2025 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prize – Grand Prize Winner, High School Category
From the judges: “‘Jaded Girls’ is a ghost story which deftly weaves past and present together to tell a compact, complete narrative that also hints at more. There is much to admire in its originality and moments of humor and surprise. A polished piece of writing.”
Vivian’s wedding ring was featherlight against her wet skin—the cheapest thing at the market near where a ghost clawed her way out of a red envelope and declared they had to get married. Unless, of course, Vivian wished to be plagued with terrible luck until her unfortunate and premature death.
Of course the first pretty girl to talk to me in years is dead.
“That’s a croissant.” Vivian smiled at her new wife sitting across from her at a streetside cafe, aiming for helpful. Instead, it was awkward; the shift in language only worked to emphasise the Chinese that tumbled like bricks out of her mouth.
The ghost looked disdainful and peculiarly elegant in her white fur coat. Vivian’s hair was wet and still smelled like chlorine. “I know. I’ve had them before. Well, one,” she amended. “But I’m not a dinosaur.”
Vivian bit back the urge to ask how the ghost knew about dinosaurs. “Sorry.”
“My family was very well-off,” the ghost continued. “I had an excellent education. I could’ve become a teacher, you know. I always thought Ms Fang sounded quite nice. Ms Fang Yu-Zhen. There.” She pressed her lips into a thin line. Moved as if to bite into a piece of croissant, but it tumbled from her smoky fingers back onto the plate.
Vivian tried not to stare at her wounded expression. “When did you die?”
“1967. What year is it now?’
“2024. You know, you’re handling this pretty well.”
“Handling what?”
“This whole…” Vivian gestured helplessly. She could not come up with an eloquent way of describing dying and coming back as a ghost. “…thing.”
Yu-Zhen’s mouth twisted. “Would you prefer if I popped out of that envelope snobbering all over you?”
“No!”
“I remember dying, and when I woke up I could see the sidewalk through my sternum. I could put two and two together. I had an excellent education,” she repeated. Her eyes were very round and somewhat watery. Oh no. Vivian’s fingers twitched towards the napkins near the table’s edge, changed route towards Yu-Zhen’s perfectly manicured hands, then settled like dying bugs onto her lap, twitching occasionally. The cafe table’s wooden patterns were fascinating. “Not that you would know anything about that,” Yu-Zhen continued, suddenly revived. “What kind of idiot picks up a red envelope from the sidewalk anyway? Especially during ghost month?”
Vivian’s mouth fell open. “How was I supposed to know a ghost would come out? Who tells you that kind of stuff?”
“I don’t know, is it not general knowledge?” Yu-Zhen had seemingly decided to give up on her croissant. She stood, brushing nonexistent crumbs off her dress. “Right. Take me to your home. I need to spend my afterlife somewhere.”
If possible, Vivian’s mouth fell open further. “Why are you staying with me? Can’t you… hang out at a temple somewhere? Some sort of ghost motel?”
If possible, Yu-Zhen’s face soured even further. “God, you’re so stupid.” She stalked off, the echoes of her heels clicking against the sidewalk driving needles into Vivian’s skin.
“You’re going the wrong way,” she called helplessly. God, even the way Yu-Zhen pivoted to correct course was pretty.
***
Vivian’s grandmother lived in a small apartment above two convenience stores, alone. Vivian privately suspected she had produced Vivian’s mother via asexual reproduction– it was very hard imagining her grandmother liking anyone but herself. Notably: Vivian was only staying for a week, so – in her words – it was only proper to put her on the couch, which was hard and leathery and could not possibly be good for Vivian’s back.
Yu-Zhen was there now, sitting primly, hands on her knees like a fluffy white butterfly. A cluster of Korean teenagers was dancing on the screen, their hair every possible colour of the pastel rainbow. When Vivian told Yu-Zhen to educate herself on the modern world, this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind.
As if sensing her derision, the screen fuzzed and warped, the pastel-blue idol’s face flickering into an old man in costume, a black moon on his forehead. O…kay. Vivian made an executive decision to worry about that later.
