The Ghost That Sleeps Between Us

Dear beautiful reader,

Hurrah, hurrah! I wrote fiction!!!!!! For the first time in over 20 years, I’ve written fiction— and so, I present to you my very first short story.

I have always desired to go back to fiction writing, as it’s likely that writing from own real life will eventually have its limits. (I’m gonna run out of material one day— it’s called death! Lol) So this was both a great therapeutic exercise and an exercise in world building, pushing my creativity to go beyond its current boundaries. 

I like to think that my art focuses on lifting the veil: making the unseen seen. 

In society and culture, for so long, we have been given the narrative of a person (man, woman or they/them) moving on quickly after a relationship, sometimes even rushing into marriage, as some sort of triumphant victor, and the person left behind being the one that’s, well, “left behind.”

But after spending years learning about trauma and even working as a healing arts professional as a life coach, I began to understand and witness firsthand in my life and in the coaching room how the unseen (inherited trauma, self-esteem issues, unresolved past pain) manifest themselves in the seen (relationship dynamics, career issues, etc.)— despite the lovely mask we all try to put on.

Strangely enough, the idea came to me in my sleep as I heard the words: “the ghost that sleeps between us” over and over again, repeatedly in my sleep. I wrote it down upon awaking, and thought originally the idea must be a poem? But as I sat with it, my intuition said— no, it’s a story. A love story. Well, sorta. 

It was interesting to live in this person’s psyche as long as I did. A foreign place built by immense anger and resentment, but as it so happens, living here also expanded the depths of my empathy. This short story explores themes of denial, emotional suppression, and the reality of connecting with logic over intuition. It’s also an exploration on how when we date one person, we date each and every person in their past as well.

That’s all I’ll say.
I hope you enjoy! PLEASEEE email me.
Love,
Amy

Word count: 7,265
Pages: 11

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