My Skeleton, His Regret

Three years post-mortem. An earthquake rips through the cemetery. My grave was destroyed, and even the coffin was shaken out of the earth.

Vance stands over the bleached bones. He extinguished his cigarette, looking down with cold, sneering indifference. Just a necklace? You're really trying to pin this on me?

He doesn't know.

I was broke when I died. I split the cost. Shared the plot with a stranger. The skeleton hes mocking? Its actually his ex-girlfriendthe one who cruelly abandoned him.

Chapter 1

The night Vance showed up at the cemetery, I was packing my things. The earthquake had trashed my grave. Soil churned up, coffin lid splintered and jutting out of the ground. If I didn't cross over to the other side now, my spirit would shatter. Just fade into static. My roommate, Mr. Gray, had already crossed over yesterday in a hurry.

I threw my bag over my shoulder.

Shadows moved near the treeline. A crowd. Black shapes against the gray dusk. My vision sucks now. Death does that to you. Everything is grainy. I squinted. Couldn't make out a single face. Then they got closer.

And the voice hit me like a physical blow.

"A necklace? Is my name written on it or something?"

Ice water. Drenched from head to toe. My feet glued to the dirt. Breath hitched in a throat that no longer needed air.

No. Illusion.

I hadn't seen Vance in three years. Three years since he looked at me with pure, unadulterated disappointment. Since he left. I hadn't said a word back then. Just followed him to the airport like a mute ghost before I was even dead.

Before he boarded, he didn't look back. "Rest easy. I'm never coming back." His voice had been razor-sharp. "And do me a favor. Don't ever disgust me again. Stay out of my sight."

That was it. The finale.

So, this had to be a glitch. Ive been hallucinating for three years. Seeing him in the shadows. Hearing him in the wind. I knew he wouldn't come back.

I waited. One second. Two. I forced my eyes up.

My heartdead, rotted, non-existentslammed against my ribs. The sensation was terrifyingly crisp. Just like being alive. Twilight. Murky light. But I locked eyes with him. That face. I knew every line. But the gaze was cold. Foreign.

He stood right in front of me. A cigarette burned between his fingers. And then the glint caught my eye.

A diamond band on his ring finger. Even in the dark, it screamed at me.

Three years. He got married.

His gaze drifted. Landed on my face. Smoke swirled around him, blurring his features, but I felt the weight of his stare. Like he was looking right at me. Not through me. At me.

Chest tight. Suffocating. Panic spiked. Instinct took over.

I slapped my hands over my face. Hiding. Covered the decay. The ruin. Vance used to say I was beautiful. But Ive been dead for three years.

Chapter 2

I wasnt cremated. But three years underground takes a toll. No skin. No flesh. Just bleached bone. I haven't looked in a mirror for three years. I don't need to. I can imagine the horror show.

I pressed my phalanges against where my cheeks used to be. Then the realization hit.

He can't see me.

Vance took another drag. Smooth. Unbothered. He didn't flinch at my movement. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking through me. My hand dropped. My arm rattled. A lump formed in a throat that shouldn't be able to feel pain. Relief? Agony? It was a toxic cocktail. I couldn't tell them apart.

The silence shattered. Pattys voice rose to a shriek. "Just a necklace? Are you kidding me?"

She stepped forward, finger shaking. "We did our homework, Mr. Vance! That design? Its your signature piece! You went on record," she spat. "You said that blueprint was never sold. You made one. For yourself. So don't tell me this has nothing to do with you!"

Vances brow furrowed. Impatience radiated off him in waves. "That design has been public for years. The market is flooded with knockoffs." He exhaled smoke. "The original? I lost it a long time ago. Whats your point?"

Sting. A phantom pain shot through my chest cavity.

He gave that necklace to me. The day he left, I threw it in the trash. Right in front of him. So he wasn't lying. Not technically.

