Ghost Boy

Chapter 2

At the age of two, Violet didn't have many thoughts.

She wanted food, nap time, and playtime with him. She had never officially gotten his name or called him one but silently in her head he had gone by the name of Ghost Boy.

At the time, she had wondered how nobody else had seen him. Seen his wild hair or the crumb filled path he always left behind hence the name of being a Ghost.

Almost always he would want to play pirates or climb trees maybe even ride her bike with him up and down the street. However, she had grown up and he seemed to realize this too. Sometimes it was weeks before she ever saw him or for that matter thought of him.

He had been so constant in her life as a child that Violet would often wonder how she could forget him so easily.

During the weeks leading up to her leaving for college she began packing away her items that she would take and those she would leave behind. In a pile of old clothes, toys and long forgotten boy band posters she found a drawing.

It was smudged with chip crumbs and badly drawn but she could make out a girl in a purple dress that was surely her and a small boy with pudgy fingers, wild brown locks and a bag in one hand. Violet tried to rack her brain of any memory of her drawing this.

When her mind came up blank, she shrugged and crumbled up the paper throwing it into the trash pile. Violet at the age of 26 had finally been able to graduate university and was on her way to becoming a well and professional doctor. Her years in college were a blur of tests, and late nights out but somehow she had sorted herself and made it out.

She was currently cutting cake in her niece's fifth birthday party. The little girl had pigtails on each side of her head and a yellow dress that she knew wasn't the little girl's personal choice of wear.

A boy around her age caught her eye as he leaned over the little girl.

Something seemed familiar about the boy although she couldn't place what it was. Maybe it was the way he stood or how he seemed protective over her niece.

The thing that really caught Violet's eyes was the bag of opened chips in one hand. Throughout the entire party he never seemed to run out of chips. At one point, he looked up and met her eyes for a brief second before setting his eyes on the mountain of presents behind her.

A few months later she saw him again at a family reunion. When she asked her sister who he was, she just gave her a weird look and told her there was no one by that particular description.

At the age of 56, Violet was not expected to believe in magic, or nonexistent animals, or imaginary friends. She didn't.

She really didn't really believe in it. It also didn't matter how much she tried to explain it to the younger ones in the family. They simply could not stop believing.

As she was washing dishes, she could see the younger ones in the family climbing the trees, throwing mud at each other and playing what looked like pirates. She smiled as forgotten memories resurfaced of her playing as a child.

Her vision once again concentrated on the kids and for a brief second she saw a familiar face of a boy among the children. Violet's hands paused as she dried a dish and she squinted out again.

Her eyes caught the edge of uncombed brown hair then pudgy fingers then floating above the trees an empty bag of chips.

A forgotten name trickled into her mind.

Nearly forgotten.

Ghost Boy.