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Evan had been hovering around the frozen food section since July. He could feel the cool air slouching out of the doors every time a soccer mom bent down to grab a party-sized bag of Totino’s pizza rolls, but he felt it the way you feel something when you’re nodding off in the passenger seat of a car. Not entirely real, not entirely here, no matter what the weatherman on WXXI said.
His mother hadn’t come in once, but he wasn’t expecting her to. He hoped she was eating, that the Kleinmans were plying her with just-stick-’em-in-the-oven-and-wait casseroles.
He walked up and down the aisles, his arm limp at his side.
It wasn’t like the store was ever empty. People came and went during the night, restocking shelves and mopping the aisles. Evan heard them talking to each other, laughing, singing off-key in the witching hour. He recognized a few of them, older boys he might have seen in the hallway at school, but he wasn’t entirely sure. His memory still felt mostly sharp, though. Not bright and vivid and alive, but he’d never felt those things before anyway. It was kind of a bummer. He’d assumed the afterlife would feel better than this.
He stood near the microwave-steamed vegetables, reading the text on the bags. He’d read them before. He’d lost track of what day it was a while ago, and he still hadn’t left the frozen food section. The newsstand was in the front, by the checkout.
They’d read Hamlet in tenth-grade English. ”The time is out of joint.” Evan remembered the day they talked about that scene in class, because at one point he looked up from his notes and Connor Murphy was staring at him. Connor hadn’t looked angry; he hadn’t looked happy, either. He’d just looked.
Evan had practically run out of the room when the bell rang, knocking into three or four desks along the way. Connor never talked to him. Evan never talked back.
An older woman stopped in front of the freezer door Evan was next to, so he stepped aside. She had a SUNY Geneseo tote slung over her shoulder and a half-rolled copy of the Democrat and Chronicle stuffed into the top of her bag. Evan tilted his head so he could look at the date.
It was September 7th. It would have been the first day of his senior year.
Evan made the rounds the next day and found Connor Murphy standing in front of the ice cream, frowning at the shelf where they kept the Breyers. Evan was pretty sure it was still late morning, but that didn’t mean Connor wasn’t already skipping class.
Connor turned and looked at him. He was still frowning, but he looked more confused than annoyed. There was a big, misshapen vomit stain down the front of his sweatshirt.
“You’re dead,” he said.
“Yes,” Evan said. He almost took a step forward, then thought better of it.
“You can see me?” he asked.
Connor nodded.
“How can you see me?”
Connor turned back to the ice cream. “I’m dead, too.”
Evan stood at the back of the aisle and watched Connor walk over to the dairy section.
“Why are you just standing there?” Connor asked. His back was to Evan, his hands in his pockets.
Evan twisted the hem of his shirt in his hand. The motion made the other arm swing back and forth, like a breeze. “I’ve never left the frozen section.”
Connor turned around and squinted at him. “Why?”
Evan shrugged. “I don’t know. I just haven’t.”
“But you’re a ghost.”
“I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything.”
“You can still do stuff if you’re a ghost. You can walk around a fucking supermarket.”
Evan nodded, looked down at the floor, and didn’t move. Connor’s boots moved into his peripheral vision.
“You’ve been dead for months,” Connor said. “I’ve been here for an hour and I’m already bored out of my mind. Aren’t you bored out of your mind?”
Evan looked up and met Connor’s eyes. “I think resignation supersedes boredom. And I never liked grocery stores. They made me anxious.”
Connor nodded. “I never liked them either. Always made me feel like I had ginger ale in my veins.”
He started to turn around, waving his hand in the direction of the dairy display. Evan stared at him.
“Come on, doofus,” Connor said, looking over his shoulder. “We’re just gonna look at the yogurt.”
Evan followed him the fifteen feet across the back aisle. Connor reached forward, like he was going to grab a cup of the unsettling two-colored Trix yogurt.
“What are you doing?” Evan asked.
Connor scrunched his face up. “What do you mean, what am I doing?”
“You can’t touch that.”
“Why the fuck not? Is it going to burn my nonexistent skin?”
Evan frowned. “I don’t—I don’t know.”
Connor blinked at him. “You mean that in addition to crawling up and down the frozen section like a fucking turtle for two months, you’ve never tried to touch anything here?”
Evan glanced at his shoes. “No.”
