Till Death Do Us Part {Completed}

Prologue

I’m not your average eighteen-year-old girl.

            I know, I know. Everybody says that, right? We all think that we’re bigger than everyone else, different to the rest of our cookie-cutter companions, when, really, mostly everyone fits into simple, little clichéd categories.

            But I’m serious.

            I mean, sure, for some people I have your average, clichéd life. My family—which consists of my mother, a reporter, my father, a lawyer, and my sixteen-year-old brother, Ryan—moved to the sunny town of Hopetown, California, six months ago.

            Hopetown was a large city in the heart of California. Blue, cloudless skies, beaches, palm trees, pretty girls in skimpy bikinis, surfer boys with bronzed bodies and tousled hair. Everything you would expect in a highly recommended, relaxed place like Hopetown.

            To be honest, unlike most other people I knew, I was actually looking forward to moving here. It was a nice change of pace from the ever-moving Washington.

             We moved into a colonial-Victorian house on some street called Amethyst Avenue, in a large McMansion with a pool, patio, basement and attic. It had large trellises, rosebushes, a lined path with lush green lawns, spacious bedrooms and a large kitchen.

            My first day of school, I made a lot more friends than what I ever had before. I guess you could say that I wasn’t too popular back in Washington, D.C.

            Why, you might ask?

             Well, because, to some people in Washington, I was a little…

      Well, I guess the only word for it is insane.

             I’m not. I swear. I’m clinically sane, and the psychologist I was assigned never even did anything to me besides talk over boyfriend problems—or, I guess, lack thereof.

            My parents thought because I had a tendency to get in trouble with police and talk to myself that I needed medical attention.

            Which, clearly, I didn’t.

            My family thought moving to California might be good for us, and I was determined not to ruin it for them. They had worked hard to move us here, and they only really wanted the best for me. I’d screwed up enough for them already; I was determined to make things better.

            So I started at Hopetown High.

            Six months later, I was head cheerleader, with a faithful boyfriend, fun-loving best friend and a school that loved me.

             I’d learned to keep the ability that landed me in Hopetown to myself from thereon in.

            Ability, you ask?

            Well, I use the term ‘ability’ loosely. Ability would be a special, unique talent that you excel at. But, to me, it’s really more like a curse.

            I can see ghosts.

             Don’t give me that look. That ‘oh-my-God-this-chick-is-totally-insane’ look that so many other people gave me when I—stupidly—told them I had the power to see ghosts.

            Ghosts aren’t some scary shadowy things with red eyes and sheet dresses. They’re normal, like you and me, and some people don’t even become ghosts when they die. Some actually get to move on to Heaven or Hell or Purgatory or wherever people go when they die.

            The only people that stay as ghosts are the people with something left behind to do; some unfinished business to attend to that needs doing before they can move on happily to the world beyond.

            And I’m the lucky girl tasked with getting you to the afterlife.

            I make amends when need be, donate some money for an old lady who never got to make her last donation, and I’ve even looked after a few stray pets and found them homes like some crazy cat ladies have begged me to.

            See? It’s not that bad, having this power.

            But, as you can imagine, seeing ghosts and having the ability to touch them has landed me in some uncomfortable positions.

            Like having an argument with an unwilling ghost in the middle of a packed high school hallway, where I was called the ‘Crazy Chick’ until the day I left. Making out with a cute male ghost and having my younger brother walk in on it—and since he couldn’t see the ghost, you can imagine what that scene looked like—and punching thin air when a ghost begins to get out of hand, making me look like I’m enthusiastically fist-pumping the air.

            I prefer not to touch a ghost, being that it’s so unnatural for both of us and all, but when they’re being uncooperative, well… A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

            Since then, I’ve learned to control myself around others, keep my door firmly locked when making out with ghosts—which, believe me, has never happened since then—and behave. I didn’t need another trip to a psychiatrist’s office to add to my long list of things an average eighteen-year-old girl has never had to do before.

            I thought Hopetown was simple, easy, a brand new beginning. Help a couple ghosts here and there, but leave my past behind. No more worrying my family and friends.

            Just be… normal.

            But one thing I should’ve guessed is that Lacey Hannigan could never have a normal life.