We Were Ghosts--The Secret Life of a Survivor

by Tabitha Barret

  Grabbing my purse from behind my chair, I absently watched Zack pick up his books. I opened my mouth to speak though I hadn’t completely formed the words in my brain. “If you want to avoid Heather, I would use the stairs in the middle of the school. It will take you a little longer to get to the lockers, but I mostly see her, or rather, ignore her, coming up the stairs on this side of the building.” I regretted the sound that came from my throat instantly.

  He frowned at me like I was a lunatic and then suddenly a blindly gorgeous smile crept across his lips. Before I knew what I was doing, I was smiling too, though I probably looked high. He nodded and gave a small chuckle. “Thanks for the advice. I like your escape plan better than the one I came up with,” he said, looking at my face instead of the floor, the wall, or the speck of dust on the heater behind me. “I was planning on either jumping out the window and making a break for the parking lot or climbing onto the desk and crawling through the ceiling until I made my way to the roof.”

  The sparkle in his eyes showed that hint of mischief I had seen earlier. I stupidly shrugged and nodded, unable to reply. By the time he made it to the door, I had my witty reply all ready, but of course, it was too late. He looked over his shoulder at me and pointed in the direction of the main staircase. I nodded with a stupid grin on my face.

  As I walked down the front steps toward the bus, I saw Heather scanning the area, presumably looking for Zack.

  “She has no shame,” Megan tsked next to me. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and made a gagging noise.

  “Zack seemed like he’d had enough of her in Health. I guess he was able to give her the slip.” I ignored Heather as I pulled my backpack higher up my shoulder and stared down at the ground. “I take it back. I give her until Friday to secure a Halloween dance partner.”

  Megan nodded vigorously. “I agree. Hopefully, he can find a costume to blend in with everyone else so she spends the entire night searching for him.”

  I laughed as I imagined there being 15 of the same slasher costume roaming through the dance.

  “If he’s lucky he’ll blend in, though I’m convinced that she’s part bloodhound,” I snickered.

  Forgetting about Heather, I waved goodbye to Megan.

  I took my seat in the far back of the bus and pretended that I was going anywhere but home. Zack and Heather’s game of chase was gone from my head as I started my afterschool ritual. I thought about all the places I wanted to visit and all the sights I wanted to see even though I knew I would never make those trips. My life was too complicated to allow me to travel or go anywhere beyond a five block radius in any direction and it was too complicated to allow me to think about Zack.

  Chapter 2

  Finishing my homework, I looked at the clock. I knew what time it was since I had just looked at it thirty seconds ago. Unable and unwilling to sit around, I headed off into the woods that separated the side of my backyard from the backyards of the houses over on the next street. The backs of their houses faced the woods and were mostly blocked out by the dense leaves during the spring and summer months. With the leaves falling, the houses were more visible now.

  I hopped over the small babbling brook that ran along our property line and crunched through the orange, yellow, and red leaves until I reached my sanctuary. Three houses down, there was a fallen tree large enough to sit against. The giant shrub from the neighbors’ house usually blocked me from view. It was getting a little sparse, but there was still enough cover. I took out my book and paged through my assigned reading.

  Lost in the pages of 1984 by George Orwell, it took me a second to realize that I was being watched. It was a feeling I was familiar with, and one that I hated. My breath caught in my throat and my skin got clammy. Had I been found, or was I being paranoid?

  I carefully looked around the empty woods and across the lawns, but something made me tilt my head up toward the sky. I nearly screamed when I saw something large sitting among the bright yellow leaves.

  Male laughter carried across the breeze and calmed my nerves. It was probably one of the kids from down the block. I was about to throw my book at him for spying on me when he spryly climbed down the tree and landed in a pile of gold leaves. I almost screamed at the jerk until I spotted the bright blue eyes from earlier beneath a gray hoodie.

  “Zack?” I asked incredulously. Paranoia hit me when I thought that he was stalking me. Why had I opened my mouth to talk to him? All I did was make a joke. I hadn’t proposed to him. Why had he followed me here, or more importantly, how had he followed me? Unless he had serious ninja skills, there was no possible way he had avoided the minefield of dead leaves and climbed the tree without me noticing, even with my ability to phase out my mind and separate myself from my surroundings.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, though technically, I was here first,” he shrugged. He casually leaned against the oak tree as if he owned it. It bothered me that he was encroaching on my private space, even though it didn’t actually belong to me.

  “I come here to read. What’s your excuse for lurking in the woods?” I asked snidely.

  He jammed his hands into his hoodie and looked around the tree toward a nearby house.

  “I came out here to explore. We just moved into the yellow house,” he said, motioning to the closest house.

  “I guess I won’t be getting my Barbie sweater this year,” I frowned.

  His eyebrows flew up as he gawked at me. “What?”

  “Sorry,” I laughed when I realized that he had no idea what I was talking about. “The old lady who lived there used to give out little Barbie sweaters that she had knitted in lieu of candy for Halloween.” I stood up and wiped the leaves off my damp pants. I checked my watch and grimaced when I saw the time.

