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Rhonda does not like most people. Being dead, murdered more specifically, and unable to move on trapped in the building where it happened would do that to a person. She’s been stuck in high school for over half a century, teenage angst and all, and she was not interested in making friends. The other ghosts and her? Aquaintenses by circumstance, at most. She attended the group sessions with everyone who wanted to move on, participated the bare minimum, and nosed around the teacher’s lounge for juicy gossip when she couldn’t stand high school drama anymore.
The petty arguments and relationship issues were only fun for so long before an itch at the back of her mind reminded her that she should be having those petty arguments, she should be getting into fights in the hallways with her partner and causing a scene between class periods. To watch the years pass, just a bystander as seniors talk about their futures and graduate, going on to do things she barely had time to dream about, will harden anyone’s heart, and Rhonda liked to believe that hers was stone. The first year her classmates’ grandkids showed up as freshman to Split River High, Mr. Martin had called an emergency field day. Rhonda could have sworn that her anger would keep some of the damage permanent, but it reset just like everything else does in the hell that was her afterlife, and she refused to speak to anyone for a week. The whole world around her changed every day, but she was powerless to join that change, forced to endure the monotony of her existence with a group of people all playing pretend at being content with this. It made her crave a cigarette, but even that changed and she was given few and far opportunities to chase that nicotine high, settling for the never ending supply of Dum Dum suckers stashed in the teacher’s lounge. One vice for another, but at least it kept her mind occupied for a moment.
So when a new ghost appeared out of nowhere after almost twenty years, she was not interested in playing welcome committee with everyone else in the group. Mr. Martin had pushed her to join in after announcing he had spotted a new ghost in the boiler room, but Rhonda put her foot down. Just Charley was good enough, and he’d been antsy for a non looped ghost this time so he could expand the group; the bus crash with the marching band was a real let down for him after Wally encouraged him to welcome them to join. So she stayed on the outskirts, catching glimpses of the pair as Charley led the girl around, pointing out other ghosts in the halls. She looked totally out of it, not reacting to anything and following her living friends around like a kicked puppy as she called their names. She couldn’t help but smirk around her Dum Dum when Charley showed up without her that first day; of course she wouldn’t come to a ghost group therapy session only twelve hours after finding out she died. Rhonda was there for the first meeting ever and she hadn’t even wanted to be there.
She finally turned up to group after three days, the day the school held an assembly to address her disappearance. Disappearance, Rhonda had rolled her eyes. She’s surprised no one else had that lame excuse for their deaths. Although, everyone else had pretty public and noteworthy deaths at the school and all their bodies had been accounted for, so there was that. She was so typically teenager, all emotion and angst and not at all interested in playing into the support group ideas. She just wanted to find out what happened to her. And as much as she ruffled Rhonda’s feathers, she couldn’t help but sympathize with Maddie Nears. Who wouldn’t want closure when all you have is high school for eternity?
As the weeks went on, Rhonda couldn’t help her own whiplash of emotions. She, like everyone else with a still-functioning brain, had been sucked in by her. Maybe it was because she still felt so alive after her death, but Rhonda could feel herself hoping for her, wanting to help her figure out the mystery of her death. And it wasn’t just self serving either; Maddie was helping everyone else too. She’s a friend to Charley, she’s made Wally happier than she’s seen him in decades, hell, she helped Dawn cross over. And it wasn’t like her life before all this was a cakewalk either. Objectively, her life was awful, the more she revealed to the small group while working on discovering her killer, Rhonda could feel her stone heart softening. Maddie was so determined, and so damn kind it made her sick. Or made her wish teachers would still sneak cigs into the school. Or maybe both.
So screw her for wanting to help figure out how Mr. Martin was traveling around the school without being seen. It was a shock for everyone to learn that Maddie wasn’t actually dead and Mr. Martin has something to do with her body walking away without her. Rhonda was feeling a lot of things, more than she had ever felt since her own death. She was angry that Wally and Charley blew up her investigation of Mr. Martin, upset that their first reaction was to push her away. But mostly, she was afraid. So afraid that if they can figure out how to get Maddie back into her body, then things will go back to the way they were. Things have been… better. More difficult to navigate, for sure, but with Maddie here, they were all getting better.
