Dreams of a Distant Shore Chapter 1

Three years after my death, Chris, the man I’d driven away, finally returned to Auden City.

Isabelle was still by his side. He held her umbrella, carried her handbag, his devotion evident in every small gesture. The story’s ending remained unchanged: the hero and heroine lived happily ever after. The only one who met a tragic end was me, the villainess who had dared to covet the hero.

They were here to visit his mother’s grave, and I was buried just a short distance behind hers.

I floated nearby, watching them. Everyone always said they were a perfect match.

When the incense had burned to ash, Chris made an excuse and walked away from Isabelle.

He came to my tombstone and stood there in silence for a long, long time. So long that I thought he was trying to choose the right words to curse me with.

Instead, Chris let out a soft laugh. His fingers traced the outline of my photograph as he whispered, “Nora, why haven’t you come to my dreams yet?”

Because I’m not your Isabelle, I thought. My dreams could never reach your distant shores.

…

* * *

Before I died, Chris had cut all ties with me and fled the country, desperate to stop me from hurting Isabelle.

On my deathbed, I clung to a small box meant for him, my life sustained by a single, stubborn breath. I waited for him, but he never came. All I got was a single, relayed message.

“If she’s dead,” he had said, “call the funeral home, not me.”

After the call ended, my mother collapsed onto my bed, sobbing like a child who had lost everything. My last thread of hope snapped, and I died with a heart full of bitterness.

Perhaps that bitterness was strong enough to anchor me here, waiting for him. I watched as my mother pulled the weeds from my grave, again and again, as three years slipped by. My obsession began to fade with the silvering of her hair.

Just as I felt my form growing transparent, my earthly attachment dissolving, Chris returned.

He had become gentler, more considerate, taking meticulous care of Isabelle. Without my interference, their love story was even more perfect.

I laughed at myself. Even if I wanted to, I could no longer do anything to be hated.

The smoke from the incense twisted in the wind. I just watched them, my ghostly form still.

When they lit the incense for his mother, I crouched nearby, thinking he must have forgotten me completely by now.

But after the incense burned out, he lied to Isabelle.

As she walked down the mountain path, he came to my grave, my own spectral eyes wide with disbelief.

He stared at my headstone for an eternity. I was sure he was deciding on the perfect insult. Slut? Bitch?

The wind picked up. He gave that soft, low laugh again, his hand resting on the cold stone. “Nora, why haven’t you come to my dreams yet?”

His voice was so quiet, so gentle, I almost believed that ghosts could dream.

Chris pulled a wrinkled caramel chew from his pocket and bent down to place it before my grave. Then he turned and left.

I stared at the candy.

But Chris, I thought, I don’t like sweets anymore.

I reached out to brush it away, but my hand passed straight through it.

I shook my head with a sad smile and sat down on the hillside. The sun was setting, painting the sky in hues of orange and violet. I used to love watching sunsets. But now, my eyes were fixed on that single piece of candy. I thought a ghost’s heart couldn’t ache.

But Nora’s could.

I’m done, I decided. I’m done with the bitterness. I’m done with Chris. I would no longer hide from my fate. I had one last thing to do, and then I would move on, find my peace, and be reborn.

This life was over.

I floated down the mountain and settled into Chris’s car. Isabelle was in the back seat, so the passenger seat was empty. I sat there, finally able to look at him without hiding.

As the story’s hero, he was, of course, devastatingly handsome. I couldn’t resist reaching out a translucent hand to trace the lines of his brow. There was a faint scar above his eyebrow—a mark left from when a seventeen-year-old Chris defied the will of the world to save a seventeen-year-old Nora.

It was the mark I had once believed was proof of his undying love for me.

My hand fell. I sat up straight.

Chris drove with intense focus. The car was silent. I watched his hands on the steering wheel. As he turned, the cuff of his expensive suit slid back, revealing a sliver of his wrist.

I froze. Tied around it was a cheap, simple red string bracelet. The one I had gotten for him, a token of safety and love. Once, he’d worn it proudly. Now, he had to keep it hidden.

I couldn’t help but look at his face, at his thin lips. My mother used to say that men with thin lips were the most heartless. A low, bitter laugh escaped me, and I felt the phantom sting of tears.

Even as a ghost, I was still so pathetic.

The memories I had spent five years suppressing came rushing back in a tidal wave the moment I saw him again. It wasn’t time that had trapped me here. It was me, refusing to leave the memories of a younger Chris, a Chris who hadn’t yet met Isabelle, a Chris who hadn’t yet forgotten me.

The city lights blurred past as the Maybach sped forward, but my thoughts were rewinding, racing back against the wind. Back to a time before Isabelle, when Chris still remembered me.