“Yeah,” Lena said. “I know.”
Here’s an interesting, vivid piece built around that line, suitable for flash fiction or a character scene.
“She means you ,” Lena hissed.
Leo pulled the other earbud out. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Then, from downstairs—louder this time, the word sharp as a snapped ruler:
From below: nothing.
Upstairs, in the cramped bedroom they’d shared since the divorce split the house like a wishbone, twelve-year-old Lena froze. Her brother, Leo, didn’t. He kept thumping the floor with the heel of his sneaker, a dull whump-whump-whump that matched the bass line bleeding through his headphones.
Leo pulled one earbud out. “Nah. She means the ghost.”