Patty switched tactics. The crocodile tears started flowing. "Maybe you didn't put the necklace there. But that that woman is connected to you!" She pointed a trembling finger at the open grave. "She was in my son's resting place! A stranger! It's a desecration! You've ruined my son's afterlife! You've cursed us!"

I had split the cost with the stranger, Mr. Gray. He paid the bulk, so he got the name on the headstone. I was just a silent partner. I never thought an earthquake would expose our arrangement.

Vance stared at her through the haze. Cold. "Name your price."

Pattys eyes lit up. Predator mode. "One one million."

Jerry, her husband, tugged at her sleeve. Nervous. She shook him off violently. "Shut up! He's loaded. I looked him up. Ten million a year. This is pocket change for him!"

Officer Tates expression darkened. Even the cops smelled the hustle now.

Vance dropped his cigarette. The leather sole of his shoe ground the embers into the dirt. He let out a low, humorless laugh. He was done. Every second here was a waste of his net worth.

He turned to Officer Tate. "Unless you have actual evidence connecting me to a crime, don't waste my time again."

Officer Tate looked pained. Rookie mistake. He lowered his voice, apologetic. "I'm sorry, sir. She was threatening suicide. Screaming about your necklace. We had to make the call."

Chapter 3

Vance didnt waste another breath. He spun on his heel, ready to leave this farce behind.

Then a voice erupted from the perimeter. Hysterical. Broken. "Let me through! Let me see! That skeleton I might know who it is!"

The sound hit me like a high-voltage wire. My soul splintered. I knew that voice.

Officer Rick sighed, the sound heavy with exhaustion. "It's him again. The guy looking for his sister. Two years running, every time a body turns up, hes there."

No. My mind rejected the image. The man clawing at the yellow police tape that couldn't be him.

Memories flashed. Sharp and bright.

We used to live under a bridge. We had nothing. But Brooks? He washed our scavenged clothes in the river until they were spotless. He buttoned every shirt to the chin. He used to smile, smoothing my hair. "Thea, we might be broke, but we have dignity. We keep it classy. Always."

But the man at the tape?

His pants were shredded at the knees. His shirt hung off his frame, buttoned crookedly with only two buttons done, stained with grease and grime. One foot was bare, caked in mud. The other dragged a ruined sneaker. His face was a mask of filth.

Officer Tate held the line, blocking him. Brooks craned his neck, straining to see inside, desperate for a glimpse of the grave. But the police had already done their job. My bones were back in the box. The lid was shut. He couldn't see me.

Then he heard Patty screeching about the necklace.

Brooks snapped. He went manic. "That's my sister's! That necklace belongs to Thea!"

Officer Tate looked confused. Officer Rick just shook his head, lowering his voice. "Hospital says he's off his meds. Psychotic episodes. Last month, we found a Jane Doe in the north district. Missing a pinky finger. He made a scene, screaming that it was his sister. Later, that body was claimed by someone else."

Brooks realized the cops weren't moving. His eyes darted wildly, scanning for a lifeline. Then he saw Vance.

Hope. It flared in his eyes, terrifying and raw.

Vance saw him. Recognition flickered, followed immediately by a curl of the lip. Pure revulsion. Vance hated me. So naturally, he loathed Brooks. He loathed anything that shared my blood.

Brooks didn't care. He abandoned all pride. He forgot the promise about dignity. He dropped to his knees in the dirt. He crawled toward the tape, choking on his tears, shouting at the man in the suit.

"Thea didn't betray you! She didn't leave you, Vance!" His voice cracked, a jagged sound of despair. "She she had leukemia! She might be dead! I saw the papers! I found the medical records!"

Vance stopped.

He pulled a fresh cigarette from his silver case. He flicked his lighter. Click. The flame didn't catch. His hand trembled. Just a fraction. A microscopic glitch in his composure. Or maybe it was just the wind picking up.

Click. Still no fire.

Vances jaw tightened. The mask of indifference cracked into annoyance. He snapped. He tossed the unlit cigarette and the lighter into the hands of the man standing behind him.

