• It’s been one week since you looked at me. It’s been one week since I’ve heard your laugh. Seven days have passed sine you smiled at me. Ten thousand minutes have passed since we blew kisses at each other, promising to see each other again soon. I should have stopped you. I should have held you close, if for just another minute.
    Maybe then it wouldn’t have happened… I know I shouldn’t dwell on the past. It can’t be changed, no matter how many stars I wish upon. But, oh, how I ache with every fiber of my being for my arms to wrap around your warm, loving body, to smell your soft hair, one more time.
    If I had held you for just a moment longer, we wouldn’t be in this horrid situation. The truck would have raged by without claiming its victim. Why did the brakes have to fail at just that moment?
    But of all the regrets that fill my soul, there’s one thing I mourn more than anything. It’s the one thing I failed to tell you. I didn’t get to tell you I love you.
    Clyde’s voice filled my head. It sounded so much like him. My heart ached to hold him, but the woman had told us before the seance that touching the ghosts was dangerous, not to us, but to them. Touching them is another way of keeping them trapped within this ritually cleansed area.
    “I love you too, Clyde!” I cried.
    The others in the circle glanced at me wildly. They couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him, they were lost in the dreary thing they called reality. This was reality. Finally, I could see the love of my life, with my own two eyes, once more.
    Clyde extended his arms. Cori, his voice floated hauntingly. Cori, join me.
    “How, Clyde?” I asked.
    Come here, he beckoned, his voice reverberating hauntingly through my mind. Join me once more, for eternity. I want to spend my forever with you.
    I stood. The woman reached to stop me. “Coda! Don’t!”
    I dismissed her. She was obviously a hack. What kind of psychic couldn’t remember her patron’s name? My love had appeared before me not because of her magic, but because he was tethered to me, because our hearts were still connected. Clyde’s arms were extended, waiting for me to join his embrace. I shuffled forth, ignoring the wondering stares of the others. The candles flickered, and the circle was broken.
    Finally, I lost my composure and collapsed into my dead love’s arms. I felt myself fall through the specter’s body, a wave of cold enveloping me as my face raced to meet the carpet.
    “Clyde!” I cried in dismay. “Clyde!” I landed on the carpet and felt the breath rush out of me. I began sobbing uncontrollably. My nose was gushing blood, and my knees were severely scraped. “Clyde! Don’t go!” I screamed after his apparition.
    I watched as he gazed at me with wistful eyes, slowly disappearing from sight, like steam from a fresh cup of coffee. I reached desperately, blood streaming down my chin. Dimly I noticed my sweater sleeve was aflame from the candles, but I didn't care.
    Clyde was reaching as well. I love you, Cori. Don’t ever forget that.
    Then he was gone. I curled up into a ball and began sobbing, blood mixing with the tears. I rocked myself as my peers looked on, shocked. One of them snapped out of it long enough to pour a glass of water on the flame that was eating at my sweater.
    They didn’t understand what I had just experienced. They couldn’t understand how a man could be so shaken after seeing the spirit of his dead lover. How could they? They couldn’t comprehend the love Clyde and I had felt for each other.
    "Don't go!" I whispered in vain. He was gone.