Rosanna was deciding between two black shirts to wear one morning when a skeleton fell out of her closet. She jumped back as the bones jumped out, dropping the shirts at her feet. She scrambled across her room, to the corner by her bed, and there she cowered as she waited for it to move.
After several long minutes of it laying there motionless, she crept back to her closet, hesitating when the floorboards creaked beneath her. Dust particles floated around and settled in her hair. Peeking in, she saw a hole in the drywall behind her clothes.
Rosanna knelt in front of the closet. She was looking the skeleton up and down when it suddenly sprung up and they collided skulls. She jumped to her feet and her hand flew to her stinging forehead, backing away as the skeleton scrambled to stand on its spindly feet. She could already feel her skin purpling into a large bruise.
“S-Sorry about that,” it stammered. “H-H… Hi!”
Rosanna’s brow shot up, and with it came a shooting pain. She relaxed her face and closed her eyes as she rubbed her forehead. “What were you doing in there?” she asked, eyes still shut.
The skeleton laughed, which almost surprised Rosanna more than a skeleton falling out of her closet in the first place. “Oh, you know,” it chortled. “Just hanging out”
Rosanna opened her eyes. Its voice sounded familiar, feminine. But she couldn’t place who it was. She studied the skeleton as it cocked its head to the side, cracking its neck in several different places, then opened its mouth as wide as its hinges could go. Its jaw cracked, too, before it snapped its teeth shut and made throat-clearing noises. It coughed once, dust clouding out.
“There,” it said, more confident now. “That’s better.”
Rosanna was about to ask for further clarification as to who, exactly, this skeleton was when she realized she still didn’t have a shirt on. Mortified, she wrapped her arms around her bare stomach and stepped around the skeleton into the closet. She avoided her own reflection in the mirror, casting her eyes down to the floor as she fumbled to find something to wear. She pulled on the first sweater she could grab, an oversized coral cable knit. It hung loosely on her thin frame.
She turned around to find the skeleton standing over the oak bedside table with its dim lamp and Rosanna’s open diary. It was leafing through her love letters and flipping through her heartbreak, the words smudging onto its bones and into the lines of the bound book.
At one point, the skeleton snickered at what it read and looked up at Rosanna. “We never did like Gavin, did we?”
“We?” Rosanna questioned. The skeleton didn’t answer as it continued to read. Rosanna’s breath caught as it got further into the diary, paging deeper and deeper. But as quickly as it had started, it snapped the book shut. Rosanna exhaled. The skeleton moved on.
It danced down the stairs, its limbs—can you call them limbs without the fleshy protection of tissue, muscle, and skin?—flailing against the walls. After making its way through Rosanna’s house, it paused in the kitchen and eyed the refrigerator. Its fingers wrapped around the refrigerator’s door handle and pulled out the milk carton, leaving the swaying door open as it reached for a cabinet and pulled out a glass. Setting it down, it glanced in Rosanna’s direction and then began to pour.
“Want some?” Rosanna slowly shook her head, watched as the skeleton lifted the glass to where its lips should have been, watched the milk drip down its sternum and catch in the hooks of its rib cage. It formed a white puddle on the linoleum after snaking down its femur, tibia, metatarsals. Rosanna watched, her stomach churning.
When the glass was empty, the skeleton set it down in the sink. It turned towards the living room, dragging the tips of its finger bones across the countertops as it walked past them. They made a scratching noise, like nails on a chalkboard. It made Rosanna flinch.
The skeleton made its way into the living room, over to the couch, and sat down. It reached for the remote on the coffee table and turned the TV on, then started flipping through the channels. Rosanna perched next to it, not exactly sure what to do next. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the TV and the skeleton, a strange volley that Rosanna couldn’t quite make sense of.
Just as she cautiously leaned back against the plush velvet cushions and the skeleton settled deeper into the couch, mindlessly surfing for something to watch, there was a knock at the door. Rosanna shot up off the couch and frantically looked around for a place to hide. She grabbed the skeleton’s hand and tried to pull it up from where it sat, but she tugged too hard and the humerus bone popped out of its socket.
“Hey, watch it!” the skeleton shouted. It grabbed the arm that Rosanna was still holding and staring at, eyes wide and mouth agape, with its other arm and popped it back into place.
“Sorry but you gotta get up, we gotta hide you.” Rosanna panicked.
“Hide me? What for?” But it was already getting up from its place on the sofa and following Rosanna as she hurried across the room, turning the knob for the coat closet. She shoved the skeleton inside.
“You know, I really don’t like tight spaces very much.” Rosanna huffed, exasperated, but she was claustrophobic, too.