She wished that she had never had a stupid hunch about what the keys were. Curled up against the lockers, her knees shielding her face from the door in front of her and the acceptance letter on the floor beside her, Rhonda wanted nothing more than for things to go back to the way they were a month ago, before her afterlife was turned upside down. Another hiccoughing sob crawled its way out of her throat, ending in a whimper as she curled impossibly tighter into herself, as if physically holding herself together would keep the images out of her head, the phantom touches off of her body. She screwed her eyes shut and shook her head, the material of her pants rubbing against her forehead as if she was trying to erase her death from her mind.
The hands, so soft besides the calluses on his thumb and forefinger, rough from the times he’s held his pens in an odd way. It was something the two of them had laughed about as he signed off on his recommendation letter. She could feel those calluses on her throat and the back of her head, digging into her windpipe and the base of her skull. It felt so different from the kinder touches he had given her, a hand on her upper back leading her into his office, the clasp of a handshake, a graze of his palm on her shoulder in a side hug given at Junior Awards just a summer ago. This felt worse than dangerous. She felt confused; what drove him to this? Why is this happening to her? She didn’t feel fear, not until she looked into his eyes. Mr. Manfredo’s eyes were always so kind, they looked at her with such fondness when she’d catch his eye outside of his office. But there was nothing in his eyes now, dark and animalistic. They looked devoid of life, like a predator who had caught their prey. That was when she felt the intensity of this situation; he was going to kill her. She tried to fight back, to claw or kick or scream, but it was too late. She could feel the pressure on her throat and neck getting impossibly stronger, she could barely hear the sounds of herself choking on air as her rapid heartbeat filled her ears, the last thing she could see the dark eyes of her murderer before her own vision grew dark. The last thing she felt was cold, raw, fear.
Her heartbeat was loud in her ears again, but not loud enough to drown out the sounds of her ragged breathing, wheezing into her lungs and escaping quickly in a shaky huff. In, out. If she can hear herself breathing, she’s not there, she’s not in the counselor's office. The sharp pain from her diaphragm straining against her rapidly moving lungs was ironically the only thing grounding her to her current reality and not the one from sixty years ago. Rhonda focused on the pain, not even trying to control her hyperventilating. If she can hear herself breathing, then she knew it was over. A mantra formed in her head, her thoughts moving as quickly as her breaths. He can’t touch her again. He’s dead. She’s dead. He can’t touch her again.
The squeak of shoes against the waxed floors broke her from her focus, jerking her head out from between her knees. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Rhonda?” Maddie paused halfway down the hall, hand braced against the lockers as she took in what Rhonda could only assume was her red and tear soaked face. “Are you okay?”
Anger. That was her first instinct. Push her away, because the only thing that Maddie brought was chaos and the only thing that Rhonda brought was hate. But when she tried to summon her rage that has always seemed so readily available, all Rhonda could bite back with was a scratchy, pitiful “Go away Nears.” And of course that wouldn’t work on bleeding heart Maddie.
Her shoes made less noise as she approached, leaning against the door of the English room, her deathbed, before sliding down to the floor in front of her. Rhonda sniffled, wiping her cheeks with the sleeve of her top as she looked everywhere but straight ahead. And Maddie didn’t say a word. Just sat, waiting, her own legs crossed in front of her, her posture open as she waited for Rhonda to say something. And Rhonda hated that that’s exactly what she does.
“Found out what the keys are for,” a shaky hand gestures to her discarded acceptance letters “they unlock a living hell.” She can see Maddie tilt her head from the corner of her eye, her hair flopping like the ear of the spaniel she had as a kid. It almost made her laugh; she and Wally were really made for each other, two puppies.
“What do you mean?”
Rhonda did scoff at that “I had a hunch that keys and doors were a bit more literal than what we may have been thinking, especially with Mr. Martin just disappearing into thin air all around the school. And I remembered that you said that he disappeared in the English room and reappeared running past you, so I came here to test a theory.” She finally looked at Maddie directly, taking in the girl seated in front of her worst nightmare. The concern she saw painted so clearly on her face, in the tension of her shoulders as she leaned forward brought tears back to her eyes. If only she had had someone like Maddie sixty years ago. Someone who cares so deeply for everyone around her…if she had had that, maybe she would have been spared this fate.