“I was hoping to ask you something,” Vivian said to her grandmother as soapy water slithered between her fingers like worms into dirt.
“Is this about the tea trip tomorrow? Surely a young thing like yourself could handle some cardio. Don’t you enjoy swimming?” Her grandmother was cleaning her china case, which sat on an old vanity whose mirror was covered by an unfinished oil painting. Vivian believed it was supposed to be a phoenix. The china was a slightly discoloured white, making it look mildly dirty despite never leaving its protective case. Secretly, Vivian thought it looked rather plain, but her grandmother didn’t trust anyone else even to touch it.
“No, not the trip… but I’m super excited!” Her grandmother looked at her incredulously. Vivian tried to look earnest. She wanted to be excited, she really, really did. She needed to belong, and if burning alive in a teafield would accomplish that, well…“Have you ever heard anything against picking envelopes up from the sidewalk? Especially during ghost month?”
Vivian’s grandmother snorted. “That old superstition. You shouldn’t pick up unattended red envelopes that were left on the street. When a man picks it up, it forces him to marry an unmarried woman’s spirit. All to prevent stealing, I bet.”
Vivian swallowed. “Right. And um. If a man – if someone did pick one up?”
“He’ll be slowly consumed by the wailing woman until his premature demise. Or until she possesses him. Or until he figures out how to banish her. Whichever comes first.” Vivian’s grandmother finished her dusting with a flourish. “Your mom would be glad you’re taking an interest in these old wives’ tales.”
“Yeah.” Vivian shifted uncomfortably. She knows what her mom would like to hear – that coming to Taipei felt like walking into an old house. Vivian didn’t know how to tell her that it felt more like old clothes – ill-fitting, itchy, and smelling vaguely grey. The streets hummed with a language she only half-understood, and buying anything felt like a ritual in public humiliation. Her mom wanted her to feel at home, and she didn’t know how to explain that home was the slow waves of the lake behind their house, an ocean away.
“I’m going to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Vivian watched her grandmother meander to her bedroom, feeling out of place. “You can look around, you know,” she said to Yu-Zhen, just so there’s something to say.
“I have looked around,” Yu-Zhen replied flatly. “There are only two rooms. It is abysmal.”
Vivian felt she should defend her grandmother, but couldn’t find the words. “If you don’t mind me asking,” Vivian said instead, sitting carefully on the coffee table. “How did you die?”
Yu-Zhen was quiet. Her lips were very full and red as she gnawed on the edge of her knuckle. “That’s part of the problem,” she answered, quiet still. “I don’t remember.”
“What? How could you not–”
“Obviously, I don’t know how,” Yu-Zhen snapped. “That’s the other part of the problem, isn’t it?” “Do you remember anything?”
“Everything up until the circumstances surrounding my death.” Yu-Zhen’s eyes flickered. “There was a fire. I remember smoke.”
“You look pretty good for having burned to death.”
“But I didn’t!” Yu-Zhen said, frustrated. “Not if there’s this–”
She wrenched off her coat, and Vivian’s stomach flipped. Her qipao was slashed open at her stomach, the silk edges curling. Beneath it, her stomach and ribs – but especially her stomach – were riddled with holes. Jagged, ugly. The blood was almost black. Why did it still look so wet?
Vivian swallowed. “Jesus.”
Yu-Zhen snorted, shrugging her coat back on. “Pretty convincing evidence, isn’t it?” “Sure,” Vivian echoed faintly.
“That’s probably it!” Yu-Zhen said with a start. “My unfinished business!” She darted forward before Vivian could react, grabbing her hands, fingers soft and cold but solid. “You have to help me. I need to find whoever did this to me so I can move on.”
“Move on?”
“Yes!” Yu-Zhen nodded feverishly. “And you were the idiot dumb enough to pick up that envelope, so really you’re responsible –”
“Okay, okay. No need to rub it in.” Vivian squeezed Yu-Zhen’s hands softly, like the pulsing of a heart. “I promise.”
