Rory died on May 31.

It was the last day of school. 

I started seeing Rory at their funeral. They was staring at their coffin dolefully. Drained of color, a dull blue and gray, I almost didn't regonize them. Rory seemed drained of their happiness. It was unnerving, and not only because I was seeing my dead cousin. But because they were so different. 

I thought I was having a seizure, or it was pareidolia or something, where your brain sees familiar things to fill in the gaps, or maybe I was just plain crazy. But then Rory started to talk to me, and it grew more and more real. They were a normal hallucination that I looked forward too, because they weren't really dead. Rory's body is in a coffin, in the ground, but their being is sitting on my bed, telling me it's okay.

"Don't worry." They said. "I'm right here."

"It's not the same. You're like a secret."

I hadn't told anyone anything. They would drag me to a therapist, then a doctor, then an asylum.

"Who's they?"

"You said you would stop!"

"It's easier when you're sad! I'm sorry!"

"Wow, thanks." 

It really sucks how often I forget that. Rory can read minds, when I'm sad usually. Comes with death I guess. I joke about death a lot. It doesn't seem real to me anymore. If Rory had become a phantom, then what about other people? Sometimes I think I see flickers of gray and blue, but when I look closer they disappear. I can't tell if I'm sane or not. It's maddening. Ha. Some derranged humor for you.

"So..." Rory silently repeated his question.

"Them. I don't know. My family, the school. Whoever finds out first."

"I'm not a vision." I looked away. "I'm not!"

"I know...I think."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I don't trust myself enough to believe you." A pause. "I'm sorry." I said.

Rory sighed. "How can I blame you? I'm a freaking ghost."

We didn't say anything for awhile. I broke the silence.

"It's not fair." My voice was quiet, breathy.

"What's not fair?"

"This!" Something broke inside me, and I felt something I haven't even felt at Rory's funeral. "I shouldn't be talking to some blue image of my cousin! You're you, but you're not here!" My voice broke. "That car shouldn't have hit you."

Rory let me cry. Unlike your average ghosts in fairy tales, I could lean on them and they could huge me. That's what I love about this hallucination. 

It was almost like nothing happened.

Almost.