” He buried his face against Sandshrew, the tears now actually starting to fall. “My favorite person. I miss him so much. It hurts so much.”
Both of the ghosts just hugged Jeremy and let him cry his feelings out. He never realized how much he needed and wanted this until now, to talk things out.
After a while, Jeremy’s tears began to slow to a stop. He felt marginally better. The pain was still there, as well as the loss, but he felt like maybe he was better equipped to handle it.
“I was- God, I was going to ask him out, before we found out about the cancer. I was just trying to get into a healthier mindset back then before I did,” he confessed. “I wanted to be my very best for him since that’s what he deserved...” He knew he was pouring his heart out to basically two strangers, but it was helping him more than he could explain right then. “After he knew he was sick, it was like it just... wasn’t worth it. It was hard enough handling all of this as his best friend. I don’t think I could have handled it as his boyfriend.”
“Even if you weren’t dating, you still loved him as if you were though,” Brooke pointed out. “Just... some insight.”
“I know.” Jeremy sighed. “But if we were dating, it would have hurt him more. Since we wouldn’t get all of the things he’d want... He always was a bit of a romantic.” If they had been together and Michael hadn’t freaked out from the fact that Jeremy was at the very least super infatuated (he was in love, he knew it for sure), he would have hated that they didn’t get the full run of life together. He knew that Michael was kicking himself for not being there as Jeremy’s best friend by the end, if they were together romantically, Michael would be hurting so much more. He didn’t deserve anything that had happened to him, so Jeremy was glad he could make sure things weren’t even worse for him.
“But you were hurting. You’re still hurting,” Brooke said as she rubbed Jeremy’s back.
“I am.” Jeremy nodded. “I’m hurting so much that it feels like it’ll never stop. And I’ve just felt so alone. It was bad after Mom left but when Mikey-...” He trailed off, tears surfacing again. He tried to calm himself down.
Christine and Brooke both continued to comfort Jeremy as he managed to calm himself down. “Well, we’re both here for you, Jeremy,” Christine assured him. “We won’t let you feel alone again.”
They could only keep that promise while Jeremy was in their house, but he appreciated it nonetheless. “Thank you.” He sighed.
“Of course. Now, you relax in the nest and we’ll answer any questions you want,” Christine insisted.
Jeremy hugged Sandshrew tighter. “What’s in the photo albums? Can I... can I see?” he asked softly.
Brooke nodded as she got up and over to where Jeremy directed her. “The albums are our wedding album and one we’ve made for big events in our lives together,” Christine explained. “They both mean the world to us.”
As Christine explained and Brooke came back with the wedding album first, Jeremy felt himself feel happy for once. Even if there was still lingering sadness, he enjoyed the happiness peeking out of everything else. He forgot how good it felt.
A few days later, Jeremy had firmly set his mind on his goal. Everything had been delivered and almost everything was unpacked. If he wanted to scare away his family, now was possibly his last chance to do so.
“So, I think we need to take you two downstairs and you scare my dad and Marshal,” Jeremy suggested. It was just after lunch and he knew he wouldn’t be missed for a while. “Once everything is unpacked, it’ll take ages before we can actually manage to get us back to New Jersey.”
Brooke and Christine nodded. “We’ve been trying to practice when we’ve been in the attic,” Brooke said with a smile. “I think we’ve gotten better.”
“You wanna give me a demo?” Jeremy grinned excitedly. In all honesty, he loved horror games (he was better at them then Michael somehow) and so he didn’t spook easily. If they could scare him, not that he’d ever be scared of them properly, then he knew they’d have no problems with his family.
The two nodded again before Christine rolled her shoulders out. After a few rolls, her head fell off, spurting out what seemed to be off-colored (or maybe ghost) blood before Brooke screamed. As she screamed, her jaw literally dropped. She pulled at her hair as she screamed, which caused her own head to pop off.
Jeremy jumped backwards with a small scream of his own, falling onto his rump before bursting out laughing. “That was fucking awesome! That’ll definitely scare dad and Marshal!” He cheered through his giggles.
Both ladies put their heads back on. “Really? I guess not quoting Shakespeare adds to the scariness,” Christine said as Brooke put her jaw back in place.
Jeremy giggled. “That was so awesome.” He grinned. In all honesty, he’d been happier these past few days than he had been in a while. Christine and Brooke were just... lovely.
“I’m glad you think so. We’ve been trying to perfect doing it when we intend on doing it,” Brooke added with a smile.