Yu-Zhen’s grip lingered for a beat too long. Vivian exhaled, rubbing her face, suddenly aware of how heavy her body felt. “Let’s go to bed,” she said, moving to the linen closet. Two extra duvets and a pillow were dropped onto the floor beside the bed before Vivian flopped onto the couch. Maybe when she woke up, this would all make more sense.
“Um.” Vivian turned her head marginally to look at Yu-Zhen from the corner of her eye. “What is this?”
“Makeshift bed. I have one too, see? We’re matching.”
“And why am I on the floor?”
“You’re not the one who could feel back pain.”
“You don’t know that.”
Vivian let her head thunk back down as a response.
“Hmph,” Yu-Zhen huffed once again in complaint. But the next time Vivian turned her head, she was lying swaddled in the blankets— not quite an organised bed. Her shoulders did not move, but as Vivian drifted off to sleep, she would like to think Yu-Zhen followed not far behind.
***
A man was singing along to the jukebox. He was loud, impossible to ignore, and he hadn’t hit a single note yet. It’s almost impressive.
“Is this what you imagined freedom to be like?” Her friend nudged her arm with her own and stayed there, brachium against brachium.
“It’s even better,” she replied dryly, but found it more honest than not. Yes, the bar was stuffy, and yes, the drinks tasted cheap and unclean, but she liked how the bodies on the dance floor moved, free and unencumbered, and she liked the feeling of her hair brushing her shoulders, soft and wild without hairspray. She liked how Mei-Yan’s hair looked, too. It was frizzing up tonight without hair oil or pomade. Yu-Zhen thought that if she touched it, it’d shock her. She sort of wanted to touch it anyway, pat it down into something respectable.
She took another sip of her drink.
“Oh, I think he’s looking at you.”
“What?”
“The singer.” Mei-Yan giggled. “Turn around.”
Yu-Zhen did. Yes, it was the singer at the jukebox. He had moved on to a different song, one that was slower and crooning, clearly romantic even if she didn’t understand the words. In retrospect, his zeal was quite endearing, even if he lacked technical skill. And his eyes were quite green, almost like jade, which must be a good omen. When he saw her looking back, he grinned like an adolescent. He was cute if she looked at him the right way under the right light.
Yu-Zhen let her painted-red lips twitch into a smile. He grinned back, all shiny white teeth. ***
Vivian headed to the library; Yu-Zhen followed, claiming it was to keep her on track. Vivian quietly suspected she just didn’t know what to do with herself otherwise.
The secretary smiled at Vivian as she entered, and she returned it, trying her best to look like she knew what she was doing. “Excuse me? Would you happen to know where the newspaper archives are?”
“Third floor, up the room and to your right.”
“Thank you,” she squeaked, scurrying away.
“That was depressing.”
“You can be a little nicer to me. I am supposed to be with my grandma.” Vivian remembered the look on her grandmother’s face that morning when she asked to stay home. Confusion and disappointment and finally resignation, laced with… what? “And anyway, I wouldn’t need to embarrass myself if you had just told me where it was.”
Yu-Zhen trailed behind her, kitten heels scraping. “I’ve never been here. We weren’t allowed to. Mother said libraries weren’t for people like us.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Yu-Zhen wrinkled her nose like she was judging a poorly put-together outfit. Maybe she was. Vivian tugged at the hem of her sweatshirt self-consciously. “Books came to me. And anyway, this place smells like dust.”
“I kind of like the dust smell.”
“Of course you would.” Yu-Zhen pulled ahead to the top of the stairs. Vivian followed. She sank in front of the newspaper archives. “Alright, when did you die again?” “December 14, 1967.”
“Wow, specific.”
“It was the week before Christmas Eve. It’s not like I have dementia.” Yu-Zhen sniffed. “So what if I can’t remember how I died?”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Vivian agreed. She reached upwards for Yu-Zhen’s hands. “But who knows how ghosts work?”
“I know more than you,” Yu-Zhen muttered peevishly, but allowed herself to be dragged down.
Vivian laughed. “Probably.” She turned towards the newspapers. God, the characters were like little ants crawling across the screen. Vivian leaned in, eyes narrowing.