"Psycho," Vance muttered, his voice low and venomous.

Chapter 4

Vance walked away. He didn't look back at the chaos. He didn't acknowledge the raw, desperate screaming behind him. He cleared the cemetery gates.

"Psychos," he muttered again. A curse. A shield. "All of them."

Behind him, the dam broke.

Brooks didn't care about the badges or the warnings. He ducked under the yellow tape. He charged the grave. The cops shouted, lunging for him, but he was too fast. He slammed his hands against the coffin lid and shoved.

Wood groaned. The box opened. Nothing but bones inside. No skin. No face. Just the stark, white reality of death.

But Brooks froze. His eyes locked onto the hand. Specifically, the pinky finger. The bone was severed. Half-missing.

The fight went out of him. He collapsed into the dirt like a puppet with cut strings. His eyes went wide with horror. Then blank. Dead.

Then came the sound. Not just a cry. It was hoarse, painful, filled with regret and self-blame. "Thea My Thea" He curled forward, forehead pressing into the mud. "Im sorry. Im so sorry. I wasn't there. Your brother wasn't there for the end."

I had never seen Brooks cry. Not once. Not when we were starving. Not when we were freezing. Pain, sharp and physical, twisted in my chest.

I lunged. I threw myself at him. I wanted to pull him up, to wipe the mud from his face, to scream that it wasn't his fault. I'm here. I'm okay.

My hands passed through his shoulders. Like smoke through a chain-link fence. My words dissolved into silence.

The police swarmed him. They were worried hed damage the remains. They hauled him up, dragging him back by his arms. He didn't fight them physically. He just kept wailing my name. Over and over. A broken record of grief.

"Thea! Thea!"

By the treeline, Vance stopped. He heard it. He didn't turn around. But his shoulders went rigid. The air around him seemed to drop a few degrees. Darkness settled over his face.

He got into the backseat of the waiting sedan. Cliff, the driver, started the engine.

I panicked. I needed to stay. I needed to make sure Brooks was okay. I tried to anchor myself to the grave. To the ground. To my brother. But my soul was uncontrollable, trapped at Vance's side. I couldn't understand why. I was dragged backward. Trapped in Vances orbit.

Why?

I floated in the backseat next to him, confused. Then I saw it.

Vance reached into his suit pocket. His movements were slow, almost trance-like. He pulled out a silver ring. He stared at it. Rolled the cool metal between his thumb and forefinger.

Realization hit me. The ring.

It was my engagement ring. The one he designed. Hed spent months learning to carve the intricate vine pattern on the band. When I was dying, I wanted to be buried with it. It was the only thing I cared about. But I couldn't find it. I tore my room apart, but it was gone.

In the end, I was buried with the trashthe necklace I fished out of the garbage. My soul wasn't attached to my bones. It was attached to this ring. I was bound to the metal. And now, Vance had it.

I couldn't leave. I was a passenger in his car, haunting the man who hated me. I didn't know how he got it back.

The car sped away from the cemetery, heading toward the coast. Four hours on the highway. Vance didn't speak. He leaned his head back against the leather seat, eyes closed. Feigning sleep.

But I was watching him. I saw the tremors in his eyelashes. The slight twitch of a muscle in his jaw. He wasn't sleeping.

Years ago, when Brooks and I first met him, Vance was like this. Silent. Guarded. A fortress of one. It seemed he had rebuilt the walls. I looked at his tired face and let out a sigh he couldn't hear.

The car slowed. We were pulling into the driveway of his villa. The engine cut. Silence filled the cabin.

Then, Vance spoke. His voice was low, cutting through the dark. "So, Spencer dumped Thea."

I froze.

Chapter 5

It clicked.

"Spencer."

That was the name he used. My former boss. The man I used as a weapon. The man I told Vance I had fallen for, just to make him let me go.

In the front seat, Cliffs eyes darted to the rearview mirror. He looked confused. He didn't know how to respond to a statement that came out of nowhere.

