He Called Me Ryan

Written by Abby Sundeen

In the four years that I’ve been gone, nobody’s tried to summon me. No messages to the beyond, no attempts to contact, nobody in my house with a blacklight searching for the fingerprints of spirits beyond. Not even from my own family, who still lives there, who finished with my funeral and just left me behind, has bothered to even try.

They should have at least tried.

Well, my mom did. Once. She came in here and started talking, but she could hardly get through her first sentence without choking back tears. I couldn’t tell if her tears came because she missed me or because she thought I wasn’t here. Instead, she left and locked the door behind her.

I’ve been completely alone in this bedroom ever since, the walls a deathly shade of blue-gray. Everything is decorated exactly the way it was when I was alive and wanted it to look sophisticated: white bedding, sleek silver and gold decorations. It’s minimal and everything I had wanted it to be. Now there’s nothing here to remind me of the person I was, and my memory isn’t what it used to be.

It’s almost shameful, this afterlife, though I have nobody and nothing to compare it to. Before I died, I had thought it would be something like a large network of… ghosts, I guess? I had expected ghosts and ghouls and spirits from all over the global timeline that I could talk with about anything and everything — except how we died. That would be like talking about work at a cocktail party.

My new existence is, instead, painfully lonely.

My family never believed in ghosts. Now that I’ve become one, I suppose they don’t believe in me, either. I’m still in the house with them; the issue is that I can’t leave. I had assumed that this would also come with the title, this inability to go too far, but I hadn’t realized it would mean I couldn’t leave my room.

None of my sisters wear the jewelry I used to like. My little brother doesn’t sleep with my favorite stuffed animals, the ones I had tucked deep in my closet. All my things stay in my room like they were before I died. Nobody comes in anymore, and nothing comes out. On the one hand, it’s respectful, but I can’t help but wonder if they’ve forgotten about me already.

It’s the loneliness that makes the transition so much more jolting when I am summoned for the first time. I know it’s not someone in my family, and the hope grows in me that perhaps one of my friends from high school has decided to try and make contact.

The feeling before a summon is something like a heartbeat (or, what would be a heartbeat) before it happens. Suddenly, the pit of my stomach is caving inwards and I’m falling into myself, and then I’m real again.

I balance on the borderline of a memory long forgotten. Most of my memories are gone nowadays, so it takes a moment to realize that this isn’t happening for the first time. The voice in the back of my mind is screaming danger.

I’m standing at a bus stop with a friend, and we’re laughing. It’s after school, the sun is shining, and a lawn mower hums in the background. I don’t remember her name, but I do know that she has strawberry blonde hair and the most radiant smile. Her eyes sparkle in the sunlight, and as she laughs, she tosses some hair behind her shoulder. She says something I don’t quite hear but I laugh again anyway, throwing my head back so far that my sunglasses fall off of my head. The clatter is too loud as they tumble into the road.

Naturally, I run over to grab them, and the girl calls a name. I don’t know if it’s mine, but I look up just in time. The grill of a truck meets my nose and continues forward while we get acquainted. Then it’s far too dark to need sunglasses, and my nose aches terribly.

I realize, after a moment, that it’s only too dark because I have my eyes closed. But when I open them and the world returns to a gentle dimness, I’m not at home. I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor with two fingers on, if I remember what it’s called, a planchet. I’m sitting in front of someone I’ve never seen before, not even in a distant memory. This face is a new one, and I’m not at home.

How did he do that?

His eyes are closed, too, but in the dimness of the room, it seems almost unnecessary. There’s not much I can see except the soft shag carpet under my legs, the board, and the person in front of me. Dark hair frames his face.

“Please,” he’s whispering, “please be here. Please come.”

Is he asking for me? Did I forget about him, too?

I shift the planchet, just the slightest bit, and he gasps. “Ryan, is that you? This… This is Buck. Bucky. Is that you?”

