Short Stories

Ghost (part 1)

For far too long, I believed in a lie. 

I lived my short life like any normal orphaned child who lives with her grandmother in the woods. My parents died in a car crash. I survived. After being discharged from the hospital, my grandmother, Betty, took custody of me. We went to live in her large house on the edge of the wood by the lake. Alone together. 

I was younger then. 

The years passed. I grew older. Betty refused to age or change. I lived a solitary life, homeschooled by my grandmother never fully understanding the possibilities of my childhood. My outlet, my window into the world of the outside were the books in constant supply.

My dog Bingo was my only other companion in my lonely world. That changed when I turned the age of any normal high schooler.

I begged and begged Betty to let me go. I had been sneaking out of the house and had found a small high school, with which I entertained myself, learning the ways of the world. When my grandmother figured this out she flew into a rage. 

"You'll learn things that will hurt you deeply!" she warned. Undeterred, I continued to press her. Days, weeks, months, maybe even years passed before I could manage to convince her to allow me to attend. 

After agreeing, she often wandered around the house or the grounds with Bingo at her heel, in a mournful state. I, on the other hand, would rejoice. 

Soon came the day that I would begin high school. Betty tied my hair back with the ribbon both she and my mother had used on their first days of school. Walking me to school, she told me about her first day at school and how she'd been so afraid to let her parents go. 

"Of course, I was a five-year-old then," she said in her southern drawl, the likes of which both my mother and I never inherited. Taking me by the arm, she looked me in the eyes with such an intensity. 

"Be careful," she whispered, "you're the only reason I'm still here. Don't let anything bad happen like it did with-" and she cut off, almost choking on a memory that was too painful. 

I left Betty at the school gates, embarrassed after having noticed that none of the other students had a tearful grandmother waving them goodbye. In fact, some people even turned to stare at her, following her gaze to me. 

I didn't know what to do from that point onwards. I somehow found my way to the main office and even then I was terrified to speak to the secretary and discuss my timetable with her and be pointed in the direction of my classes. And it didn't help that all the while I was talking to her she kept drifting off into a trance. In the end she handed me a my timetable, a map of the school and told me to sit and wait while she called a student representative to help me out. 

After a hellish five minutes that dragged into eternity, the student rep. finally arrived. His name was Josh and he looked like the typical jock from the books I'd read. The ones  that are tough, but only as a front, that deep down want someone to bake cupcakes for because they're "sensitive".

"Yes Ms Laurel," he said upon arrival. 

"Hello Joshua. You are to show this new student around the school and help explain the rules to her. She's a couple of days late and may need help adjusting," she explained. 

"Yes ma'am, and where is the new student?" he asked, and both Ms Laurel and I shook our heads in confusion. I was sitting there in plain sight. 

"Please, these sort of jokes are unkind," she said sharply, her brow furrowing slightly. "She's sitting over there," she gestured to my position and I stood up.