Haunted

∞ Chapter 2 ∞

For the next few days, I watched her. And yes, I started to feel like the stalker she had accused me of being before, but I couldn’t help it. There was this pull towards her, this need to figure her out even more than before. I found my eyes wandering off to her without even realizing, until I was staring at her back for about 5 minutes.

As I watched her, though, I noticed these small things about her. That, when no one was looking, her angry glare faded and her expression just turned… emotionless. Like she felt nothing at all. That, in class, she seemed to be drawing in her notebook, but all straight lines, and that sometimes she absently tapped patterns on the edge of her desk. Somehow these small things made her more like a normal human, as awful as that may sound.

In the hallways her super confident strode was still the same, but she didn’t seem to be the same person in class, sitting out of view in the last row. It was like she knew that here, no one paid attention to her, so there was no need to act out, whereas in the hallways, she had to prove a point. During breaks I rarely saw her. Most of the time, she was in line early and slipped through the doors as soon as she had her food.

I searched for a reason to talk to her again, but I never found an opportunity that didn’t make me seem like some creep.

I’d had the dream with the ghost again, always between three and four o’clock. He never said anything else, just the same as the first time and every time I talked back or asked something, he disappeared. The danger I had felt the first time, though, never returned and I wondered whether that had just been me, my own imagination playing with me after the bizarre day.

The hallways were close to empty as I made my way to my locker after class. It was late, and I was supposed to be at Sarah’s dorm in ten minutes, so I turned to the main entry, but stopped when I heard multiple low voices laughing. I took a few steps back and peered into the small hallway. Several guys were hunched together, talking, laughing, and I felt paranoid for the suspicion I had felt until a very furious yet girl-like scream filled the air, followed by, “If you want to live past today, you’d better get the hell away from me!”

That had me fast-walking down the hallway in seconds. “Hey,” I called. “What’s going on here?” I saw a glimpse of Olivia behind the broad shouldered guy. She looked tiny compared to him.

The guys took a few steps back, turned around and faced me. “Fooling around with miss Stone-Hearted. It’s funny how she is threatening us when there is three of us and one of her. If you want to join in, be my guest. I bet you would like to teach her a lesson, too, since the bitch slapped in the face for nothing.”

My eyebrows furrowed. “No, actually, I don’t lower myself to that kind of thing.” As I spoke, I saw Olivia looking at the guys’ backs, taking off her heels, taking them in one hand, and slowly slide sideways, away from us. Since the three seniors were all looking at me with doubtful eyes, they didn’t even notice she was slipping away. “It’s kinda pathetic for seniors to react this way, anyway. Just leave the girl alone.” I wasn’t paying attention to the weird look the guys gave me, for my eyes were following someone else. Olivia was now almost out of the side door. “I should go,” I said and walked past them in the way Olivia had disappeared.

One of the guys must have turned around, because he hissed, “Shit, she got away.”

I jogged out of the door, seeing Olivia put on her heels again and stalking to her car. “Olivia!” I called. She didn’t stop, and honestly, I hadn’t expected her to. So I accelerated until I caught up with her. “Olivia, wait.”

“What?” she snapped.

“I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

“Fine,” she spat. “You should have just stayed away. I had the situation completely under control. What do you want from me?”