Ghostly Love

Meeting him

"Muuuummm we have to stop off I'm going to wee!"
That's what my brother screamed 40 minutes into a 4 hour car journey.

Great.

I could hear him even through my blasted out music.

"Muum!!"

"Okay, okay! I'll pull over."

"No I need a number 2."

I could feel my mums frustration radiating off of her.

"You said it was a wee Luke!"

"It changed."

My mum sighed for what was probably about the millionth time today and started to pull into a service station.

We all get dragged out the car and lumber into the services.

Like normal, I split off from the rest of them and go find a toilet before it gets too busy.

As I'm walking I notice there's a shortcut if I duck under a "do not enter" sign I can make it to the other side quicker.

I know I probably shouldn't but when have keep out signs ever worked?

I do a quick scan and then swiftly duck under the tape and head up the stairs.

I expected there to be men up here or building work of something but it's completely normal.

Completely normal and quiet, two things I'm not used to.

There's a massive window stretching across the whole wall with a view of the motorway below.

I lean my head against it and imagine for a second that I am someone else.

That instead of fleeing the country, I'm just driving to visit a friend or to pick some up from the airport.

After about 2 minutes I push my head back off the glass and begin to turn to head back but something stops me.

In the reflection of the glass I see someone. I'm sure of it.

It's a boy. With half of his hair black and the other half green.

He's wearing a checkered red top and black ripped jeans and I notice his nails are painted black too.

I spin around to see him properly but when I do, he's gone.

There's no trace of him.

Did I just imagine him? I couldn't of done. It was so real.

Whatever happened I had to get back to Mum before she freaks so I take one last glance around and run back down the stairs.

"Alexis! There you are. Stop wandering off like that. You know I hate it."

But I barely hear here, my mind is still thinking about that boy from before.

And when my mum sends me off to buy her a coffee it's still on the boy.

In fact, it doesn't think of anything else until we're back in the car half an hour later.

We pull out of the parking space and drive towards the exit.

The boys with their Happy Meals and mum with her coffee.

I go back to gazing out the window and viewing other peoples simple lives when my eyes flicker back up to that window.

And I couldn't be certain, but I swear that boy is standing there, looking straight back at me.

*
*
*
A couple hours later.

Well, we've arrived. Robins Hood Bay.

I have to admit, it is beautiful. A small fishing village, right next to the coast, 20 minutes away from this amazing waterfall.

Mum clearly loves it.

As soon as we've stepped out the car her eyes light up and she draws back her head and looks....calm.

Even the boys seem to like it.

They start jumping up and down and hitting each other?

I'll never understand boys.

It doesn't take us long to collect our keys from the estate agent.

The trouble is with finding our house.

It's not with all the other houses. Mum says it gives us more privacy.

It's right up on this hill with a path to the beach going down along one side and a path to the village along another.

The cottage itself is gorgeous. It's cobble and has ivy growing up one side and stained glass windows.

The garden has flowers growing in neat little patterns and one of those swing benches.

As mum puts the key in the lock she takes a deep breath.

The lock turns and we all step inside.

For a moment, everything is silent then Grandma Ginny, despite her old age, jumps out from behind the kitchen counter and yells "Welcome Wagon."

Following her, about 20 other people appear, half of who I've never even seen before in my life.

"Welcome home baby." My Grandma says hugging my mum. "We've missed you."

"You did all this? The flowers and the chair? They weren't there in the photos."

She taps her nose knowingly and gives us all a wink.

After giving us all long, *long* hugs we're finally aloud to go explore the rest of the house.

Well, I am. The boys just run to the beach straight away.

The house is bigger than I expected. 3 floors!

And of course, the attic bedroom. My bedroom.

Honestly something good came out of my dads death. This house.

After the news got out, and people realised my mum wasn't coping, they all gave my grandma some money who bought us this house.

I'm about to go unpack my clothes when I hear a voice behind me.

"Hey."

I turn my head to find the voice and almost drop my bags when I see who it belongs to.

The boy from before.

"I saw you. At the Services." I put my bags down at my feet and begin to walk up to him.

He remains unfazed and brushes his hand through his hair.

"Yer of course, you're the girl who doesn't listen to keep out signs."

"Well neither do you it seems." I say raising my eyebrow.

He smirks at me and takes a step closer. "I was driving over from somewhere and stopped off. When I saw you going up the stairs you weren't meant to be going up, I followed."

He's standing pretty close to me now. A couple more steps and we'll be touching.

"That doesn't explain why you disappeared so quickly."

He shrugs like it was nothing. "It sounded weird telling you that I followed you so I thought it better to leave. Simple."

"You're telling me now."

He looks straight into my eyes and starts to speak. "You're right. I am....." but before he can finish I hear my mums shriek coming from up the stairs.

"Alexis. Get down here and socialise!"

"Looks like you gotta go. I'll see you around....Alexis."

And with that he leaves, walking down the stairs and into the party.

I never even asked how we knew my mum.