Cursed

--> Ch. 3 <--

Chapter 3

Present Day (17 years old)

We've been over this a million times, right? I mean, we didn't really have to since it was so terribly obvious.

I wasn't normal. I wasn't your average teenager who party'd on Friday nights, or who looked forward to prom every year. I didn't even go. How could I when everyone hated my guts? I didn't have any friends that would go with me. I didn't have a hot date like everyone else seemed to have these days. I didn't even have the confidence to where a dress in public. How pathetic was that? I feared everyone at school, just like they feared my freakish self.

You could call me one of the lucky ones to have blonde hair, as I've seen the majority of the school try to bleach their dark head blonde, turning it a sickly orange. I'd gotten my hair color from my Dad. He had black eyes contrasting to my blue ones, though, and a smile that supposedly shone through a dark day. He had no facial hair because my Mom told him he looked like a caveman with it. He would shave his beard and mustache off just for her sake. He had a long, strait nose that I thankfully didn't inherit from him. He had the brains of a geek. Apparently, he ran a business very well, but it shut down when he died.

My Mom told me that he passed away from a heart attack before I was born, so I never got the chance to meet him. I never really thought about him too much. I was just so used to having one parent protecting me. I've always wondered what things would be like if my Dad was still alive, though.

I can't imagine what it must've been like for my Mom when my Dad died. She was pregnant with me, so when my Dad left the face of the earth, she must have been scared out of her wits.

My Mom and I have lived in Florida for practically our whole lives. I was born in California, but can hardly remember anything. We only stayed there until I was three, when I got the curse, and then it was off to Florida. Don't get me wrong, I adore Florida. California had too many earthquakes for my liking anyways. But we left all of my extended family there. They didn't know a thing about my stupid curse.

Once I came to Florida, I made absolutely no real friends besides ghosts. Except for Ariel, but I still shudder at the memory of her, so it's best if I keep that to myself. When I was still a kid, I thought I was the same as everybody else, seeing the same people everyone else did. Boy, was I wrong.

I'm not even going to begin counting how many ghosts I've seen on a daily basis. It's pointless even trying, considering I lost count a long time ago. At younger ages, I couldn't help but think I had a lot of friends and that everyone liked me. Truth is, only ghosts liked me because I was someone they could actually talk to. I was like their personal therapist. Someone they could feel normal with.

~

I stared at the clock on the wall, my school's colors painted in neat stripes, blue, black, and grey, anticipating the moment where I could get up and leave for about an hour. I ignored the teacher, who was telling my class to pay attention to what she was saying. Why would I when I knew everything she was talking about, anyways?

At last, the bell signaled throughout the school- meaning it was lunch time. I packed up my stuff as quickly as I could, which was laying on the tile floor under my wooden desk. It took me longer than I planned it to get out of the door.

"Ms. Levington? Where'd she go..." My teacher was trying to spot me out in the huge cluster of kids scrambling for the doors, her beady eyes scanning the shuffling mob. I was putting my last notebook in my backpack when our eyes locked. "Ah, there you are." I sighed as she strolled over to where I was squatting. I quickly stood up and brushed myself off even though I didn't get dirty.