“I thought women nowadays were supposed to be educated.”
“They are.”
“Then why do you have the reading comprehension of a third grader?”
Vivian sighed. “That’s what happens when you spend your developmental years learning English. In America.”
That was interesting enough to draw Yu-Zhen’s attention from the reports. “America.” She said the word slowly, running it through her teeth. Vivian blinked, Yu-Zhen’s tone bordering on something that made her uneasy. There was a buzzing in her ears. No – that was coming from the lights. It was fritzing out, flickering into darkness, slowly opening up into a yawning, ravenous void –
“Huh,” Yu-Zhen said. “The world really has changed.” She turned back. “You just look through. I’ll do the reading.”
She obeyed obligingly. Yu-Zhen rested her cheek on Vivian’s shoulder. Something sharp brushed against her shoulders— teeth? No. Why would there be teeth? Vivian tried her best to catch whatever characters she understood instead. Most reports were dull—cat stuck in a tree, mayoral elections. But one stood out.
YOUNG WOMAN PERISHES IN UNEXPLAINED FIRE… age 22, found deceased… Initial investigations suggest the fire may have originated from a candle left unattended. No foul play is currently suspected. Investigation archived by external request.
“What?!” Yu-Zhen jerked backwards. “You must have the wrong report. Keep looking.” Vivian shook her head slowly. “No other incidents this year led to a death.”
“How?” Yu-Zhen repeated brokenly.
“Yu-Zhen…” Vivian carefully put a hand on her shoulder. “I know you don’t want to think about this, but what if it was just a fire?”
“What?” She ripped her shoulder out of her grasp. “Are you stupid? You’ve seen it –” she gestured to her torso. “How could a fire have caused that?”
“If the floor above collapsed, the debris–”
“Just my torso? Don’t be –”
“We have to consider this. Otherwise, we’ll just be chasing smoke.”
“I thought you believed me.”
“Yu-Zhen, you don’t remember how you died.” Vivian reminded her. “I believe you about the heat. I believe there are wounds on your torso, but none of that necessarily points to foul play.”
“Then why am I still here?” Yu-Zhen poked her in the chest. “If that’s not my unfinished business, then what is? And those reports sound suspicious. Investigation archived by external request? I mean, who would have –”
“Your family?” Vivian suggested.
“My family would have spared no expense to find the truth,” Yu-Zhen repeated stoically. “I was their eldest daughter. I was important.”
Vivian hesitated.
Yu-Zhen could read between the lines. She reared backwards. “You don’t know anything about them! You don’t know anything–
***
“– about anything!” Yu-Zhen screamed. Screamed, like she had been doing all the way back to the apartment. The vanity wobbled and shook.
Vivian threw her hands into the air. “That’s the five hundredth time! For someone who’s so “educated”, you only seem to know one insult!”
The living room’s ceiling lights flickered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re so mean! You call me stupid all the time, even after I’ve done so much! I’m sick of it!” “What, you mean that tea trip you didn’t want to go to anyway? Boo-hoo, that’s so upsetting.”
“It’s not about that!” she yelled back. “This was my chance to get to know my grandma! Now she probably thinks I’m some stuck-up American who doesn’t care about her! I traded that away just to spend a whole day helping a total bitch!”
The light’s buzzing rose to a screech. The vanity’s mirror exploded. It sent the painting careening forward, smashing into the case, which tumbled onto the floor. The case.
“No!” Vivian darted forward, mindless of the glass shards on the floor. It only confirmed the worst. The vintage teacups – the ones that never left the case – were nothing but pieces.
A presence at her shoulder. Yu-Zhen, pressing into skin. “Vivian…” she whispered. “What… I don’t know what…”
“She’s going to hate me,” she said, distant from herself.
“She’s not going to hate you.” Yu-Zhen was rubbing circles into her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. C’mon, get up, you’re bleeding–”
Vivian’s lips parted, though she didn’t know what she was going to say. The front door clicked open, her grandmother padded in. “Vivian? I heard something from downstairs–”
Her grandmother stopped short then— taking in Vivian with the shattered glass, the broken teacups. “Vivian?” She asked again, very quiet. “What is this?”