Connor shrugged. “Never know unless you try.” Then he reached forward again and took a hold of the cup, tossing it up and down a few times before putting it back.
“I hated yogurt,” he said.
“Me too,” Evan said.
“Do you remember how you got here?”
Evan shook his head. “No. I remember the park. And the tree. And falling. Things were dark for a while, then I was here.” He shifted on the floor and leaned back against the shelf that had the cheap dog food. He looked up at Connor, who was sitting on the top shelf, next to the expensive stuff. He swung his legs back and forth.
“What about you?” Evan asked.
“The same, more or less. I remember being in the park and lying on the bench.” Connor gestured at the front of his sweatshirt where the vomit stain had stuck around, just like Evan’s limp arm and the crack in his skull. “I guess I puked at some point, but I don’t remember. I’m pretty sure I was somewhere else between the park and here, but I don’t remember that part either.”
“You died on a park bench?”
“Overdosed. Another tally on the long list of Americans who’ve fallen victim to the opioid crisis.”
Evan stretched his legs out. The aisles were still wide at this end of the store. The soles of his shoes hit about the halfway point. “Did you mean to overdose?” he asked.
Connor kicked his foot out a little further. “If you’re asking me if I killed myself, the answer is yes.”
Evan nodded.
“Did you mean to fall out of that tree?” Connor asked. Evan pulled at a loose thread in his pants that would never get better or worse.
“I figured you did,” Connor said.
Evan looked closer at his face. Connor had nice eyes, he realized. “How?”
Connor shrugged. “You didn’t fall out of trees when we were kids.”
“No,” Evan said, turning back to the loose thread. “I guess I didn’t.”
Connor kicked his legs back and forth some more. A mom with reading glasses and a list stopped a few yards from where they sat, squinting at the cat food. Three kids rounded the corner behind her, the tallest pushing the cart and the smallest riding on the front.
“My mom would bring me and Zoe here sometimes,” Connor said, watching the kids. “When we were really little. Drop us off in the play area while she shopped.”
“I wonder why those kids aren’t in there now.”
“They shut it down a few months ago. The room is still there and I’m pretty sure all the old shit is in there too, but no one works there anymore.”
“That stinks,” Evan said.
“Did your mom ever drop you off there?” Connor asked.
“Nope,” Evan said. “The only times I ever came here were when I’d tag along with Jared’s mom. My mom mostly shops at Aldi.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe she’ll be able to afford Wegmans produce now.”
The toe of Connor’s boot nudged his shoulder.
“Does that mean you’ve never had a Wegmans sub?” he asked.
Evan frowned. “They make subs here?”
“Oh my God,” Connor said. He jumped down from the top shelf and grabbed Evan’s wrist, dragging him along. “C’mon, we’re going to the sub counter.”
Evan frowned some more. “Why?”
“To get subs, moron.”
“There are some flaws in your plan, buddy,” Evan said.
Connor raised his eyebrows. “Never know unless you try.”
He steered them to the front of the store, off to the side near the hot bar and the deli. A dozen people stood on line at the sub counter.
“Jeez,” Evan said. He looked at the clock by the exit, above the employee of the month display. “It’s not even 10 a.m.”
“No one here is fucking around,” Connor said, walking to the back of the line. “Including us. This is deadly serious business.”
“Again,” Evan said, crossing his arms, “I think there are some flaws in your plan.”
Connor waved him off. “What do you like on a sandwich?”
Evan shrugged. “I mostly ate peanut butter and jelly on white bread.”
“Christ. No wonder you killed yourself.”
Evan scoffed. “Clearly a Wegmans sub wasn’t enough to keep you alive until graduation.”
“I was crazy,” Connor said. “Everyone knew that.”
“I never thought you were crazy,” Evan said.
“Then you were crazy too.”
“Yeah,” Evan said, shrugging. “Maybe.”
The line inched forward. No one got behind them.
“What kind of sub do you get?” Evan asked.
“Roast beef,” Connor said. “With cheddar and lettuce and tomato and onions. And mayo and mustard.”
“Hmmm,” Evan said.
“I’m getting you one too.”
“Connor, the guy behind the counter can’t hear us. No one can hear us. Or see us.”
“Like I said, you’ll never know unless you try.”
When they got to the front of the line, the guy at the meat slicer pulled out his phone.
