I couldn’t breathe for a second.
Not because I thought ghosts were real. Just because nobody else knew about that scar.
Nathan got it the summer before he died trying to pull a chain off the muffler of his father’s truck. It burned straight through his shirt sleeve. I used to trace it with my finger while we sat on the hood of his car behind the bowling alley outside town.
The man standing on my porch looked older, heavier, tired around the eyes.
But when he rubbed the back of his neck while waiting for me to speak, my stomach dropped.
Same habit too.
He asked if he could come inside before somebody saw him standing there.
That part made me step aside.
He sat at my kitchen table turning a coffee mug slowly in circles while I just stared at him. Finally he said the cabin fire had been real, but he survived longer than people thought.
His father blamed me because Nathan had been sneaking out to see me that night.
Then Nathan looked down and said something even worse.
“They told everyone I died because the insurance payout was bigger that way.”
Apparently his family moved him between relatives for years while he recovered from the burns. New names. No social media. Nothing public.
I kept waiting for him to say this was some kind of joke.
Then he quietly asked if I still kept aspirin in the freezer.
I used to because he swore cold aspirin worked faster for headaches even though it probably made no difference.
I never told another person that.
I stood up so fast my chair hit the wall behind me.
And that’s when somebody outside suddenly started pounding on my front door hard enough to rattle the glass while Nathan whispered, “They found me faster than I thought.”