There’s so much that I’ve forgotten. Nobody’s been here to remind me who I am or who I knew, but I’m here. Bucky is asking for me. I scan the board on which the planchet sits, and move it to, YES. Then I spell out, R-Y-A-N.

A tear spills over Bucky’s cheek, and I reach out to wipe it away. The world dims more as I take my hand off of the planchet. When my thumb makes contact with his skin, it just goes through his face. Bucky’s body goes through a series of small convulsions, something akin to a shiver, but a relieved smile crosses his face.

Someone’s happy to see me? I’m almost embarrassed that I don’t know who he is, especially since he seems to care about me so much.

It’s been so long.

I had forgotten my own name.

“God, I’m so happy you’re here,” he says in a shuddering voice. “Really, I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too,” I say, or at least try to say. My voice, so weak, doesn’t make it past the barrier of my lips. So I decide to spell it out instead. H-E-R-E-I-A-M.

“Here you are,” he says, looking down at the board. Another smile.

I smile back.

I’ve discovered that every time Bucky summons me, I have to live through my own death again. Each time it’s a little clearer, but each time it’s more bearable because I know I’m going through to someone who wants to see me.

It’s been so long since I’ve felt wanted.

We’re sitting at the board again. I don’t know what number meeting this is. We’ve been here a handful of times now, but still, everything looks like I’m looking at it through a frosted pane of glass. Everything beyond Bucky is a blurry shade of brownish-gray. Today, he breaches the subject for the first time. “What’s it like?” Bucky asks. “You know, being dead.” At least for him, it’s not a work-at-a-cocktail-party subject.

One word comes to mind. A-L-O-N-E.

His eyebrows nearly touch his hairline. “There aren’t any other ghosts over there?”

I thought the same thing before I died, and that’s how I know we knew each other before. We must have been close. I almost want to tell him that I don’t remember much about our friendship, but I don’t know how to cross that border. Would it hurt him? Instead, I write, H-O-W-L-O-N-G.

Sadness pulls his features downward. “Too long,” he says, and I agree. Four years has definitely been too long, but I’m glad he’s here at all. “The first month after your funeral, I couldn’t imagine trying to talk to you again. It was too painful. But three months is way too long, and I’m sorry that I kept you waiting.”

Three months?

Something feels off. I hadn’t realized how much time stretches when you’re dead. Maybe my family did care, and they’re just processing, too. Maybe they didn’t leave my things to collect dust for years like I had thought.

“To make it up to you,” Bucky says, and then he takes his hands off of the planchet. He disappears into the blur of the room, and his voice sounds like he’s speaking through water. But he’s still moving, and he’s still talking.

C-O-M-E-B-A-C-K.

Then his hands are on again and his face comes back into clarity, green eyes wide with worry. “Are you still there?” YES. “Did you hear what I said?” NO.

His eyebrows knit together in something of a combination between frustration and focus. “Let me try again… but I need both hands for this one. Do you trust me?”

More than anything do I trust the one person who’s reached out to me. More than anything I trust Bucky to do what he needs to do. To show me what he wants me to see. I’m happy to do any of the above. YES.

He disappears again into the murk for a moment, and then his hand appears. It’s swinging around, closer and closer to me until it passes through my abdomen. While his hand shares my space, he comes back into clarity. His other hand grasps at a pendant adorned with three brightly-colored crystals. It’s the first time I’ve been able to see him, really see him, when we aren’t both touching the planchet.

He’s saying words I don’t understand, but his voice grows clearer by the moment. My field of view expands beyond our small space to the totality of a dark bedroom, with red plaid bedding and dark walls plastered in posters. Polished wooden floor extends beyond the shag carpet where I’ve always sat, but an internal sensation tears my attention away from this new world.

The feeling starts in my abdomen, right where his hand reached me. It’s warm. The kind of warm that I haven’t felt in three months that had seemed like four years. I let myself lean into it, until it feels like the whole of me warms up. It feels so good, I let my eyes flutter closed.

When I open them again, everything around me is startlingly clear. It’s sharp. It’s real. My breath feels full in my chest. The feeling of breathing is… it almost burns my nose.