Vances expression remained flat. Bored, almost. He continued, his voice void of emotion. "I just got back to the states. Saw Spencer at the airport. He had a woman with him. And it wasn't her."

Cliff nodded slowly. "I see."

Vance closed his eyes again. A small, cold puff of air escaped his lips. A scoff. "Theas cash cow dried up. Shes broke."

The venom in his voice was subtle, but I heard it. It sounded like victory.

Cliff finally caught on. He nodded, playing his part. "That explains the show at the cemetery. The brother the screaming. It was a setup. Theyre coming after your money."

Vances hand slowly tightened around the silver ring. His knuckles turned white. The metal must have been biting into his skin, but he didn't relax his grip. He kept that ring as a reminder. A physical anchor to the betrayal. Three years later, the hate hadn't faded. It had calcified.

"Theyre going to be disappointed," Vance murmured.

The car pulled up to the villa. Vance stepped out. Inside, the house was ablaze with light. Chandeliers, floor lamps, sconces.

Ghosts cant cross the threshold of a well-lit home. The brightness burns. I was slammed against an invisible wall at the front door. Locked out. I waited in the cold until midnight. Finally, the tether snapped. I was free.

I didn't stay. I launched myself into the night, searching for Brooks.

I found him in my old studio apartment. Mr. Lane, my old landlord, must have pitied him. The lease had expired years ago. Tenants had cycled through. It was empty now, waiting for the next renter. But Mr. Lane let him in.

Brooks didn't turn on the lights. He was a shadow moving through shadows. He was tearing the place apart. Drawers yanked out. Cupboards stripped. He had been here before. He had already taken everything I left behind. There was nothing left to find.

But he wouldn't stop. He was looking for answers. Why did I die? Why the leukemia? Why the pauper's grave with a stranger? No one could tell him. Only objects could speak now.

But the room was silent. Empty.

I sat on the floorboards, watching him. The night dragged on. My soul felt heavy. Lethargic. The energy drain of the mortal world was pulling me under. I drifted into a haze.

A sound woke me. A low, strangled sob.

I snapped back to consciousness. In the moonlight, I saw Brooks. He was sitting next to the wardrobe. The massive, heavy wooden wardrobe that I could never move on my own. He had dragged it away from the wall.

He was skeletal. His arms were sticks. I didn't know where he found the strength. Adrenaline. Grief.

In his hands, he held a piece of paper. It was torn. Half a page. Yellowed with age. It must have slipped behind the wardrobe years ago.

I watched a tear roll down his dirty cheek. It splashed onto the paper. Panic seized him. He frantically wiped at the wet spot with his sleeve, terrified he would ruin the ink. Terrified he would erase the last trace of me.

Chapter 6

I drifted closer. It took a moment for my vision to focus on the faded ink. I recognized it immediately.

The contract.

The co-ownership agreement for the grave plot. Signed by me and Mr. Gray three years ago.

Brooks had found it.

Humiliation washed over me. Cold. Heavy. God, it was embarrassing. I spent my whole life counting pennies. Splitting rent. Living in the margins. To save money, I even tried to secretly share a cheap apartment that only cost a few hundred buckshiding it from Brooks and Vance.

And in the end? I couldn't even afford to die alone. I had to split my final resting place with a stranger just to save a few bucks. I wanted to curl into a ball. To disappear completely.

But then I saw Brooks.

His chest heaved. A ragged, wet sound tearing from his throat. His hands shook so violently the phone almost slipped from his grip. He unlocked the screen. He pulled up a contact.

Vance.

He knew. The contract proved it. The skeleton in the gravethe "stranger" occupying the plotwas me. He was going to tell him.

Panic seized my chest. My heartor the ghost of itslammed against my ribs.

No.

I lunged. I didn't know why. Maybe I didn't want Vance to know I was dead. Maybe I couldn't bear for him to know how cheap my end was. To see the receipt of my pathetic demise.