Jeremy grinned and climbed to his feet. “So, how should we do this? I pretend to be scared and then you come in and spook them?”
Christine nodded. “That’ll add the most dramatic effect and build the most tension.”
Jeremy nodded and shook himself out. “It’s been a while since I last did any acting. Here’s hoping I can still pull it off.” He huffed. “Follow a few seconds after me.”
The girls both nodded, and Jeremy left his room. This was it. The big moment. He’d scare his family shitless and they’d go back to New Jersey.
Listening in, Jeremy found them in the living room. He took some deep breaths before dashing into the living room, panting. “We- we gotta get out of here,” he gasped, making sure his face was schooled into a panic. “There’s- there’s ghosts.”
Marshal looked around with wide eyes. “Wait, ghosts?”
On cue, Christine and Brooke came in. Christine ‘tripped’ and her head rolled across the floor, landing right by his dad’s feet. Brooke screamed and her jaw dropped before she tugged her head off by her hair. Jeremy made sure to scream for good measure. This had to scare them. This was totally terrifying.
Why weren’t they screaming?
“Yeah! Right-” How were they missing this? “Right there!” He pointed at Brooke. “Can’t-... you... you can’t see them?” he asked, a little broken. How couldn’t they see Brooke and Christine? They were right there and pretty much solid!
Marshal shook his head as he looked right through Brooke, even as Jeremy kept pointing. “I don’t see anything, Jeremy.”
“But they’re- they’re right there!” He gestured at Brooke and then Christine. Then he let his arm drop, defeated. “You... really can’t see them.”
His dad sighed and looked at Jeremy. “I know you don’t want to move, Private. You want to go back to how things were before. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work like that-“
“I’m not lying, dad. There really are ghosts in this house,” Jeremy pleaded a little. “The ladies who died here before we moved in, Brooke and Christine. They’re right here.” The ghosts in question floated over to Jeremy and put their hands on his shoulders.
“Son, there’s no one there.”
“But they are here,” Jeremy protested weakly. “I... I was trying to scare you. I wanna go home, but they are really here. They just want their home back too.” He just wanted them to believe him. His friends were important to him. “They’re scared too and they just want to have their home back.”
“It’s unfortunate that the couple who lived here before us died, but it’s just us three here, Jeremy. I know you’re upset, but we have to live with what we have.”
“Dad, we should-“
“Marsh, please, let me talk.”
“I’m not lying, dad!” Jeremy cried. “They’re my friends! And they’ve been the only reason I’ve been happy at all in the past three months!” Why wouldn’t his dad listen?
“There’s nobody there, Jeremy. I don’t see anybody, and neither does Marshal.”
“Dad, stop-“
“Marshal, let me handle this,” his dad insisted as he faced Jeremy. “Everything has been hard on you, and I’m glad you’re starting to find ways to cope. I really am.”
“But they’re really here dad!”
“No one is there, Jeremy!”
“Yes there is, dad! Christine is on my right and Brooke is on my left! They’re my friends!”
His dad got up from the couch before walking right through Christine and then Brooke. “Nobody is here. We aren’t going back to New Jersey. We are staying here and we need to start moving forward.”
“Well maybe I don’t want to move on!” Jeremy snapped, his watery eyes turning to angry tears. “Maybe I’m not ready to! But you wouldn’t fucking know that since you never even asked me! I didn’t even know we were moving until a week before!”
“I did tell you! I told you when we were considering moving to when I went to look. I told you everything was settled a week before moving, Jeremy. You just stopped listening.”
Jeremy flinched and scowled. “I stopped listening when you stopped caring! I’ve basically been living by myself for the past two years, and Michael was all I had!” he screamed back. “He was the only one who cared about the fact I didn’t come home some nights, or the fact that I wasn’t eating for almost six months!” Jeremy took a shaky breath, his tears falling faster and his voice going so much softer. “He was the only one who cared enough to tell me it wasn’t my fault.” Jeremy knew it was, but having Michael tell him it wasn’t him who broke up his parents’ relationship helped calm him at least a little.
The shock and surprise on his dad’s face said enough. “Jeremy-“
“No, you know what? I’m done. I just can’t do this anymore!” Jeremy turned and stormed out, ignoring how everyone else was calling for him, including Christine and Brooke. He shot upstairs, into the attic, and locked the door behind himself. There, he didn’t have to worry about them trying to stop him now.
He headed up the stairs, grabbing one of the notebooks he left up there and ripping out a page. The least he could do was write a note. It was something that the Mells could read if nothing else.