Dark Beauty

chapter two

The ghost was of a girl. She was very pretty; she had long black hair, honey colored brown eyes and pale skin. She seemed as though she had been crying because her eyes were all red. Along with walking by my side, she kept looking at me.
I knew I needed to talk to her even if that meant Jake thinking I was a crazy. Jake was a little ahead of me so I tried talking to her discreetly in a low voice, so that Jake didn’t hear me.
‘Hello can I help you, I… hum saw that you seem a little sad.’
‘You can see me? No one in this school can see me. It’s so sad saying hi to people and having them just ignore you.’ she said.
‘Yeah I know.’ I replied, hoping that Jake still didn’t hear me.
Just then, Jake said ‘Hey, who are you talking to?’ Oh, no. He had heard me. I was about to try and explain to him that I wasn’t crazy and talking to myself, when I realized that the question wasn’t meant for me. In fact, he was talking to the ghost!
‘I’m talking to your friend. Can you see me too?’ the ghost said pointing at Jake.
I couldn’t believe this, he could see ghosts as well! I knew there were others like me but I couldn’t believe it was Jake, of all people. This was too good to be true!
I think my luck was changing because for the first time ever, I was enjoying my first day at school.
‘Wait.’ Jake looked at me. ‘Y-you can talk to… ghosts!’ he looked even more surprised than me.
‘Yes. It seems to me that you can speak to them too, because a minute ago you were talking to that girl over there.’ I said this casually, but I was nearly freaking out. 
‘Wow! I can’t believe this, I’m not the only freak in this school.’ He said looking at me. Quickly he added, ‘Not that I’m calling you a freak! But, you know… we’re not exactly what society would call normal.’
‘Yeah, I understand. This is quite amazing. I always wanted to find a person who could talk to ghosts too.’ I said smiling like an idiot.  I felt like Jake, I were already friends for a long time, although we only knew each other for less than half an hour. 
‘I’m happy for you guys. At least one of us is happy.’ that was the girl, I had totally forgotten about her.
‘Oh. Sorry.’ I said.
‘Never mind.’ she sighed.
‘So… what’s holding you here, why didn’t you move on?’ I said.
‘I think the reason I’m still here is my boyfriend…’
‘You’re Jessica? Peter Adams girlfriend, right?’ Jake interrupted.
‘Yes! Have we met? I don’t think I know you.’ Jessica seemed to be trying to remember Jake.
‘No worries, not a lot of people know me.’ Jake said. ‘If we met it was like, once.’
‘Still, your name isn’t strange to me.’ She continued. 
‘I’m the guy everyone talks because they think I’m strange.’ Jake said casually. 
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Jessica said, looking uneasy. 
‘No worries.’ He shrugged
‘So, why do you think it’s because of your boyfriend that you’re still here?’ I inquired, wanting to change the subject.
‘Yeah, didn’t you die in a car crash, if you don’t mind me asking? Jake asked.
Her eyes became distant, as if she was remembering her death. ‘Well, I did…but Peter thinks it’s his fault. I need to tell him it isn’t; I need him to forgive himself.’
‘Could you tell me more about your accident, so we can try and help you?’ Jake looked at her with a caring expression.
I smiled at her kindly encouraging her to tell us.
‘Well…Peter wanted us to go to this party, but I wasn’t in the mood, so I said 
I didn’t want to go.’ She took a deep breath. I could see it wasn’t easy for her to remember her own death. ‘Well, he insisted and I ended up going.’
‘I heard the accident was coming back from a party.’ Jake mumbled.
‘Does he think it’s his fault because you died coming from a party you didn’t even want to go?’ I asked.
‘There’s more.’ Jessica continued. ‘At the party, Peter spent more time with his friends than with me. I got angry because he insisted that I go, and then he didn’t give me much attention. Every time we were alone, his friends would call him and he would go hang out with them, telling me he would be right back. I didn’t understand why I had to go to the party, if he didn’t want to spend time with me.’ She looked at me. ‘When we were driving I started complaining about how he left me alone at the party and soon we both started arguing. Before I knew it, we hit this truck and here I am.’ Her eyes were full of tears. 
‘I’m sorry.’ That was the only thing I managed to say. 
‘He thinks I died hating him, but I love him.’ She sniffed.   
‘We’ll help you. We’ll let Peter know that it wasn’t his fault and that you still love him.’ I said.
‘Yeah. I think I have some classes with Peter. Leila and I will help you, don’t worry.’ Jake seemed so confident.
‘Oh, really?’ she smiled. ‘Thank you so much.’ 
‘No problem.’ I said, smiling back.
‘I’m always checking on him, because lately he has been so depressed. I’m starting to get worried.’ She explained.
‘We will find a way to help you.’ Jake said. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Thank you again.’ She said. ‘Well, I know how to find you guys, so I’ll stop bothering you both.’ 
‘We will be happy to help.’ I said. ‘And you’re not bothering us.’ 
Jessica thanked us again and then disappeared. I had a feeling she would be checking on Peter.