"Don't!" I screamed.

I threw myself at Brooks, trying to knock the phone from his hand. My fingers passed through his wrist. Mist through bone. He didn't even shiver. Desperation spiked. I tried again. Clawing at the air. Screaming until my nonexistent lungs burned.

The emotional overload was too much. My soul flickered. The room tilted. Gray spots bloomed in my vision. Then, darkness swallowed me.

When I opened my eyes, the smell of rain and asphalt filled my nose. I wasn't in the apartment anymore. I was back. Eighteen years old. Freshman year.

The alley behind the university.

Vance was backed into a corner. He looked different. Younger. Sharper. But the eyes were the samedefiant, even as he was surrounded. Three men in cheap black suits loomed over him. Aluminum baseball bats tapped rhythmically against their palms.

Debt collectors. His father had skipped town, leaving a mountain of gambling debt. They were here to collect from the son.

I was hiding behind a dumpster. Terrified. I didn't step out. I couldn't fight them. My thumb hovered over the keypad of my flip phone. I dialed 911, whispering the address, praying they wouldn't hear me.

Sirens wailed in the distance. The thugs got their licks in before they ran. A bat to the ribs. A fist to the jaw. Vance slumped against the brick wall. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

The police cruiser screeched to a halt. Officers swarmed the alley. They tried to check him over.

"I'm fine," Vance spat. He shoved a paramedic away. "I don't need help."

He stood up, swaying. He wiped the blood with the back of his hand and started walking. The cops exchanged looks. They sighed, wrote it off as a stubborn kid, and drove away.

I watched him go. He made it half a block. Then his knees buckled. He hit the pavement face-first.

"Vance!"

I broke cover. I sprinted down the sidewalk, skidding to my knees beside him. He struggled to open his eyes. One was swollen shut. He looked at me, his gaze unfocused but hostile.

"No cops," he rasped. His voice was wet. "Don't don't touch me."

I ignored him. I dug into my pocket. My hand closed around a crumpled ball of cash. It was everything I had for the week. I flagged down a cab.

"Help me get him in," I told the driver.

We lived in a shoebox apartment back then. Brooks was in med school. He had raised me on the streets. He had one rule: Don't get involved. Survival first. Dignity second. Charity never.

But when I dragged a bleeding, semi-conscious boy through the door, Brooks didn't lecture me. His face went hard, but he moved fast. He laid Vance on the couch. Cleaned the wounds. Stitched the cut on his brow with steady, practiced hands.

We let him sleep it off.

When we woke up the next morning, the couch was empty. Vance was gone. On the scratched coffee table, two crisp hundred-dollar bills sat under a glass of water.

That was how it started. After that, our paths at school began to cross.

Chapter 7

After the alley, Vance ghosted me. I couldn't tell if he genuinely forgot me or if he was pretending. Maybe that night was a stain on his pride he wanted to scrub out. So, I played along. We were strangers. Just two bodies occupying the same campus.

Until senior year.

The hiking club organized one last trip before graduation. On the descent, I misstepped. A sickening pop echoed from my ankle. Pain shot up my leg, grounding me instantly. The guys in the group, full of testosterone and adrenaline, were already miles ahead. The girls huddled around me, panicking, trying to figure out how to drag me down.

Then, a voice cut through the chatter. Cool. A little awkward. "Need a hand?"

I turned. Vance was standing there. Alone. He had been trailing behind me the whole time. He didn't wait for an answer. He crouched down.

That evening, Vance carried me down the mountain. It was a long trail. Rough terrain.

"Put me down," I whispered, guilt gnawing at me. "You're tired."

He didn't say a word. He just hitched me higher up his back and kept walking. For nearly an hour, I felt the steady rhythm of his breathing, the heat radiating through his shirt. He was so quiet. I had been in that club for two years. I never even knew he was a member until that day.

After graduation, Brooks took a position at a hospital in Seaview. I couldn't handle the separation. I packed my bags and followed him to the coast.