And, without warning, Vivian felt herself begin to cry.
***
“I’m glad you told me,” was all her grandma said. Vivian was glad. Her bare feet were curled under her. They felt cold and numb. Yu-Zhen nudged their toes together, and Vivian felt her lips twitch despite herself.
“I’m sorry about your china.”
Her grandmother waved her off. “I don’t care about that.” She laughed. “I don’t even know why I kept them. They belonged to my mother-in-law. She… wasn’t kind.” She fell quiet once again.
Vivian understood. “I’m sorry. About today, too.”
Her grandma nodded slowly. “It makes more sense now. Ghostly vengeance is more important than a day out with little old me, isn’t it? Although I was worried… well. Perhaps it wasn’t something you liked.”
“I want to like it,” Vivian replied, desperate. “I want to understand. I want to really be–” The words sounded pathetic coming out of her throat. They stuck there, unmoving. “I like this country.”
“I believe you.” Her grandma placed her hands softly on hers. “Picking tea does not make you more Taiwanese than you are now.”
It sounded ridiculous, put like that. Yu-Zhen pressed harder into her, dots of pressure. “I want to spend more time with you.”
“We still can.” Her grandma turned the painting around. The one with the bird on fire. “One of my friends painted this for me. I’m playing mahjong with her tomorrow. Come with me?”
She nodded, a sized-up bobblehead. Her grandma pressed a hand against her forehead. “Go to sleep. Things will make more sense in the morning – ghosts included.”
***
They see each other at church. She sits with her family, and he smiles at her. They sneak off to his apartment afterwards, giggling. He says he’s a soldier. She calls him her hero, and he laughs like a boy.
He’s going to take her to America. When they curl together on the bed, her bare leg tucked against his thigh, he serenades her with books and picturesque houses and fields of flowers.
She throws up. She throws up. He brushes her hair from her shoulders, and she thinks she could love him forever.
***
Vivian woke up to Yu-Zhen’s teeth in her leg. Sleep dragged her under. She woke up again to pitch blackness and Yu-Zhen’s eyes inches from hers.
“We should exorcise me,” Yu-Zhen was saying.
“What?” she responded, groggy from sleep.
“We might as well send me to the afterlife instead of wasting our time. And, no offence, but I really don’t want to eat you.”
“Why would I take offence at that? Also, I’m not going to exorcise you. That messes up your reincarnation… thing.”
Yu-Zhen stared. “How do you know that?”
“You told me when we were getting married.” She yawned. “I like you here. Come to mahjong with me tomorrow?”
Vivian woke up to Yu-Zhen sleeping soundly on the floor. She shuffled to the bathroom, leg sore, feeling strangely bereft.
They didn’t talk about it. Yu-Zhen came with her to mahjong.
Mahjong was at Grandma’s friend’s house. Mahjong involved roasted peanuts and spicy shrimp heads, and lots of wine.
Vivian did not know how to play mahjong, but Yu-Zhen did. In a strange moment of generosity – or perhaps Vivian just looked appropriately terrified watching three older women clack their pieces into neat rows with the practised grace of women who had been demolishing each other since the Nixon administration– Yu–Zhen hovered behind Vivian and offered advice. “Slide that tile – yes, the one from the end of your hand – forward. You can make a pong with that.”
“You’re not totally hopeless,” Auntie Chen said, leaning over like it was a secret.
“Mei-Yan’s the artist behind my painting!” her grandmother exclaimed, a hand on Auntie Chen’s knee, smile bright in her proximity.
“The phoenix?”
“Mei-Yan?” Yu-Zhen inhaled sharply.
“The vermilion bird,” Auntie Chen corrected kindly. “And it’ll probably never be finished.” She flexed her fingers. Vivian glanced down. Her hands were shaking.
Yu-Zhen’s hands were on Vivian’s shoulders again. Sharp as nails. “That’s my– I haven’t seen her in… Look at her. She’s so old.”
