The Ghost Who Watches Me

chapter 3

I cover my mouth to stop myself from screaming more. He is the same guy I drew in the mirror in my drawing. The drawing I love so much. My sore eyes trail up his body, trying to find some part of him that is different to the picture but there is nothing. He has no muscles, super thin, like me. His ripped jeans and hoodie hang loosely off of his thin frame. He seems pretty tall, but I cant quite tell as he is sitting down. His black hair is relatively long and shaggy, but it’s not his hair or body that catches my attention, its his face. His face is thin and his eyes are sunken in and have dark circles under them. He is paler than me, which I didn’t think was possible, and his lips are an odd bluish purple colour. I stare into his bright blue/white eyes wondering who the hell this mysterious boy is. 

“Scarlett? It’s ok, I won’t hurt you” he says in his calm and almost hypnotic voice. 

“How do I know that? For all I know about you, you could be some crazy psychopath!” though I do feel safe around him, but I won’t say that to him. 

“I'm not, I'm not even…” he trails off and gets off the bed. I was right, he is tall. 

“What? You’re not what?” 

“I'm not alive…” he whispers so quietly I'm not sure if I heard him correctly. 

“You’re not alive? So what? You’re a ghost? You’re haunting me?” if I have to ask anymore questions I will be so pissed.

“I'm not haunting you. Just forget everything you think you know about ghosts, ok? I am not some guy with a white sheet over my head am I? So just let me explain everything to you. I was in the same situation as you, my father abused me after my mother died. I was constantly bullied and I started starving myself because I felt like it was my fault she died in a car crash. I distracted her for a second on a rainy night, she span out of control and off the road. She died when we smashed into a tree but I survived. My father blamed me and I hated myself so I slit my neck one night and died…” he lowers his head and I think I see a tear drop down his face and onto my bed. I look where it fell but there is no mark. Odd. “I died six years ago at the age of seventeen. I have been travelling the world for that whole time, trying to find people like me who want to kill themselves. I want to stop them because if you kill yourself, you don’t get to rest in peace, you stay in this world and suffer as a ghost, you have to watch anyone you ever loved die before your eyes. It’s horrible and I can’t stop it. That’s why when I saw you being so badly abused, I had to stay with you. I didn’t want you to have the same fate as me. I hate watching you suffer the way you do but just don’t give up on life. Please” he walks over to me and puts his pale hand on mine. I can’t feel him, it just feels like someone put an ice cube on my hand.  

“I don’t know what to say…” I could say a lot of things but my mouth won’t physically do it. We stay in that position for a while. His hand on mine, me looking into his dead eyes. 

Suddenly there is banging on the door and my mum shouts: “Who the bloody hell are you talking to? And try to keep the screams down, we don’t want the neighbours complaining!” as I hear the key turning in the door I panic and stare at the ghost, my eyes widened in panic as he calmly looks into mine. Just as the door slams open, the ghost  vanishes in the blink of an eye, not even leaving some kind of smoke behind like I expected. My mum looks around the room but sees no one. She storms over, grabs my phone and leaves as quickly as she came in. As soon as the key turns again and locks the door the ghost appears again.