“What’s this?” I murmur, and I’m surprised to hear my words in a place outside of me. It echoes off the walls in the same, dark bedroom. The shag carpet tickles the real skin of my real legs, and my real shoulders chill with the wind of the fan overhead.

I stretch my hands out in front of me. There’s a feeling when my fingertips meet my palms as my fingers curl into gentle fists. There’s a feeling when I scratch the skin on my arm. I haven’t felt in—

“Do you like it?” Bucky asks, but he’s using my mouth to speak. “Did it work?”

Am I…

Oh.

I’d thought for a moment that he’d done something to bring me back into myself, maybe worked some sort of magic to bring me back. I could talk to my family again, if he did. I don’t remember where they are, or where they live. I just know what the inside of my room looks like. “This is amazing,” I say anyway, and my words are using his voice, and I’m trying to push those memories from my mind. Bucky’s mind is full and swirling with thoughts of his own.

I don’t know if he feels me rooting around for images of Ryan. I don’t know if he notices or if he minds, but he sits in silence, an open door to a whole archive. One memory after another, slow at first. And then they come pouring in.

My name was Ryan. I wore a single diamond earring, and Bucky doesn’t know where it is anymore. He wishes he did. I rummage through his memories of me skateboarding, eating ice cream, sitting beside him in that one history class with our favorite teacher. We sit together in a field with our faces turned towards the stars, and then with our lips locked in a kiss.

I realize with a slight start that I loved Bucky.

How could I have forgotten him?

“Did you lose yourself?” Bucky asks. It’s strange to feel my lips moving without my words. I still haven’t decided if I like this yet.

I just nod. “I forgot.”

“I did a lot of reading,” Bucky says. “I guess it’s normal when you don’t have anything to remind you. We do it when we’re alive, too.”

I nod again. How could I have forgotten?

“I wanted to help you remember,” he says. With every word, I’m able to fully sink into the feeling of being here with him. “I was afraid you’d forgotten me. Can I take you somewhere? The night’s perfect for it.”

We find ourselves in the same body beneath a cloudless night full of stars, like a face full of freckles on the blue-black sky. The car is a walk of just a few minutes away, and there’s nobody else here. So, we’re laying on the grass, the back of our shirt already growing wet with dew.

The grass and the night have so many scents that I’d forgotten. It smells like rain and calm and adventure. Bucky smiles, so I guess I do, too.

It’s so nice being able to speak using a voice, a real voice. Even if it’s not mine, if this is the best that I can do then I suppose it’s pretty good. Few of the dead have such opportunities.

“I’ve been reading about this since you died,” Bucky says. Our voice is just a whisper on the last word. “I couldn’t ever imagine a life without you. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to last, or how long you’ll be able to, but… this is here. For us.”

Us.

“Do you know the constellations?” Bucky asks.

We nod in response.

“My favorite one is Libra. Do you know why?”

We shake our head; the question is a bit strange.

“It’s your sign. I memorized your constellation for you.”

I know that I used to like astrology. I have a framed poster in my room with the constellations on it. One detail in particular now stands out in my memory: a single sticky note with an arrow pointing to the Taurus constellation. On the sticky note, in scribbled letters, one word: ME.

I hate that there’s so much I can’t remember, I really do, but now I wish I could forget that. Just that.

But now so much is coming back, and it’s all thanks to Bucky. “What were you doing before I called you for the first time?” he asks. Our chest rumbles with the depth of his voice.

“I was in my room. I can’t go anywhere outside my room. I think my family forgot about me.”

Bucky wraps our arms around our torso. “Imagine this is me giving you a hug,” he says. “I know how unkind they were to you, but you’re here now. Okay?”

They weren’t unkind to me. They just moved on because they didn’t believe that I existed anymore. I can’t say I was the surest believer in ghosts either, at least not before I became one.