She sniffled again, unfurling herself to grab the acceptance letter, watching the red light creep back under the door the moment it made contact with her fingers. Maddie scrambled away from the door, ending up sitting with her own back on the lockers, keeping her distance from Rhonda as the two took in the sight of the door outlined in the glowing red of whatever it was that was kept hidden without the key. Her eyebrows were raised in shock as her mouth opened and closed, looking for words to say. Rhonda beat her to the punch.
“It’s like a portal to the day I died. But like, a really fucked up version. The faculty I remember being in the room were there, that stupid song was playing,” the tears that had been swimming in her eyes finally pooled over as she replayed the scene in her head, hardly believing it herself. Her voice trembled as she choked out the last piece. She needed someone besides herself to know; she was so tired of keeping secrets. “And Mr. Mandfredo—”
Her sentence was cut off by a strangled noise, her throat tight as she attempted to stave off the fresh wave of fear and anguish that wracked her body as strongly as her anger usually did. Her throat bobbed as she attempted to keep a hold of herself, her hand dropping the letter and the red glow disappearing as quickly as it came. She leaned her head against the lockers and took a deep breath through her nose, slow to let the air pass painlessly to her lungs. Maddie outstretched her hand, catching Rhonda’s eye as it hovered near her shoulder, her eyes asking an unspoken question. It would be so easy to push her away, to bite at the hand instead of taking the offer. But she was tired of lashing out. Rhonda nodded, eyes closing as she braced for impact. But Maddie’s hand was soft, resting light on her shoulder, her thumb rubbing ever so slightly back and forth on the material of her top, against her clavicle. She gasped at the contact, more tears slipping down her cheeks as the comfort from just one touch unraveled her. She could hear Maddie shuffle closer, and if they were both alive she was certain she’d be able to feel her warmth next to her.
Rhonda sobbed, her body curling into the other girl as if on instinct. Maddie responded in kind, holding her in a loose hug with her head resting atop her head as her body shuddered with the force of her emotions, pent up for the past sixty years. For so many years, she had only allowed herself to feel fury, to feel anger at the injustice she had suffered at the hands of one man. Even when she saw the news of his death, she only felt a cold righteousness, not even relief, and that too was born from her rage. But now, leaning against the side of an undead dead girl, Rhonda felt the fear she knew as her last living memory, felt the despair of her situation and she let herself feel them fully, letting them overtake her mind and body for the first time since she died.
Maddie’s fingers trailed absently against her back, soothing as her breath began to catch again, her sobs finally slowing from their peak as she began to come back to herself. Rhonda could feel her tears soaking into her flannel, but couldn’t bring herself to care as the haze of exhaustion crept over her as the tears slowed to a stop. Then she could hear what Maddie had been softly repeating. “You’re here, not there. This is real. You’re here Rhonda. This is real.” She stayed in the embrace as her breathing finally, mercifully returned to normal, the memories fading from the forefront of her mind.
Rhonda finally moved away when the discomfort of her hip digging into the floor finally outweighed the comfort of Maddie’s hold. The two wordlessly took stock of themselves, adjusting clothes and avoiding eye contact once again. Rhonda cleared her throat and finally stood on shaky legs, grabbing her acceptance letter and pointedly ignoring the glow as Maddie rose with her. She outstretched her hand, passing the letter over to Maddie who accepted it. “I’m, uh, going to wash my face. I can share with the others what I found out, but um,” She swiped her tongue over her teeth as Maddie nodded, always understanding.
“Of course, yeah, I can gather the others and tell them to meet us in the library?” A peace offering and Rhonda gladly accepted. They didn’t need to talk about this.
“I’ll meet you there.” Rhonda watched as Maddie turned to go, eyes flickering back to the door. “Maddie?” She turned back, her doe eyes wide as Rhonda offered her a weak smile. “Thanks cherry pop.” Maddie smiled back, a sadness that everyone was familiar with transmitting between the two as they turned in opposite directions, leaving the door behind them.