Joel Hastings had never been the type of boy people gravitated towards. At fourteen, he kept to himself, his headphones constantly over his ears, drowning out the world in a mix of emo punk rock and sadness. It had been like this ever since his parents died two years ago in a car accident. Life since then had been a blur of foster homes, a revolving door of half-hearted caretakers, and a numbness that had settled deep in his chest. His current foster parents barely noticed his existence, spending their days arguing, ignoring him as he slipped in and out of the house, sometimes not even coming back until the next morning.
There were a few friends at school—kids who didn't really fit in anywhere else either—but Joel had never felt like he truly belonged. They would hang out sometimes, skipping class to hang by the old Hollow Hill mansion. Everyone in town said it was haunted, but Joel didn't believe in ghosts. Or at least, he hadn't.
That was before he met her.
Sandra had been lingering around Hollow Hill for longer than she could remember. Time felt different when you were a ghost. She didn't know how long it had been since she had died, or even how she had died. Her memories were blurry, like an old photograph left out in the rain, but she knew one thing for sure: she was alone.
That was, until one day, she wasn't.
Sandra first noticed Joel the way she always noticed the living—like a pulse of warmth, something she couldn't quite touch but could feel nonetheless. He was different from the others who came to the mansion. Most of them only stayed for a few minutes, goofing off, trying to scare each other. But Joel? He came alone sometimes, just to sit in the old overgrown garden with his music. His presence stirred something inside her, something she hadn't felt in ages. It was like a thread connecting them, though she couldn't explain why.
One rainy October afternoon, Joel found himself at Hollow Hill again. His friends had bailed on him, so he sat alone on the front steps of the crumbling mansion, the sky a dull grey and his music blasting in his ears. He stared up at the cracked windows and the ivy creeping up the stone walls, wondering for the hundredth time why he always came here. Maybe it was because it was the one place no one else bothered him. Maybe it was because it was as empty as he felt inside.
Or maybe, it was because he was waiting for something—or someone—he didn't even know existed.
