Luna's Ghost

6

Helen and Johnny followed the direction of my gaze.

Helen gasped. "Is that him?"

I could only nod, unable to speak.

The ghost and I locked eyes. I felt like I was frozen. I couldn't move. My body was freezing. I thought I could actually feel ice form on my skin. The pain in my stomach increased.

I saw Johnny advance towards the ghost. The ghost casually glanced at Johnny before looking at me again. There was an unreadable expression in his eyes and it felt like he could see right through me.

Then, as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone, as well as the pain. I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back in my seat, trying to catch my breath. Thank God he was gone, though his presence created more questions. First, he was at Grandma Maria's house, now he was here, at school. Where did he die? Where did he haunt? Why--?

"Hey, are you okay?" a voice from above asked, interrupting me from my thoughts.

I looked up and saw a tall girl with tan skin, slim and curvy body, long, wavy blonde hair, bright green eyes, a straight nose, high cheekbones, her face caked with makeup, pink eye shadow, wearing a pink tank top and white jeans standing over me, staring at me. The first thought that ran through my mind was that this girl looked like she just walked out of a photo shoot. A corner of my mind told me that there was no way she was a high school student. She had to be a runaway model.

I swallowed, wincing slightly at the dry pull of my mouth, and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."

The girl sat down next to me, still watching me. "Are you sure? A second ago you looked like you were dying."

Oh, damn. I felt my face heat up, wondering who else saw that. Going to school while seeing ghosts was going to be a lot harder than I thought. Who knew how many people died here?

My mind scrambled to come up with something. The first thing I could think of was the first thing that came out of my mouth. "It's that time of the month you know? Just bad cramps. Really, really bad cramps."

"And I'm out of here," Johnny said and vanished.

The girl groaned and dropped her head back. "Oh, my God, I so know the feeling. My cramps are the worst. I literally feel like I'm dying. That time of the month is terrible. Like, every month I have to miss two days of school 'cause they're that bad. And I hate how teachers, especially the male ones, go, 'Oh, you can't use that excuse,' like bitch, you don't know my body, and you're not a female, so you can't say shit."

I rolled my eyes as I thought of similar experiences. "I've had teachers, even girl teachers, tell me that. And my cramps are so bad I want to pass out." That was true, even though it wasn't the reason I was about to pass out just moments ago, however this girl didn't need to know that.

"I'm Madison by the way," the girl said.

"Luna."

"So are you feeling better? Do you need a pad or anything?"

"No, I'm fine, thanks," I said, a bit taken aback by the girl's kindness and long rant about teachers and periods.

Helen stood behind Madison. She beamed at me and gave me two thumbs up.

"You're new here, aren't you?" Madison asked as she picked at a loose thread on her white jeans. "I mean, you haven't gone to any of the middle schools in the county have you?"