“Dude, dude, dude, she totally just looked at you.” Ching started batting at his shoulder, which she knew he couldn’t feel and didn’t like but constantly did anyway. Sanjiv focused on not moving a single muscle as he battled with the desire to turn around and check.

“No, she didn’t.”

“Yes, she did!” she argued. “Just talk to her and I’ll tell you where my treasure is buried and you can take her out to a romantic dinner—”

The treasure shit again. “You’re lying.”

“Most of the time, yes!” Ching stuck her tongue out at him and flipped her short hair back so it curled rakishly around her ears. “But not about treasure. Pirates don’t lie about treasure.”

“That’s easily the number one thing they lie about,” Sanjiv said. “There are so many unresolved disputes online—”

“She’s honestly super adorable,” Ching interrupted, studying Addy. “And I’m sure she was when you guys were six or whatever, yet you somehow managed to talk to her then. Six-year-old Sanjiv was much braver. And you didn’t even have me as a mentor.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Sanjiv muttered, his eyes scanning the cheesy pro-ghost posters along the library wall. They all featured absurdly happy humans and their benevolent ghosts reading or laughing or riding tandem bicycles together with messages like learn from the past! and wiser together!

Sanjiv couldn’t see himself with Ching in any of those scenes, no matter how hard he tried. And he’d been trying for years, ever since she’d manifested on his ninth birthday. But he kept wondering if he’d be happier without her. A lot of the ghostless people he saw seemed so much more confident and unburdened without a voice constantly berating them. There was this really popular radio show about how it was actually a sign of self-sufficiency and dominance to give up your ghost. And yeah, the hosts sounded like pompous jerks who would be insufferable to meet in person, but they also seemed totally at ease with their awful selves. Sanjiv was sort of jealous of that. Maybe they were onto something.

“I can’t believe you’ve wasted a whole month of her being back and didn’t say anything,” Ching chastised, staring again in Addy’s direction.

“We haven’t had any classes together.” Wow, if only Sanjiv’s test was on “Talking about Addy with Ching.” He would get an A. He knew exactly how this would go. They’d done this thirty-six billion times.

“I gave you so many ideas for a meet-cute. Knocking into her in the hall and dropping your books.”

“I don’t . . . no one carries books, that isn’t a thing.”

“Walking into her diner and asking if ‘a date with her’ is on the menu.”

“Please tell me that wasn’t a serious one.”