of ghosts

The rack of wedding dresses always appears in Goodwill around Halloween. I love running my fingers across their faded silken skirts and worn lace. Who wore these dresses? Were they smiling when they walked down the aisle? Did they cry? Who undid all those tiny buttons? Did he whisper "I love you" into her hair?

I can't help myself. I grab two dresses and drag my sister into the dressing room. She helps me through the maze of lace and silk and zips me up. We both stare at my reflection in the mirror.

This wedding dress that belongs to someone else fits me perfectly.

I stroke my cold fingers down the skirt and think about ghosts. Perhaps that's all she is now, a ghost long gone. And here I stand in her wedding dress, a ghost still living.

I buy the dress. I can't help myself. I convince the Mr. that we can be Emily and Victor from Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride for the Halloween party my friend throws every year. He loves me enough to agree.

I hang her wedding dress in my closet, running my fingers down the silk one last time before I shut the door.

....

The never ending buzz of people talking and laughing washes over me. I'm smiling in her dress, which fits me looser than it did before. My makeup is perfect. The Mr. looks dapper in his white collared shirt and vest, blue flowers tucked into the pocket. The music pounds, pounds, pounds into the walls. I am floating on whiskey, carrying my bouquet, my raggedy, ghostly veil floating behind me. I dance in the kitchen. I curl up on the couch in the garage, tucking my freezing bare feet under the layers of silk, and watch beer pong and laugh. I admire everyone's costumes. I joke with people I hardly know. I pose for pictures and smile. 

I eat.

It's not very late in the evening when I realize my smile has turned brittle. I wander through the crowd in her wedding dress and look at everyone else. They are all drinking and eating and laughing and dancing and talking and smoking and having a good time. 

I stand among them, but truthfully I am on the outskirts of this happy picture, peering wistfully through the glass. I don't fit in here. I'm not like them.

I am not happy. 

I climb the stairs, feeling crushed under the weight of my own pretense. 

In the bathroom, I look idly and drunkenly through the mirror above the sink. I don't even realize what I'm looking for until I've shut it. Something sharp. That's what I wanted. Instead I find a eyeliner pencil. I pull her skirt up and bare my thigh. 

I write "FAT" across my leg in giant black letters. 

I stare down at it and a horrible laugh catches in my throat. How juvenile. How ridiculous. 

How true.

I replace the pencil and drift out of the bathroom, but I don't return to the party downstairs. I go instead to my friend's guest room, shutting the door behind me. In the darkness, I lay down on the bed as though it's a coffin, clutching my bouquet to my chest and feeling the music pulse through the floor.

I close my eyes and wish I could just go to sleep. I wish I could drift outside of this body and into the sky. I wish I could slip through the bed, through the floor, past the crowd of people taking jello shots, through the dark menacing basement, and deep into the earth where everything is silent and still.

Instead I get up. I tip toe down the stairs in my bare feet. I join the party and find the Mr. He takes one look at me and asks me if I'm about ready to go. I feel guilty. I say no.

So I drink more whiskey.

Everything is a haze of colors and shapes and I am rocking back and forth in the kitchen. Nelly is crooning about something and someone just said something funny and everyone is laughing and there's a smile pasted across my face and I just wish I was dead.

I am a ghost.

Eventually the whiskey isn't enough. We leave before midnight. I fall into the car, pulling my layers of skirt in and clutching them to me. I am a bundle of silk and lace with fake flowers in my hair. I lay my head on the Mr.'s shoulder and close my eyes. I'm too tired to pretend anymore. 

....

I wake up in the early morning, my hair a snarled mess, my mouth dry, lips cracked. 

Next to me the Mr. sleeps peacefully in the dim light. A car drives past. A bird chirps.

This is life. And I am still in it. 

I numbly close my eyes, searching for the oblivion of sleep again. Despair sits heavy on my chest. 

Because I am still a ghost.