“Hey,” Connor said, “we’d like to order. Two roast beef subs with cheddar, lettuce, tomato, and onions. And mayo and mustard.”
Mr. Meat Slicer kept looking at his phone.
“Dude,” Connor said, crossing his arms, “hellooooo. We want to order and we don’t got all day.”
“Actually, we do have all day,” Evan muttered.
“Hush,” Connor said. “Bro, come on. Help us out here.”
A middle-aged guy with sunglasses wrapped around the back of his head came up to the counter. Mr. Meat Slicer looked up and put his phone back in his pocket. “Hey boss, what can I get for you?” he asked the guy, who was presumably alive.
“Hey, what gives?” Connor yelled. “We’re customers and you’re discriminating against us!”
“I don’t think New York state has any laws on the books about ghosts being a protected class,” Evan said.
“Well, they should,” Connor said, huffing. “Fuck this. Let’s go throw bouncy balls at the wall.”
“Remember when we read ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ in ninth grade?” Evan asked over the loudspeaker playing ‘80s goth music in the middle of the night. He and Connor laid side-by-side on their backs, watching the night manager, a 26-year-old with a spiked green mohawk named Candy, direct the gaggle of guys precariously hanging Halloween decorations from the rafters.
“Vaguely,” Connor said. His arms were crossed behind his head. “Was that when Mrs. Winters had us do that Southern Gothic unit?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I’ve decided I’m inventing Western New York Gothic. Or coining the term, at least.”
Connor turned his head so he was looking at Evan. “What, like spooky garbage plates? Sinister lake effect snow?”
Evan gestured toward the ceiling where the speakers lived. “I was thinking more about how I’ve never heard a song in a grocery store that was released in my lifetime.”
Connor raised an eyebrow. “You think grocery stores in other parts of the state play music released this century?”
Evan nodded sagely. “I bet downstate they play stuff that hasn’t even been released yet. The DJs at the top 40 radio stations have spies on the inside. They’ve got a tip line and everything.”
Connor grinned. It was the first time Evan had seen him smile. “Were you this funny when we were alive?”
Evan watched a cobweb float down into the condiments aisle. “I don’t know. I didn’t talk to enough people to find out.”
One song ended, another started—bright, happy, jangly. Evan vaguely recognized it. Connor sat up and leaned back on his palms, grinning ear-to-ear. He was still looking at Evan.
“This was my favorite song,” Connor said.
Evan turned so he was lying on his side. “Was?”
Connor considered that for a moment. “Huh. I guess it still is.”
Evan grinned. “That’s the spirit.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Wait a second. I know this song.” He stared at Connor, bewildered, before he burst out laughing.
“What?” Connor asked, caught somewhere between amusement and outrage. Evan laughed and laughed in a way he didn’t remember ever doing when he was alive. If he could cry in this ethereal form his body and soul had taken after the fall he was sure his vision would swim with tears of joy.
“We’re dead and trapped in a Wegmans and you’re telling me your favorite song is ‘Just Like Heaven’?” he asked.
Connor smiled, and then he was laughing too. He sat up, pulling his knees into his chest and wrapping one arm around his legs. He extended his other arm toward Evan, palm stretched out.
“What are you doing?” Evan asked.
“Come on,” Connor said. “I want to see whose hand is bigger.”
Evan blinked. “Why?”
“Humor me, Hansen.”
Evan propelled himself into a sitting position, knees pulled up to his chest so he was mirroring Connor. He grasped his left wrist with his right hand, moving his arm until there were just a few inches between their palms.
“Does it hurt?” Connor asked quietly.
“No,” Evan said. “It’s just kind of useless.”
Connor shifted forward and rested his palm against Evan’s. It didn’t feel warm, exactly, but it felt warmer than things usually felt.
Connor’s palm was wider than Evan’s, his fingers longer. He smirked.
“Knew it,” he said.
Evan rolled his eyes. “No shit. You’re taller than me, bozo.”
Connor smiled. “It was worth confirmation.”
The warmth stayed with Evan for the rest of the day.
They weren’t always together. Time was weird, here in the afterlife. So were feelings. Only a hint of anxiety had followed Evan through death, like a radio transmitter fifty miles away. It was the same for Connor’s paranoia, like it originated from a distant memory more than a categorical sensation.
