Page 11 of The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy

Edgar

Edgar’s best friend died when he was twelve, and it was all Edgar’s fault.

No one would admit it. Quite the contrary, in fact.

They all insisted it was a terrible, tragic accident.

They said it when the paramedics came and at the hospital, when Edgar wouldn’t let go of Antoine’s hand.

They said it at his funeral and the wake that followed.

All these brokenhearted adults, unable to see the truth.

But Edgar knew. He knew it was his fault the same way he knew that he was in love with Antoine—a bone-deep feeling that no adult logic could shake.

Antoine and his older sister, Cameron, had always been there, two doors down. Cameron was Allie’s age, Antoine was his, and Poe toddled around after them, generally happy to be included, even when they ordered him around. The five of them had been inseparable.

Somewhere along the way, Edgar realized he felt differently about Antoine than Allie seemed to feel about Cameron.

He loved the way Antoine’s clever hands turned dandelions to flower crowns as they sat sprawled lazily in the summer grass, reading comic books and planning their own.

The way his warm brown skin drank in the sun and his thick lashes fluttered as he drifted off to sleep.

That he moved worms off the sidewalk after it rained to keep them from being stepped on.

How he never—not one time—made Edgar feel like a freak.

Antoine and Cameron had understood that the Lovejoys would always rather hang out at their house than at their own.

They’d been privy to enough fights between Edgar’s parents to understand why.

Analytical Cameron had applied her belief in scientific principles to the matter, but Antoine accepted ghosts the way he did a retconned plot in a comic book—it was just the new normal, and he didn’t want to waste any time dwelling on what used to be.

Walking to school a week after Antoine’s death, Edgar had seen his friend leaning against the bodega where they had always met up for the rest of the walk.

A lightning bolt of relief struck him first, and then a hot rush of longing to throw his arms around Antoine’s skinny shoulders and smell the scent of fabric softener that always clung to his clothes, the warm scent of shea butter on his skin, and the bright hint of apple always on his breath.

Then he’d seen Antoine’s face. A blank, dead face with no trace of the sweet, smart, funny boy who’d been Edgar’s everything. That was when the choking cold had come.

And it had never really left, just twisted into a shiver that lived in his shoulders. Made him hunch them to his ears. One more layer between Edgar and the world.

He hadn’t told his siblings about seeing Antoine because every time someone said Antoine’s name, Allie and Poe looked at Edgar with such naked pity that it made him want to cry.

He didn’t tell Cameron for obvious reasons.

The waterlogged horror haunted his dreams for months, until he had trouble recalling what living Antoine had looked like.

And when the other ghosts came, there was a shade of Antoine in every one.