  “Oh, well, I heard that her family put her into a home. My parents moved our stuff in over the weekend. Last night was my first night in the house,” he said as an explanation for standing in the woods talking to me.

  I relaxed when I accepted that he wasn’t a stalker. “How did you end up here? I mean in this boring town. I wasn’t even sure that we were large enough to find on the map,” I replied as I tried not to stare at his amazing eyes.

  He smiled. “I didn’t live far from here, so I guess it wasn’t hard to find. We lived about a half an hour from here in Jefferson.”

  I nodded, having heard of Jefferson. I pried my eyes away from his and pretended to be interested in something a few houses away.

  “How was your first day?” I asked, though it was a stupid question. I already knew the answer, but it would be considered polite to offer some kind of sympathy for a crappy day in a new school.

  “It could have been worse. I didn’t get into any fights and no one tried to steal my lunch money, so all in all, it was passable.” He pulled the hoodie off his head and shook out his hair. It stood up in the back, but he seemed aware of the loose strands and ran his hands through them.

  I had no idea if he was kidding or not, so I went along with his strange statement and laughed awkwardly.

  “Does that happen to you often? Having your lunch money stolen from you, I mean. You’ll find that the kids in our school care less about lunch money and more about acting cool. There isn’t a ton of bullying since most of us have known each other since kindergarten. There are a bunch of different middle schools throughout the district, so there are still large groups of kids who know each other. We all just blended together. The toughest guys are the ones who smoke in the parking lot in the morning, but they aren’t that bad. Individually they’re pretty nice. Not a lot of fights or scandals either. In fact, it’s pretty boring,” I laughed when I thought about my assessment of the school.

  He seemed to consider the fact that it was a normal school. He was about to say something when his name was called from the backdoor of his house. His father was calling for him.

  Zack slouched down into his sweatshirt and pulled up the hood, obscuring his face. “I have to go,” he mumble
d.

  I waved as he turned his back to me and slowly made his way through the woods and into his backyard. His father was waiting for him at the door.

  I tapped my foot and ran the entire conversation through my head. I analyzed every word, every tone of his voice and thought about my replies. Had I sounded stupid? Did I come off as funny or weird? Why wasn’t I too embarrassed to talk to him away from school? Typically, I hyperventilated when I talked to a boy, which was a rare occasion, but Zack was different. I didn’t watch every word I said or plan out my sentence before I spoke. It was nice to feel at ease around someone, even if it was for a few minutes.

  The approaching footsteps ruined my good mood. They forced me to close my eyes and remember where I was and who I was.

  I took a deep breath and tucked away my conversation with Zack for another time.

  When the footsteps stopped, I turned my head slightly to confirm who was standing in my peripheral.

  “Why aren’t you at home?” Phil asked, annoyed that he had to waste his time looking for me.

  “I had to read for school. It’s getting darker earlier, so I wanted to get some fresh air before the sun set,” I replied in a monotone voice.

  “Was there someone out here?” he asked, looking around the area.

  I resisted the urge to look at the tree Zack had been leaning against and I prayed that he hadn’t dropped anything or disturbed the leaves too much.

  “I was alone,” I lied automatically. The lie rolled off my tongue as it had every other time I interacted with someone in the real world—someone that wouldn’t be approved of.

  “Are you sure? I thought I saw you out here with a boy,” he said accusatorily. He walked past me and did a broad sweep of the area as if he was going to find some kind of proof of my lie.

  “I was alone,” I replied indifferently. It didn’t matter if I had been with the Boston Celtics; my answer would have been the same.

  “I know I saw you out here with someone. You can’t lie to me. I know what I saw. Were you talking to a boy or weren’t you?” he asked more demanding this time.

  I recounted every second in Zack’s presence. I calculated the distance from my house, how dense the woods were, and the odds that Phil had actually seen Zack. “I was alone,” I said firmly, though I still refused to look at him. I knew liars avoided eye contact and truth-tellers looked boldly into someone’s eyes. I refused to look him in the eyes, so he would never know if I was telling the truth or lying because in the end it didn’t matter. He believed his own version of things.

  “You know I don’t want you out here in the woods. All kinds of animals wander through here. You aren’t allowed out here again,” he said dismissively, though I had a higher risk of getting hit by a car in this sleepy town than getting eaten by a bear.

  “Okay,” I replied, staring at the ground.

  He walked close enough that I could smell his disgusting cologne. “I know you are lying to me. I saw you with that boy. It won’t happen again,” he hissed. “Get back to the house. Your mother will be home soon.” He spoke the last part as a warning.

  I nodded, though I didn’t give any indication of guilt. I remained indifferent and shrugged at his accusation. He wanted me to admit that I was in the woods with a boy, even though there was no possible way he had seen Zack. This was not the first time I had been accused of talking with a boy, but it was the first time it had been true.

  I followed him through the woods, trying not to think about the reason I was being summoned home. I suppressed a shiver and allowed my mind to leave my body before I made it to my bedroom and the lock clicked into place. By the time Phil touched me, I was somewhere far away pretending to be someone else—anyone else.