Still, they’d been loners in adolescence, even if not always by choice, and habits were hard to break. They’d been wandering this Wegmans built on the edge of town together for months and it still felt alien to Evan to be with another person 24/7. He knew Connor felt the same way, so every now and then they’d split up for a bit. Sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours, but never more than a day. It was a decision they’d reached in unspoken agreement.
Evan had been in the magazine aisle for some time. He’d read the latest issue of National Geographic and was now flipping through Cosmo. He liked the nail polish ads. They felt familiar. Warm, like Connor’s hand.
Suddenly he felt off—in life that would mean his blood pressure had dropped and he was one minute away from his ears ringing, two minutes away from the tunnel vision, three minutes away from the drenching sweat and the nausea and dropping his head between his knees. But none of that came, just a dissociated sense of dread and worry that didn’t belong to him.
Evan put the magazine back on the rack and made his way to the back of the aisle, weaving in and out of the chips and canned soup and pasta, looking for long dark hair and a soft hoodie. The dread got worse the further he went.
Connor was standing at the mouth of the frozen section, motionless, his back to Evan. A woman at the other end of the aisle was staring at the frozen pizzas, the vegan ones with the plastic-y cheese. She had a white-knuckled grip on the handlebar of her shopping cart. The dark circles under her eyes looked like they’d been there for a thousand years.
Evan walked over to Connor until they were side-by-side and looked up at his face. Connor’s eyes were wide and his mouth was open. Evan turned back to the woman.
“Is that your mom?” he asked.
Connor nodded. He’d started shaking.
“C’mon,” Evan said quietly, taking Connor’s hand and leading him away.
Evan scanned the front of the store until he found the empty play area, where they walked through the door and climbed into the padded loft. Evan sat, tugging Connor’s sleeve, pushing their bodies together until they were joined from shoulder to ankle.
Connor crossed his arms over his chest and buried his face in the crook of Evan’s neck. The shaking hadn’t stopped. If anything it was getting worse.
Evan wrapped his good arm around Connor, rubbing his hand up and down his bicep. He remembered just about every tune his mom had sung to him at night when he was a scared little kid who couldn’t sleep, before he’d become a scared big kid who couldn’t sleep.
He rested his cheek against the top of Connor’s head and started with the first John Denver song he could think of.
Maybe it was minutes, maybe it was hours, but Connor relaxed into him, inch by inch.
“Do you regret it?” Connor asked the next day. They sat cross-legged on a cot in the storage room, knees touching.
Evan looked down at his hands. “I probably should.”
“But you don’t?” Connor perched his elbow on his thigh and sank his cheek into his hand.
“I don’t know,” Evan said. “I don’t think so. I don’t—” He cut himself off, twisting his mouth.
“You don’t what?” Connor asked.
Evan stared at the wall.
“It’s okay,” Connor said softly. “You can say it.”
“High school sucked, obviously,” Evan said. “But I don’t think anything would’ve gotten better, like, ever. I would’ve been anxious and suicidal for the rest of my life. Nothing would’ve changed.” He looked down at his hands and fiddled with his shoelaces.
Connor put his hand on top of Evan’s and turned his palm over, lacing their fingers together.
“Yeah,” he said. “My life had been over for a long time. Seemed kind of dumb to keep pretending to be alive.”
Evan watched Connor stroke the back of his hand with his thumb. “Why’d you pick the park?”
“I didn’t want my mom to be the one to find me,” Connor said. “Why’d you pick the tree?”
Evan squeezed his hand. “Trees always made me happy.”
It’s not exactly a well-known fact that ghosts don’t sleep, since most people living in the twenty-first century don’t believe ghosts are real. One would assume it’s heavily implied, though.
Evan didn’t sleep, but the weeks went by and something like peace started to grow in his chest. Peace felt like rest, and rest felt like his head on Connor’s shoulder, and Connor’s head on his.
Peace, and rest, and warmth. Connor’s body against his, Connor’s voice in his ear, Connor’s hand spread out on his knee, sliding up his thigh, timid and careful and warm warm warm—
Evan turned his face into Connor’s neck. He didn’t need to breathe, but he did anyway, rich and deep, skimming his lips across Connor’s jawline.
“Evan,” Connor said, his voice shaky and his hand sliding inward to squeeze his thigh.
