We stood behind the vending machine like we were sharing a secret that no one else even knew existed. She didn't float. Didn't flicker. Wasn't even see-through. She was just... there. Existing in the small cozy space.
"Did you bring it?" she asked.
I looked down at the shoe still in my hand. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it—like a fool, a thief, or a boy who was about to make the worst trade of his life.
"I wasn't expecting this interaction to go both ways," I muttered.
She laughed.
A laugh with no tragic violin beneath it. It wasn't an eerie, hollow echo destined to rattle through an eternity. No, she laughed like a teenage girl. A little nasal, a little wild and a little broken in the middle-like she'd forgotten how to breathe between laughter.
"I'm not here to curse you," she said casually, which is exactly what someone would say if they were here to curse you.
"If I were," she added, "you'd be cursed already."
"I wasn't thinking about that," I lied.
She sat down on the curb next to the machine. Crossed her arms behind her and leaned back like this was a routine. Like this was our routine. She patted the concrete beside her but I hesitated.
Because of course I did! Sitting beside ghosts wasn't on my to-do list for the day. I had my math homework and a lukewarm appreciation for survival.
To get over my curiosity, I asked, "Why only Tuesdays?"
She didn't answer right away. But she pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them like she was trying to shrink into a thought. She then tilted her head like a sunflower chasing confusion instead of sunlight.
"I don't know," she said finally. "I think... I think I died on a Tuesday. Or maybe that's when I stopped mattering."
She said it with the same tone you'd use to describe missing a train—annoyed, detached, and just a little too used to it. I glanced down at the shoe, still pale, soft-edged and almost forgettable.
"And the shoe?" I asked.
She didn't look at me but at her own bare foot, swinging slightly and then replied,
"I thought if someone brought it back enough times, I'd remember why I left it behind."
That made me quiet and suddenly, I realized—
Death isn't the absence of life.
It's the presence of irrelevance.
And I was beginning to suspect that maybe this girl... was becoming the most relevant thing in my life.
She looked at me and gave a grateful smile.
Like, just for this Tuesday, she'd remembered how to exist.
---To be continued ---