“It won’t be for long. I’ll get rid of whoever it is and we’ll figure out what to do with… you.” Rosanna shut the skeleton inside the closet. “Just please, please. Be quiet.”
She took a deep breath and smoothed her hair. She plastered a smile on her face and spun around to open her front door, just a crack.
“Mary,” she said. “What a lovely surprise.”
Mary looked Rosanna up and down, pinching a smile onto her face, too. “I brought you a lasagna,” she said. She tried to peer inside, but Rosanna pulled the door closer to her body.
“You didn’t have to, thank you.”
“Are you busy? We could have some of this now. Julia won’t be home until late tonight, and I’m actually pretty hungry…” she started to push the door with the pan full of noodles she was holding to walk inside, trying to sneak through the doorframe, but Rosanna grabbed her arm.
“Not today, I’ve actually got some work I need to get done.”
Mary’s face brightened. “Oh, work! What are you working on these days?”
Rosanna paused, blinked. She grabbed for the lasagna. “Well, thanks for stopping by!”
Mary held tight onto the pan, the foil covering it crinkling in her grip. “Rosanna, what’s going on?” She looked Rosanna up and down. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine!” Rosanna forced another smile. “I’ve just… I’m busy right now.” As the words came out of her mouth, there was a thud in the closet behind her.
Mary’s eyes lit up, and she gasped. “Is someone in there with you!” she whisper-shouted.
“There most absolutely is not, it’s just me here! All me. But really, me, I’m super busy. Can we catch up soon?” The excitement of the thud and the thought of Rosanna having someone secretly over caused Mary to momentarily forget what she was doing, and her grip loosened on the casserole pan. Rosanna swept it out of her hands. “Well, thanks for the lasagna! I’ll be seeing you.” And with that, Rosanna kicked the door shut and locked it.
“Rosanna! Let me see you, you look like you’re all skin and…” But Rosanna wasn’t listening. She shut her eyes as she leaned back against the door. She stood there for a moment, the heat of the pan in her hands searing her fingertips. Her eyes sprang open and she ran into the kitchen to drop the pan on the counter. She rushed to the sink to run cold water over her hands.
After she shut the sink off, the quiet made it clear that Mary had given up and left. Rosanna sighed with relief. Then she heard a muffled, “Hello?”
The coat closet door knob started to turn, and the skeleton peered its head out into the hall. “Can I come out now?”
“Sorry about that,” Rosanna said. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to stop by today.”
“No worries, I know how Mary can be.”
“You do?” Rosanna asked as the skeleton walked towards the couch. It stopped suddenly and turned its head toward the kitchen, the closet door swinging shut with a bang.
“What’s that I smell?”
“Mary brought over a lasagna. I was just about to put it in the fridge.” Rosanna grabbed two pot holders off the rack hanging next to the stove and reached for the pan.
“Not so fast,” the skeleton said. It wandered into the kitchen and opened the utensil drawer, pulling out a fork. It took the pan from Rosanna’s hands and put it back down on the counter, peeling the foil off. It started to eat—no, it started to feast.
Rosanna felt sick. She couldn’t stand to watch as the skeleton shoveled noodles, cheese, sauce into its mouth, grinding its teeth together as chunks of lasagna fell to the floor when it “swallowed.” Forkful after forkful, the skeleton kept eating, piles of lasagna landing at its feet.
Rosanna clutched her stomach and closed her eyes. “I’m going to go see if I can fix the wall in my closet.” She spun on her heel and hurried up the stairs, her hand covering her mouth, the skeleton watching and chewing.
Once in the safety of her own room, Rosanna collapsed on the floor of the closet. She dry heaved, but nothing came out.
Rosanna looked up at the hole in the wall and got on her knees. She grabbed the opening with both hands and looked inside. There was hardly any room, and she couldn’t imagine how the skeleton had fit in there. It had been shoved in gracelessly, suffocating.
She was still sitting on her knees, facing the wall, when she heard the floorboards shift behind her. She jumped up, nearly colliding with the skeleton for the second time that day.
“Do you want to talk about it?” The skeleton didn’t ask, so much as stated.
Rosanna shrugged, and her sweater fell off her right shoulder, revealing a dark bruise on her collarbone. The skeleton walked up to her, traced its finger down Rosanna’s chest, across the bruise, collarbone coming to sharp points beneath her skin. It looked up at Rosanna’s face and placed its hand on her cheek.
“Are you sure you want to keep hiding me?” the skeleton asked.
Rosanna shook her head. Not because she didn’t want to hide anymore, but because she didn’t know the answer. She looked up at the sockets where the skeleton’s eyes should have been, much like how Rosanna’s eyes had sunken into her own face over the last few months.
“When you’re ready,” the skeleton said.
Rosanna wasn’t sure she ever would be.
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