My Haunted Heart

a collaborative short story

Whip Ma Whop Ma Film from Pinterest

Hello, all! I recently shared a micro story and asked others to add on to it, creating a full short story from multiple angles—I absolutely love how it turned out! Thank you to Marie Rose 🥀, Ella 🪐🎩💫, Lexie 🐰🌙, 𝄢 Juan José, and Fiona🌻 for getting creative with me!

Order of creation: Rion, Marie Rose, Ella, Lexie, Juan, Fiona, Rion

—I open the blinds. The light filters in. My heart hammers in my ears. He’s there again. Watching me.

—I knew he’d be there, the ghost that seems to haunt only me. I’ve stopped talking about him a long time ago, unable to stomach the pitiful stares of those who claim to love me.

—Yes, these voices in my head know to hide a scream behind a facade of kind words, a two-sided mirror, the mirror whose duplicate he created and then left. He left me with a mirror that will always hold his image and made sure I’m the only one who would ever see its reflection.

—I open the blinds wider, as if the light might dissolve him. It doesn’t. He remains where he always is, patient, almost gentle in his persistence. For a moment I wonder if he is waiting for me to look away first, like we used to when we were children playing silent games of endurance.

But ghosts do not blink. And the worst part is not that he’s still there. It’s that some quiet, traitorous part of me is relieved to see that he hasn’t left.

—He is not blinking, and I realize with a quiet dread that neither have I. They say ghosts linger because they cannot move on, but no one asks what keeps them tethered here, staring through the glass. Perhaps that is the cruelest trick of all—not that he refuses the mirror, but that he knows exactly why I do.

—Although sometimes I am afraid that this is all a dream, and when I will wake up, I will notice that he is gone forever. But the thing with ghosts is that once they leave, you can never call them back to you. So I stare at the light coming through, praying Helios, praying Apollo, praying all the gods and goddesses related to the Sun : please do not let him disappear, for being haunted by him is the only thing that gives my heart another purpose than pumping blood.

—I stand a moment longer than I should, reminding myself he is here to stay. I can step away, proceed to live through my day. And when night comes and the moonlight shines down, he’ll still be there watching, not making a sound. My heart will hammer, in the familiar way it does, and I will sleep. A new day will come, and we will live this routine on repeat.

Thank you for reading our little story! Stop by again soon :)