| Chapter One – I Can Make As Many Jokes About Dead Guys As My Smol Non-Beating Heart Desires. |
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❝I knew you were trouble❞

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n o v e m b e r  t w e n t y  s e v e n t h

Teller Park's blue eyes widened in shock.

"You can see me?" He asked, perplexed.

"No. I just enjoy talking to the air at 4AM and referring to them as 'Teller'."

"That's mighty strange, Arden. You should talk to a sociologist."

"Psychologist."

"What?"

"You mean psychologist. A sociologist studies sociology, a psychologist studies human behaviour. But that is not the point. What are you doing in my bedroom?"

"Learning some new SAT words, apparently." He said, amused. He found her snappy state rather hilarious.

"Teller."

"Arden." He mocked.

She swung her arm to punch him but her arm went right through him. Again.

He began doing an incredibly stupid dance that involved him kicking his legs out from side to side like a sideways can-can.

"Can't touch this! Na na na na na na na na..." He trailed off at her he's-so-immature expression.

Clearing her throat, she asked her question. "Aren't you... Um... Uh..."

"Dead? Yes. Very. I broke 17 bones."

"Oh." What does one tell a dead guy with 17 broken bones?

"Impressive, right?" He said, a boyish smile on his face. "My turn! How can you see me?"

"I don't fudging know! If I did I would be a lot less frazzled."

"Fudge and frazzled. Loving the grandma vocab, Arcade."

"A, it's not 'grandma vocab' and B, my name is Arden, not Arcade." She exclaimed, throwing her arms up. For a dead guy he sure spoke a lot. And annoyed her a lot.

"I know your name, Miss. Arden Kay. We went to the same school for eleven and a half years. It's just that Arden Kay kind of sounds like Arcade to me, so I called you Arcade."

"Oh."

"You have all this fabulous vocabulary and then you say 'oh' every other sentence and it ruins it all."

"I'd shut up if I were you. Maybe I'm some ghost hunter and that's why I can see you."

"I didn't really peg you as a Winchester, Arcade. You're much too serious and too little plaid."

"What?"

"Never mind. I blame Iyanna for the Supernatural references. Anyways, back to business."

"What business?"

"I don't know, but my Econ teacher always said that and I've always wanted to."

"Teller?"

"Yes?"

"You're a mess."

"A HOT ONE, THOUGH!"

**

"So are you just gonna watch me while I eat breakfast or something?" Arden asked, irritated as Teller watched while standing on the dinner table. His lack of corporeal form was beginning to become a bother.

"Yes. I like watching you." He said, lowering his eyelids.

"What on earth was that?"

"My Edward Cullen impression. Was it good? I've been training."

"For what? Twilight Con?"

"That's a thing?" He asked, his eyes wide.

"No. Well, I don't think so."

"Huh. It should be."

"Why? Those books were awful and the movies were cringe worthy."

"No! I loved the books."

"You are a disgrace to man kind."

"Eh."

"No argument?"

"None."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"You have school in like twelve minutes."

"CRAB CAKES!"

"What do you need crab cakes for?"

"What? No one needs crab cakes, what gave you that idea?"

"You exclaiming, and I quote, CRAB CAKES!" At that he jumped onto her. Startled, she leaned back and the chair tipped over. There she lay, on the back of the chair, groaning and cursing the Gods for the creation and death of Teller Park.

Teller began laughing like a maniac. "Oh god! You just fell! Like poof! Jesus, did you not read as a child? A ghost is incapable of touching living people directly. Now if I had a knife..."

"Teller! I don't care. I need to get to school. If I'm late for one more English class Miss. Briar will kill me."

"Hey! Don't joke about death with a dead guy."

"You joke about it," she said, grabbing her keys and bag hastily.

"I am a dead guy. I can make as many jokes about dead guys as my smol non-beating heart desires."

"Clearly, you're not dead enough." Arden muttered under her breath as she locked the door on him and ran to her car.

She began to drive pressing the gas pedal down in a manner that her driving instructor wouldn't have approved.

She pulled up in front of the school five minutes later, six minutes to spare. She turned to the right to grab her bag and then she screamed.

Because there, completely chill, sat Teller Park, scrolling through her phone.

"Teller! What the heck?!" She said pulling her phone away to see that he had been scrolling through her Tumblr.

"You should get a passcode on that thing."

"You should, excuse my French, go to hell."

"Je croix que le mot français pour 'hell' est enfer."

"You croix what?"

"Did you fail French or something?" He asked, rolling his eyes at her.

"I TOOK SPANISH!"

"Psh. Loser." He said, passing through the door as she got out.

"How'd you get in my car anyways?"

"I'm dead. I can do a ton of shit I couldn't before. For example," he climbed onto one of the benches and flipped off it. "Couldn't do that before," he said, smiling like a doofus.

"You could've hurt yourself."

"I'm. Dead."

She looked up and saw some people staring. She craned her neck to see if there was anything on her butt. There was nothing. And then it clicked.

Teller's a ghost. Only I can see him. Fudge.

Quickly she ran into the building. Her situation was rather comical.

Teller definitely thought so. He made it very clear.

He had been laughing for minutes now. And as she sat in her AP English class, Teller's laugh was distracting her from the very dry lecture on Edgar Allan Poe.

She whipped out her phone and hid it behind the ledge of the desk. 

Sighing, she put her phone back into her sweatshirt pocket. At least he had reduced his laughter to strangled giggles.

She turned her head and watched him smile, unaware to her stare. He was really quite good looking.

Would that be necrophilia? She thought awkwardly. Nah, he's not a corpse and thinking he's cute isn't necessarily sexual attraction.

Yeah, that'll work.

"Miss. Kay, are you planning on staring at my poster of rules until it appears in the abyss for the rest of class or is that just how you wanted to waste a half hour?" Miss. Briar's strong British accent brought her back to earth.   

"Oh, um, sorry, Miss. Briar."

"Begin your poetry assignment please." She said, shaking her head. She knew that Arden wasn't typically the student who zoned out like that. Senior year must've been getting to her. Miss. Briar thought sympathetically. It was her little secret but, Arden was her favourite.

"Yes, Ma'am." She mumbled, searching for her wire-bound notebook.

As Miss. Briar left, she glanced around the room for Teller. He was nowhere to be seen.

He was trouble, she could feel it. 

**

A/N

Hi! So here's the early update for y'all. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Teller is literally my most favourite character. EVER.

Anyways, shoutout to unkissable for Arden's nickname (Arcade). She came up with it... Also, shoutout to deadsmileys for the beautiful cover (it's in the media section if you haven't seen it)

Thanks for reading! Make sure to vote!

(If you want another early update, get the entire book to 30 votes. Good luck!)

See you on the flipside...

xx climboutthebackdoor

PS. TypoS

◎ u p d a t e : 05.17.2016 ◎