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Jasper Tempest did not believe in ghosts. There was no logical explanation for them.
Therefore, he argued, he could never be haunted.
The lecture hall remained quiet- the silence before the storm and buzz of students attending their lecture. Within routine, he meticulously stacked and restacked his notes into a perfect pile, whilst the sun flicked uneven rays through the warped glass.
His notes were never perfect. An invisible corner remained tucked at the wrong angle. The pages never bent evenly. Something was always wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The blackboard was never clean. The lectern organised a thousand times would never be arranged as he desired. Order; control; precision. Facts and figures. Emotions were illogical beasts that needed to remain chained away, bound in the depths of his non-existent soul.
He needed to remain in control.
Footsteps towards the hall were non-existent, as the Professor ran another wipe over the blackboard. The room hung with antiseptic and the faint creak of heatpipes rumbling above. The walls - ancient, longstanding, whispered no secrets or told any stories. No spirits shrouded corners - nothing hid behind the windows. Jasper Tempest was not haunted.
Only in the front row, third desk from the centre. The presence of Lisa Donckers remained- as she had lived. Brown eyes teeming with life, her presence and smile gentle like a flower that never wilted. Except now she was; the lily of her life cut short as it was blooming - and he had watched the scissors carelessly snip across the stem.
“You’ve gotten worse. Usually the blackboard only required 2 wipe-overs. Now it’s 4.” She remarked, much to Jasper’s disapproval.
“You are not real. A figment of my imagination to cope with-..” His voice trails off, the words embedding deep into his throat. Admitting her death would be acknowledging it was real. That she was gone.
Logistically - she was. Lisa Donckers had died. He was invited to her funeral - he watched her cremation. Lisa Donckers, the wilted flower, had been released to the wind.
“You have to let me go.” Lisa finished. She stood from her desk - manifesting his blue blazer around her shoulders. “I’m gone. You know this.”
“You aren’t here.” Jasper admits, his voice clipped and tight, fighting for control. He puts the heels of his gloved hands to his eyes, as if blocking her from view. As if blocking her would hide her ghost - or maybe himself. The latex gloves - once a comfort, once a shield, now weigh heavy and tortuous on his hands. They hide the skin, but they don’t hide the way tremors rack through to his fingertips.
The images of her flash through his brain- unwillingly. He nearly touched her hand. Nearly reached out. He gave her his jacket- the one she tauntingly wears without knowing. The replica of the blazer he wore now, impeccably tailored and buttoned to his physique.
She does not move. When he removes his hands from his eyes, she is still there. She was always there. Her gaze never faltered- warm pools of life which reflected nothing back.
“You and Dan haven’t spoken since the funeral. Don’t let me be the cause you two can’t see eye to eye anymore.” She probed.
Jasper takes a long inhale. “I have not avoided Dan Winters at all.” A weak lie.
“You have.” She remarks. She does not acknowledge the footsteps of students towards the door of the lecture hall. Jasper can’t bring himself to look.
“Let me go.” She repeats, her hand reaching out to his shoulder.
“I can’t.” He sputters, finally. “I don’t know how.”
“You haunt me.”
She is gone before her hand makes contact with his shoulder, as the students disrupt the careful hanging silence by intruding. Their chatter smothers the antiseptic air, but not her presence.
Jasper Tempest was haunted.