Evan kissed up his jaw, to his chin, to the side of his mouth until he reached his lips and then he was kissing Connor and Connor was kissing him back and Evan cradled his precious face in his good hand and flopped his dead arm until Connor took it and held it reverently with one hand and grasped the back of Evan’s neck with the other.
Evan moved his hand to Connor’s shoulder and pushed at him until Connor was under him on the mat and Evan was covering Connor’s body with his own. He was falling and he was going to hit the ground, but Connor was the ground now and his mouth made Evan feel like he was being born anew, like he’d been granted a second chance, like a mysterious celestial being he’d never quite believed in was sitting on some distant tree branch in silent agreement.
They never stopped kissing. Hands on ribs, hands on hips, hands on thighs, hands wiggled between their bodies until they were holding each other. Connor’s voice had always been high but his whimpers were higher and Evan swallowed all of them down, the only thing he’d been hungry for since the day he died.
Afterward, a miracle: Connor’s face and neck flushed, like a living boy.
“What did you like to do?” Evan asked in the afterglow. “Other than eating Wegmans subs.”
Connor traced patterns on Evan’s arm. “I liked watching movies.”
Evan snuggled deeper into Connor’s chest. “What kind of movies?”
“There was this one director I really liked,” Connor said. “He made a lot of movies about guys who sucked, like me. My favorite was about a closeted Japanese writer who tried to stage a coup and then killed himself.”
Evan frowned. “Overthrowing the government sounds like too much work.” He tilted his chin and kissed Connor’s cheek. “And you don’t suck.”
“I did when I was alive,” Connor said.
Evan shrugged against Connor’s shoulder. “So did I.”
Connor shifted so they were lying face-to-face. “Can I ask you something?”
Evan nodded.
Connor looked at him for long enough that Evan thought he might not say anything at all. “Do you think we’d still be alive if we had found each other in time?”
Evan pictured it: a warm spring day; the two of them sitting at the base of a tree in Ellison, pressed together from shoulder to ankle; roast beef subs; sunlight on Connor’s smile. A reason to wake up in the morning. A reason to stick around.
He smiled, but he knew it wasn’t much of one. He reached out and stroked Connor’s cheekbone with his thumb. Connor closed his eyes, turning his face into Evan’s fingers.
“We have each other now,” Evan said.
Connor opened his eyes. He reached his hand out until it cradled the side of Evan’s head, his thumb on the crack that started in the middle of Evan’s forehead and extended to the back of his skull. His touch was gentle. His smile was real.
“My mom would’ve loved you,” he said, soft and sweet.
Evan took a loop around the store, checking out all the spring plants and flowers that were starting to come in. Sunlight poured in through the windows, warm on his face, warm like Connor’s touch. He never learned how to whistle, but that didn’t stop him from trying as he turned from the floral department in the direction of the cafe.
Two women sat at a table, coffee cups in hand, heads bent toward each other. Evan stopped in his tracks. The phantom sensation of a rapid heartbeat coursed through him, his limbs stuck in place.
Connor was at his side a few seconds later. “What’s wrong?” he murmured into Evan’s ear, looping their arms together.
Evan shook his head. “Look,” he whispered, pointing at the table where their moms sat crying. Connor followed the line of his finger until his eyes went wide.
“Holy shit,” he said, clutching Evan’s arm tighter. “That’s your mom?”
Connor’s mom pulled out a pack of tissues and handed some to Evan’s mom; Evan’s mom said something while wiping her eyes; Connor’s mom laughed, bright and shocked, and then Evan’s mom was laughing and they were clutching at each other and smiling and crying and it made Evan feel—
“Connor,” Evan said, looking up at him. “We’ve never tried to leave this store.”
“No,” Connor said, realization dawning across his face. “No, we haven’t.”
Evan looked back at their moms, holding each other’s hands. “We’ll never know unless we try, right?”
Connor nodded, threading his fingers through Evan’s hair and leaning down to kiss his temple. “Any parks on Lake Ontario you want to take me to?”
Evan smiled, leaning up to kiss the tip of Connor’s nose. “Tons of ‘em. But I was thinking we could stop by a movie theater first, see what’s playing. Does that sound good to you?”
Connor huffed out a laugh, nodding. “Sounds perfect.”
“Come on,” Evan said. He took Connor’s hand and led them toward the exit. “Follow me.”