Then we roll over onto our side. It’s more of Bucky’s volition than mine, but I’m glad to get the dewy grass off my back. Then we gasp, a sharp intake of breath cool enough that it shivers down our throat. “No way,” we whisper, and pick up a single diamond stud. I inspect it as closely as he does, searching for the meaning that it has. “This was yours.”

Mine?

We nod. “Yours. Do you know what that means?”

“What?”

“If I wear this, maybe I can take you anywhere with me. More than just sharing a body, I can take you anywhere.”

That sounds like an existence far more pleasant than sitting in my room alone. We nod and take out one of our earrings. The diamond stud goes in, cool and wet against our earlobe. It feels just a bit off; am I supposed to feel something?

There should be a lifetime of love in that diamond stud, everything I couldn’t feel and remember before.

Instead, there’s another feeling, outside of us.

Something cold, something angry.

A person stands in front of us that wasn’t there moments ago. He looks exactly like the person from Bucky’s memories. Like Ryan. Like me. He’s glowering at me, almost like Bucky isn’t part of the equation. Our heart starts to beat faster, and I spring for a moment outside of our body. Three spirits confront each other in this clearing, but only one of them is alive. Bucky’s heart still beats, and I feel its echo in my own chest. Already, it’s starting to fade now that I’m outside of him.

Bucky looks to me first, and his face contorts with confusion. Then fear. Then anger. “You’re not Ryan.”

Desperation claws its way from my chest to my mouth. “I am Ryan,” I say, as convincingly as I can. For the first time, I’m using my voice. “Please believe me, I’m Ryan. Please don’t—” Please don’t leave me behind again. I can’t take being left behind. I can’t do it again.

“I’m Ryan,” the other Ryan says. I look down at myself. I don’t look like Ryan. I don’t look like myself, but I don’t even know what I’m supposed to look like. Who am I? “Bucky, you know I am.”

The other Ryan storms forward, a scowl twisting his features. I back away, but he’s multitudes faster. My skin goes cold when he grabs my arm, and with a single fling I’m out of the field. Travelling through something, but I don’t yet know what.

I crash into my room through the window and land on the pillowy softness of my own bed. Alone. No Bucky, no Ryan.

I am alone in my blue-gray bedroom. The framed constellation poster hangs on the wall, with a sticky note pointing to the Taurus constellation.

I wasn’t alone before, but now I am again. I let out a screech that nobody else can hear and storm around the room, swatting at whatever I can touch. I want to tear it all down so that someone else might notice and try to talk to me. Anyone.

Nothing moves.

I need to get out of here.

If I just came through the window, perhaps it would open again. It glides open when I try. There’s no screen barring me from the outside world, so I hurl myself out. Maybe if I can get back to Bucky—

The second I’m out, I’m back on my bed. I do it again and again, over and over. Back onto my bed every time.

Then there’s a sound from outside, footsteps walking up the stairs and down the hall. Eventually, I hear a voice. “—the hell is going on?”

The door opens. My mother stands in the doorway wearing jeans and what I presume is a new sweater. “Mom?” I ask, but she looks straight past me. I recognize her. “Mom, it’s me. I remember you.”

“Why’s the window open?” she mutters, striding across my room.

“Mom!” I call out, grabbing at her. “Mom, it’s me. Mom, you have to see me, Mom, nobody else does—” She travels right past me and my bed, to the open window.

“Mom…” I stare at my hands, slightly translucent and ever so useless.

If there ever was a death after death, I would welcome it with open arms.

“Please…” My voice doesn’t leave my own head.

She slams the window closed and throws the lock. Walks back out of my room. Shuts the door.

---

Abby Sundeen is the author of He Called Me Ryan. Abby Sundeen has been writing seriously since she hit middle school in 2012. Every day she strives to improve and experiment with her storytelling, and she’s constantly falling in love with new ways to create interactive, emotional stories. She published one other book, Chrysanthemum, in December of 2020. Currently she’s studying Spanish Education at Ohio University with hopes of becoming a middle school Spanish teacher and one day opening a coffee shop of her own.