“Many years ago, my best friend died in a fire,” Auntie Chen was saying. “She was a fighter. That’s why I didn’t paint a phoenix — I don’t think she would be satisfied as just someone reborn. She would want justice.”
“Your friend,” Vivian said slowly, thoughts too slow, or perhaps baulking, afraid to piece everything together. “Is her name Yu-Zhen Fang?”
Silence. “How the hell do you know that?” Said in a whisper.
Vivian’s grandmother was a quick thinker. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” she said – also in a whisper – leading her other friend away.
How much to say? “My mother told me stories,” she began slowly. ”About the fire. And the stab wounds. I’ve been trying to solve her murder.”
Auntie Chen gnawed on the inside of her cheek. “Is it an open secret now?” She laughed suddenly. “Her family tried so hard to cover it up. And now everyone knows anyway. It’s so–” She laughed again. When she opened her mouth, Vivian spotted blood on her teeth.
“Who was she?”
“She was my best friend,” Auntie Chen said, like it was something awful. “She loved hard, like it would save her. But that man didn’t love her the same way. He was American. One of the soldiers stationed here. Older. Married, I think. She was murdered. No one was supposed to know, but I did. I did.”
Vivian got to her knees. Reached for her hands, shuddering like a rabbit’s heart. “What happened that night?”
Auntie Chen took a deep breath. “The family didn’t want people to talk, but the expat’s neighbours told me in confidence. They said there was the sound of breaking glass.”
He had thrown a glass against a wall. “You promised me!” she screeched.
“You’re such a whiny bitch!” he screamed back. She was two weeks pregnant. Her stomach wanted to claw out of her throat.
“Yelling. A lot of yelling. A lot of crying, too.”
“You’re not fucking coming with me!”
“Some sort of scuffle occurred.”
He screamed. She screamed back. She felt like a rat in a trash bag.
He pushed her. Her flailing arms knocked over a candle. There was something shiny and silver in his hand. Last night she was dreaming of silver rings and doves against clouds. Her stomach was clawing its way out. He brought his arm down again and again. She screamed. She screamed. She couldn’t stop screaming.
“They say the bar is still haunted. The entire thing burned down, you know? The soldiers’ apartment and everything below it.”
Vivian looked at Yu-Zhen, who had not moved throughout this conversation. “What did you do after?”
“Nobody would have believed me. And even if they did, what could they have done? The soldier had gone home. I would have only embarrassed the family. What was one girl to a legacy? And I was just a maid, you know. They could have ruined me. They would have ruined me. What was I supposed to do?”
Vivian didn’t know what to do besides hold her hand tighter. But Yu-Zhen did. She knelt, too, not a day over twenty-one. Her hand phased into Mei-Yan’s, translucent forehead through brittle grey hair. When they breathed – one shuddered, one imitated – it felt almost like forgiveness.
***
Vivian took Yu-Zhen to the pool. “I come here to calm down,” she explained. It was blessedly empty. “Watch the water.”
Yu-Zhen’s face was still painfully blank.
Vivian cautiously put a hand in Yu-Zhen’s. “How are you feeling?”
That was the wrong move. Yu-Zhen ripped herself away, unhinging her jaw. She screamed and screamed, like she couldn’t find it within herself to stop. The pool’s lights flickered with a high-pitched buzz – a whining dog. Vivian clamped her hands over her ears. The sound echoed around and around. Were her ears bleeding? She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t –
She reached out and wrapped her arms around Yu-Zhen – chest against her back, lips behind her ear. Yu-Zhen wasn’t breathing so she breathed for her, deep inhales. “C’mon, just breathe.” Inhale, exhale. “Breathe with me.”
Inhale, exhale. The waves rippling through the pool softened. “I hate this,” Yu-Zhen whispered. “I know.”
“I hate him.”
“It would be bizarre if you didn’t.”
Yu-Zhen choked on a laugh. “I was so stupid.”
“That’s not a crime.” She nudged her side. “You know what is a crime, though? Murder.” Another nudge. “Arson.” Another. “Haunted ghost marriages.”
