When Will was seventeen, he was in bed with another boy for the very first time in his life. It was the 1950s, and homosexuality was absolutely not an option in his family. So when his father opened the door and discovered his son tangled up naked, it was a horrifying and humiliating disaster.

His father simply closed the door without a word, and it left Will in a state of total and utter panic. He tiptoed around the house in hysteria for days, waiting for the beating that surely awaited him.

Instead, a week or so later, his father took him into the woods under the guise of going hunting. They walked deep into the forest, and he shot his son in the back of the head. Will’s body was never found.

Will was the ghost that haunted my childhood home, as far back as I can honestly remember. He would chase me through the house in the night, appearing in my mind as a monster with teeth that chewed constantly the back of my neck. He was the first ghost I successfully put up boundaries against- he wasn’t allowed in my bedroom, and as soon as I could slam my door shut, he’d disappear.

Except for the night, way back in 2003, when I suddenly felt a presence in my room. I thought it was “Alex,” because I had just had a dream about him a few nights prior, and I was surrounded by people who were actively speaking to him either in meditation or through Ouija boards. I was so desperate to be included in this very exclusive Cool Kids Club.

“Alex?” I asked out loud, and a green flash streaked right in front of my eyes in the candlelit semi-dark. I gasped, and then watched with my own eyes as the edge of my bed lowered, as if someone had sat down on it.

Most supernatural things are both exhilarating and literally bone-chilling. When people tell me ghost stories that are true, it always makes my throat close and my eyes well up with tears. If you know, you know. Seeing my mattress shift on its own made me instantly start to cry and feel as if I might throw up, all at once.

Will is the first person we ever spoke to on the Ouija board, and actually the person who demanded that we speak every single night at midnight. If we didn’t, he would shove papers off desks onto the floor, make my personal items go missing, or poke us in the ribs all night as we tried to sleep.

Will, Alex, and my now ex-husband (but then fiancé) were a very close group for several years. With Alex’s guidance and support, Will decided he wanted to finally transition to the Other Side. We were told that because of the trouble he had caused (he haunted the FUCK out of people, not just my family- he used to come on the board and regale us with horrible and hilarious stories of how he’d ruined someone’s night… he especially loved unfortunate souls on too much acid), he had to put in all of this extra work to essentially repay his debt. Alex, in his bid to be a better person, helped to orchestrate his healing.

Will transitioned over right at the same time that things with Alex and I were getting very intense, so I don’t think I paid the correct amount of attention to how different he suddenly became. Will and my ex were also much closer, probably because of how close Alex and I were, so maybe I didn’t care? My ex and Will were entwined, which allowed Alex and I to surreptitiously strengthen our bond. Alex always just said Will was off exploring, because this was his first life, and therefore first opportunity to come Home. I had no reason not to believe that.

How did Will feel coming to the Other Side, seeing the Entire Truth? He was led- like my ex and I were- to believe that this was all new and fresh to us all. To get Home and realize that Alex and I already knew each other for centuries and centuries, and this was all some huge elaborate dance? That Alex was, in fact, a high-ranking demon trying (and failing) to make amends?

Will must have felt so blindsided. This precious boy who was both seventeen and well into his sixties, trapped in a liminal space where he was both so old and also just a baby. Murdered by his own father, left to rot to dust in the forest. Alex as a surrogate father, who then turns out to be a rapist and murderer.

In late summer of 2005, Alex had come to visit through my ex and as we cuddled in an afterglow, Alex suddenly gasped in panic.

“Will is here,” he said in a low, flat voice. “He is very upset.” Then he (inside my ex’s body, of course) began to hyperventilate and shiver. I wrapped my arms around him and wept, begging him to stay, but Will got through and shoved me violently off of him.

“Alex lied to me,” he growled. “He said he was coming here to talk and clear things up and you fucked?” He shook his head. “You two are disgusting. You’re a married woman. You should be ashamed.”

When I tried to explain that I was confused too, that it was complicated, that the three of us had figured out a way to make it work, he got even angrier.

“You know,” he said, “I had three really great friends. And now I have none.”

A year later, after Alex raped me, Will was the first person I told. I think he saved my life, because I’m almost sure he’s the one who then raised an alarm to bring everyone else’s attention to the situation. He was perhaps the first person who realized that Alex was quickly backsliding into extremely dangerous ground.

Suddenly, there were a ton of dead people appearing to me in meditation, and everyone had input or an opinion on what I needed to do to move forward. This was the period of my life when there were so many voices that I felt like I genuinely might be schizophrenic. At that point, the idea that I had completely lost my mind was actually preferable to the reality, and at that point, I didn’t even remember what had really happened.

I was reading about when Jim first started to come visit me, when he first became my “guardian,” so to speak. We were the last two people left who would be around Alex on any level.

As I read this condensed version of my journals that I found, where I’m trying to shape it into a fictional story, I actually had to edit and rewrite the historical events because they’re honestly too sick to believe.

Now I see everyone else’s horror at my behavior. I was so completely bound to him, constantly allowing him access to me even though he did literally nothing but betray and assault me at every single opportunity.

He raped me at least four or five times that I actually remember, but it was probably on the scale of dozens, and at least once it was so violent it caused people to have full emotional breakdowns witnessing the replay I’d cursed the beach house with.

And I just kept forgiving him. And not just forgiving him, falling back in love with him. And I know that is illness, it is abuse, it is trauma, and largely it was also terror, too. But speaking with Hermie… it was also a calculated war strategy? I can’t understand.

I gave myself up to pillaged, my whole body just a small town to be incinerated and leveled…. all just to show a demon he was a demon? What the fuck was the purpose of that?

Last night, I spoke to Jim and said, “Do you think he was right when he said he ruined me for anyone else?”

His head dipped briefly to one side as he contemplated. “I think honestly, that it is entirely up to you. I think in a lot of ways that that’s what he hopes, because he never wants anyone to get to you. And I think it gives you an excuse to not let anyone in, either.”

His feline shaped eyes swept over my face. “How could it be possible that you’re ruined forever? I refuse to believe that.”

I am constantly receiving messages from the Universe that I need to slow down, sit in my sickness, peel it open and examine the wound. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know what I hoped to gain from going to see Alex, but it certainly didn’t help me at all. Nothing about being near him is good for me, because it reignites my sickness for him. I am addicted to his poison, and I have been since before time was time.

My reaction to someone else in my “real” life shows me that I am unwell. I am unbalanced. I have a festering, burning hot wound just under the surface of my skin.

Can I fix it? How?

I have to believe I deserve to be loved softly.