It started in September. Two months after Kingston died.
I was in my room, lights off, blinds pulled shut, curled up in bed like a shadow trying to disappear. Crying—not the dramatic kind. Not the kind that begs for comfort. The kind that creeps up your throat and leaks quietly from your face. The kind that tastes like salt and panic. I remember the way the sheets stuck to my skin. The air in the room was thick, but everything felt cold.
I was terrified. Not just from grief—though that lived in every part of me—but from something deeper. Something ancient. I’ve been scared of spirits my whole life. I once slept on my little brother’s floor because I swore a ghost was in the room, and I didn’t set foot back in there until I was fifteen. I’ve always known there’s something beyond the veil, but I never wanted to touch it. Not really. Not until I lost my son.
That night, the fear hit differently. Not horror movie fear. Not Halloween fear. A slow, crawling unease that moved across the walls and into my bones. I started Googling like someone trying to find a signal: how to talk to the dead. safe ways to reach spirits. mediums near me. what does it mean if your lights flicker after a death. YouTube psychic real or fake.
The room was too quiet. I could hear the smallest creaks in the house. Then it wasn’t creaking. It was tapping. Distinct. Three knocks. Then again. I froze. My heart was racing so fast I thought I might throw up. I whispered Kingston’s name into the dark, half-wishing I could take it back.
And then my laptop powered on.
I hadn’t touched it.
It opened YouTube. Automatically.
And there was Matt Fraser.
I gasped. I actually gasped. The room felt like it collapsed inward, like I was being sucked into the screen. My breath caught in my throat. It felt like someone had just shouted through a bullhorn inches from my face. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even cry.
In the video, he said: “When you question the signs, you’re basically stamping a letter from your loved one and sending it back.”
I fell apart. Fully. Shaking. Crying. Laughing a little because of the timing, and terrified all over again because I could feel something else in the room.
I knew that feeling. I hadn’t felt it since I was a kid playing ghost hunter with my friends. Since the night I heard a whisper next to my ear that no one else heard. Since I swore I saw shadows shift in a still room. It was that old fear, but laced with something new—presence.
That night, I didn’t sleep. I watched Matt’s videos until sunrise. Not one. Not two. Dozens. And in each one, I found Kingston. He wasn’t mentioned by name, but he was there. In the way Matt talked about kids who send signs. In the pauses. In the precise moment someone else’s message echoed one of my own thoughts. I knew Kingston was piggybacking on those readings.
I sat through ten full online group events from Matt before ever seeing him in person. And in every single one, I felt Kingston show up. Once, Matt described a kid holding coins and singing. Another time, he brought up someone whose lights kept flickering. Every story brushed up against mine. It was like Kingston was slipping behind the curtain and waving through other people’s scenes.
When I finally met with Jennifer Shaffer, it all clicked again. Kingston teased her the same way he teased me. He interrupted. He made jokes. He was loud. And she confirmed what I was already feeling: he was with me. All the time.
But then I did what I always do—I doubted. I questioned. I decided maybe I imagined it.
That’s when I had the dream.
The room was bathed in that dreamlike filter, but everything was sharp. I wasn’t floating. I was there. And so was he. He was whole. He wasn’t the boy who died. He was just Kingston.
“You’re so slow,” he said. “But once you get it, we can meet here all the time. You’ll be home.”
After that, I saw signs everywhere. In music. In numbers. In photos that popped up. In conversations that circled back to him. But it wasn’t until Matt announced his tour that things got very specific.
LA wasn’t on the schedule.
Then it was.
Then the wildfires hit, and the date was rescheduled.
To my birthday week.
That week I met with Jennifer again. She said Kingston was shouting at me that I missed every sign. All of them. He mocked me, in the way only he could, for overthinking. He called out things like the bats on his shrine. He mentioned the Chrome Hearts urn. And the nervous eating.
That same week, I started lighting candles. Every night. And I don’t light candles. I never have. But suddenly it felt like the only way to keep the air around me soft enough to breathe.
When the night of Matt’s live show came, I felt it in my stomach. My body knew before my brain did. I was jittery. Not excited. Wired. The kind of buzz you feel before something changes.
I brought Zuma’s Magical Balloon. And her drawing. I practiced what I was going to say. I wanted to tell him everything—the laptop, the video, the line that saved me.
When I stepped into the meet and greet, the floor felt unstable. The lights felt too bright. And then, something shifted.
The moment I stood in front of him, I lost my grip.
I felt it start in my feet. A disconnect. Like I was floating above them. My arms felt like they weighed nothing. My chest—tight. My ears were ringing.
Matt looked at me and asked: “Do you get signs?”
That’s the only thing that pierced the fog.
The rest was a blur. A roar of blood in my ears. A spinning that started behind my eyes and didn’t stop. The floor beneath me rippled like water. My vision split at the edges like old film. My legs weren’t mine. My mouth opened, but I don’t know what came out. If anything.
He asked if Zuma drew the picture. I nodded. Or maybe I said yes. I don’t know.
Then he said, “Let’s take a picture for her so she knows I got it.”
Click. Flash.
Then I walked away. But not really. I glided. Staggered. Floated.
I sat down. My hands shook as I opened the book he’d signed.
“Always trust the signs.”
That was it.
That was the reading.
That was Kingston.
And he’d been setting it up from the start.
I didn’t need a message. I was the message.
Dozens of signs. Hundreds maybe. All ignored. All questioned.
But not this one.
This one stopped time.
And just like the dream—he was right. I was slow. But I got it.
I get it now.
Do you get signs?
Yes, baby. I do now.
Do you see me now?