Yu-Zhen did laugh then, wriggling out of her grip. “That’s such a lie.”
“No, think about it – ghosts aren’t legally recognised, right? So we’re technically committing marriage fraud–”
Yu-Zhen laughed harder, tears in her eyes. “You’re so dumb.”
“How do you feel now?”
“Better.” A pause. “Still bad.”
Vivian chewed on her bottom lip. “I’m going to help Auntie Chen with her gallery. I’m not sure if you heard… I think it’s to process her grief? But also to tell your story. So people will at least know the truth.”
“That’s… good.” Yu-Zhen shrugged. Turned to sit at the edge of the pool, legs passing through the water without a splash. “I mean, I appreciate it. But it doesn’t make this better, you know?” She gestured to herself before letting her face fall into her hands. “I don’t know what to do with myself,” she murmured.
Vivian sat down next to her. “What do you want to do?”
“Live. He took everything from me. I wanted to travel. Maybe be a teacher. But now my only options are possessing you, or eating you, or getting exorcised –”
“We’re not exorcising you,” Vivian said firmly.
“–and I really don’t want to eat you. Even if you taste really good.”
“I… thanks?” Vivian blinked. “And you don’t want to… move on?”
“I don’t think I can.” Yu-Zhen kicked at the water sullenly. “That’s so stupid, right? It’s bad enough being unfulfilled, but now I’m being punished for it. Self-actualise, or into a vengeful spirit you go! I–” Vivian waited patiently. “I just want to keep screaming.” She laughed, deprecating this time. “Scream until they all hear me. But ghosts can never scream loud enough, can’t they?”
“I can.”
Yu-Zhen startled. “Oh, that’s not what I meant.” She reached over to hold Vivian’s hands. “You don’t have to. I was just saying things, like always.”
Vivian slid into the water and under, as easy as anything. It was lukewarm, like a second skin. “Vivian!” Yu-Zhen stood up. “I’m serious!”
“So am I!” Vivian popped up. She was grinning. She felt lighter than she had in years. “You don’t want to eat me. I don’t want to exorcise you. Let’s do this!”
Yu-Zhen stomped her foot. “When I said I wanted to live, I didn’t mean I wanted to take your life instead!”
“Then don’t! We can share, right?” Vivian swam closer. “We can work together! Like how we’ve been doing!”
“That’s not how that works!”
“How would you know? It’s not like they’ve done ghost-research.”
Yu-Zhen giggled. “You’re so stupid,” she said, and it sounded fond.
“I want to figure out who I am with you. You can come to America with me! We can see everything you dreamed of seeing.”
Yu-Zhen knelt, reaching out to touch Vivian’s cheek, her fingers cool as wind on glass. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Vivian reached out, too. Yu-Zhen’s eyes were so big. Hungry, even now. They were like doubles – hands on faces on hands on faces. “Come here?”
Yu-Zhen didn’t taste like anything at all. She felt like a million tiny fireworks against her lips, curling into a smile. She melted into Vivian’s skin like smoke between her pores. Vivian closed her eyes, feeling Yu-Zhen travelling through her body, gentle and careful. Warmth and wetness and the low sting of acid in the back of her throat echoed at the edge of her senses, but she ignored it, refused to dive into it.
“See? It doesn’t hurt–”
Words were ripped from her mouth by a tidal wave of emotion. Fear and joy and love love love, roaring into her. For a moment, Vivian felt sure she was in the middle of an inferno, swirling into a black hole of colour and feeling. She was heavier and she was lighter – there were two layers to her skin and none at all.
Vivian?
Yu-Zhen.
She opened her eyes. The fractals of the ceiling light were fuzzy, like turtle doves. How do you feel?
There was a weight around her and inside her, like her heart couldn’t beat without glancing against another. She smiled, letting the water swirl around her, a girl-island. It felt like calm. It felt like love. It felt like coming home.
Davina Jou is a writer and illustrator from Taiwan. They are currently the lead editor for the online literary arts magazine Pen & Palette. You can find them on Instagram @toto.dreamer.
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