Month two. I was walking through a mall, and there he was. Vance. He had moved here for work, too. Life has a funny way of rhyming. Sometimes, looking back, I wonder if it was ever really a coincidence. Running into a familiar face in a strange city it disarms you. It pulls you in.

We started talking. Hanging out.

Then, disaster struck.

Brooks tried to intervene in a dispute at the hospital. A patients family member, unstable and violent, lashed out. Brooks took the hit. Severe internal trauma. The attacker was arrested, but they were broke. No compensation.

I was drowning. I needed money for the surgeries, the ICU, the meds. I begged everyone I knew. Friends, relativesthey all ghosted.

Vance didn't say a word. He sold his brand-new car. He liquidated his savings. He put a debit card in my hand. "Thirty thousand," he said. "Take it."

The next morning, we were eating breakfast at a diner. He left his phone unlocked on the table. I glanced at the screen. Banking app.

Balance: $2.50.

He hadn't kept a dime for himself. We weren't even dating then. We were barely friends.

Brooks recovered. I worked three jobs and paid Vance back. And somewhere in the middle of that mess, we fell in love.

From the outside, Vance looked cold. Detached. But when you were the one he held? He was the warmest thing I had ever known. He gave me everything. He didn't just love me; he devoted himself to me. It felt like he was ready to rip his heart out and place it in my hands.

Thats why, when the diagnosis came

Leukemia. Terminal.

I knew what I had to do.

I set the stage. I made sure he saw me walking into a hotel with Spencer. I sat him down. I looked into the eyes that had watched me sleep for years, and I delivered the kill shot.

"I'm done, Vance. I'm sick of counting pennies. I want a real life."

I saw the light go out in his eyes. It was replaced by a hatred so intense it burned. But beneath the hate?

Agony. Absolute, shattering agony.

Chapter 8

I watched his jaw lock. The color drained from his skin. He whipped around, shielding his face, desperate to hide the single tear that betrayed him. In all the years Id known him, I had never seen him break.

The day he took the transfer overseas, I knew it was a one-way ticket. I trailed his cab to the airport. Silent. Ghosting him before I was even a ghost.

At the gate, he finally turned. His eyes were dead. "Don't ever let me see you again."

I went back to the hospital. Signed the discharge papers against advice. Stocked up on painkillers.

My oncologist studied me for a long moment. "Boyfriend left?"

The tears burned behind my eyes. I swallowed them down. Forced a smile that felt like cracking glass. "Yeah. He's gone."

Don't ever let me see you again. Well, he got his wish. Technically. We were meeting three years later. One alive. One dead.

When I snapped back to consciousness, the pull of the ring had dragged me back to him. The study. Pitch black. Heavy curtains blocking the world.

4:00 AM. He hadn't slept.

The only light was the cherry of his cigarette. A tiny, angry red eye in the dark. If I wasn't deadif I hadn't spent three years acclimating to the shadowsI wouldn't have even known he was there. He sat like a statue.

Finally, the ember neared his knuckles. He moved. He tapped his phone screen. The light flared.

I froze.

The lock screen. It was us. A photo I had set on his phone years ago. His arm around me. My head on his shoulder.

I stared, disbelief rippling through my spirit. My gaze flicked to the diamond band on his finger. Married. But keeping his dead ex on his lock screen? Why? Maybe he was just too busy to change it. Maybe he just didn't care enough to delete the pixels.

He unlocked the phone. Opened his contacts. His thumb scrolled. Stopped. He hovered over my number.

Then the screen changed. Incoming call. Brooks.

Vance stared at the name. His eyes lost focus. He hesitated. Let it ring. Once. Twice. Then, the mask slid back into place. Cold. Detached. He swiped answer.

Brookss voice was a wreck. Wet. Hysterical. The sound of a man drowning on dry land. "Thea she's really dead."

Vance didn't move. The cigarette burned down. Past the filter. Into the skin.

Sizzle