  Chapter 3

  The morning was a blur because I was late for the bus and almost forgot my backpack. All morning I had been thinking about my conversation with Zack and his blue eyes. I knew there was no chance that he would ever look at me the way the other boys looked at Heather, at least when she wasn’t annoying them. Her long blonde hair coupled with her extra-short plaid skirt caught the attention of many sets of eyes, but her demanding personality and clingy nature kept her single for long periods of time until one of the guys was desperate enough to look past her less-than-admirable qualities.

  Putting on my school persona and forgetting about my home life for the next few hours, I threw my backpack into my locker and tossed my coat inside as I caught my breath. I smoothed down my wild hair and pulled it back over my shoulders. I still felt like I was running when I grabbed my notebook and turned to head into homeroom to study. I was disoriented when the blue eyes I had thought about on the bus appeared before me.

  “Did you finish your book?” Zack asked as he looked down at my notebook, searching for my reading book.

  My mind fell apart for a brief second before I muttered something unintelligible. I quickly followed it with a headshake. “It’s not due until next week, so I’m ok. I have time to finish it,” I blurted out, while I ran my hand through my hair and pulled it away from my face.

  He was wearing a dark blue dress shirt today that had the same press lines, though this one must have been packaged differently because the crease cut higher across his stomach this time. I assessed the new shirt and realized that it made his eyes stand out even more, which I blamed for my brief mental breakdown.

  He was standing halfway across the hall with his notebook and pen in one hand. He was about to say something when three girls walked between us, practically knocking into me. I stepped back to give them room to pass. I was happy to see him close the distance between us and stand about a foot away from me. My throat and mouth felt dry when I thought about continuing the conversation and feebly searched for a safe topic of conversation. My brain was not in a social place after my harrowing run to the bus.

  “I envy the fact that guys can get away with carrying a single notebook and pen to class, while girls have to carry all our books like we’re climbing Everest and aren’t expected back for weeks,” I said, hoping that my observation made sense. I hadn’t had breakfast and my sugar levels were plummeting because I was nervous about standing so close to him.

  His laughter sent tingles through my stomach. This laugh was brighter than the borderline sinister one he had given in the woods. By comparison, the other laugh sounded annoyed like I had treaded on his quiet place, even though it was really my quiet place.

  “Girls have to carry their makeup, hair brush, earrings, nail polish, and photos of every person they have even known, so yeah, they are packing for an expedition,” he chuckled.

  I wet my lips, mushed them together, and hid my hands behind my back. I didn’t wear makeup unless it was a special occasion. I had no idea how to apply eyeliner even when I did wear it. I always ended up with raccoon eyes.

  He frowned when he saw my strange expression and looked closer at my makeup-free eyes. He tilted his head, which made me believe he was judging me for not having paint on my face. I was about to walk away, too embarrassed to form a reason for my departure when he suddenly smiled. “Well, I guess you aren’t packing for Everest since you probably aren’t carrying half of that junk in your bag. Maybe you have just enough provisions to make it to Calculus and back,” he winked.

  I pulled my hands out from behind my back and relaxed when I realized that he was joking with me. He didn’t seem disgusted by the fact that I didn’t spackle my face with makeup. The sparkle was back in his eyes again, but quickly disappeared when Heather materialized out of thin air and stood expectantly next to him. All she was missing was the smoke and the “ta-da” sound a magician made when he performed an amazing feat, except Heather did make the flourishing hand motion as if Zack was supposed to applaud her entrance.

  Zack grinned apologetically at me as Heather talked over us and launched into her interrogation. She threw rapid-fire question after question, trying to figure out how he had spent his evening and if he was ready to head to homeroom. He seemed f
lustered by her incessant questions and shrugged at most of them.

  Heather placed her hand on his right arm to show some kind of assumed possession, though I wasn’t sure if she was implying that I should back off or if he should avoid talking to me in the future because she would disapprove. The declaration of her intent made me nauseous, but it made Zack uneasy. He casually dropped his arm from under hers and took a small step away from her.

  I sighed and turned around to resume my original mission of studying for my quiz in Physics. I didn’t need to fail my test because of Heather’s melodrama.

  On my way to homeroom, I ran into Kris, my quiet friend who mostly kept to herself. Her hair was pulled back into a sloppy bun held together by a pink sparkly scrunchie. She looked more haggard than I did.

  “Did you run to school this morning?” I asked pulling away a piece of hair that had gotten stuck in her mouth.

  She nodded, too out of breath to speak.

  “Your mom forgot to wake you up again, didn’t she?” I asked as I straightened out her shirt and helped tuck the back of it into her skirt.

  “I guess she had an early morning meeting and forgot. Do I look okay?” she shrugged.

  I made a face that implied she should run to the bathroom and straighten herself out.

  She snorted at my expression and nodded, causing the bun to shift. “Okay, okay, I’ll fix this,” she said, waving her hand to encompass her entire person. She looked over my shoulder and then back at me. “Were you talking to the new guy?”

  I rolled my eyes and refused to look back at Zack. “He lives in the old lady’s house on Smith,” I said, expecting her to understand that because we lived so close together it was perfectly acceptable for me to know him.