 ‘Well, that was a sad story. I think the first thing we need to do is try to be friends with Peter.’ I said.  I don’t really know how I managed to talk to Jake as if we were friends for such a long time. Normally I was really shy!
‘Good idea. Oh, this is the principals’ office.” We were standing in front of this white fancy door.
‘Do we go in or do we knock first.’ I asked
‘We knock and wait for her to open and let us in. We never know if she is in a meeting or not.’ Jake answered
We knocked and in the same minute, the principal opened the door. She was young, about 35 years old. She had black hair and blue eyes and she was very well dressed. 
‘Hello you must be Leila, I am Mrs. Cole. Usually we call all the new students from each grade to come to my office, so that I can show them the whole school. Seeing as you’re the only new student in this grade and something just came up, I will need to leave. I’m sorry.’ She explained. ‘However, I see you already met Mr. Scott, so maybe he could show you around.’ she said looking at Jake who was standing behind me.
‘That’d be nice.’ I looked at Jake too.
‘Could you, Jake? You know this school very well, more than most students in this school.’ Mrs. Cole said.
‘Of course I could show the school to Leila’ Jake said smiling.
‘Thank you Jake. Here are some documents your mother has to sign, and be free to join any after school activity. Okay?”
‘Yes and thank you.’
‘Now, you two should leave and go to your classes. Here is a hall pass so that you can get into class. I’m sorry but I really need to go.’ Mrs. Cole said giving us two passes.
‘She was really in a hurry, huh?’ Jake said.
‘Yeah, I think we stayed there less than ten minutes.’ I said. ‘What did she mean by “you know the school better than other students”?’ I tried to imitate her voice.
‘Well…’ Jake said ‘There once this ghost who was haunting the school, so I needed to break into school some nights to solve the haunting problem, you know?’
‘Yes. In fact, this already happened to me, but no one ever found out. I guess I’m better than you in breaking into schools.’ I said teasingly.
‘Yeah right. Let’s see when both of us have to break into this school, and I know it will probably happen before we go to college’ Jake said laughing.

‘What’s your homeroom?’ Jake asked. ‘I’ll take you there and then head to mine.’
‘It’s, wait a sec.’ I got my schedule from my bag. ‘English and the teacher is Mr. Beckett.’ 
‘We’re in the same homeroom. Is this coincidence or destiny?’ He joked.
I just looked at him like an idiot and then I followed him. I couldn’t believe we were in the same homeroom.
As soon as Mr. Beckett saw us he started talking.
‘Oh, there you are the only two people in the list that are missing. I hope you have a pass…’
‘We do have a pass. We’re late because Leila is a new student and needed to talk to Mrs. Cole, and she didn’t know where her room was so I helped her.’ Jake interrupted.
‘Good excuse, but you should know I don’t like to be interrupted. We already made the groups for this year reading group, so I think you two will be joining Peter over there. ’ Mr. Beckett said pointing to a good-looking boy who seemed as though he hadn’t slept for weeks. Suddenly Jessica’s ghost appeared.
‘That’s him, that’s my boyfriend! Oh, isn’t he gorgeous! I miss him so much!’  With that she disappeared.
Wow, I was getting really lucky. I had met a guy who can talk to ghosts and is super cool. Also, I didn’t need to try and bump into Peter in order to help Jessica because he is in my group! This was definitely too good to be true.
I looked around the class as I went to sit with Jake and Peter. Everyone was looking at us. I noticed those three girls I saw earlier were in my homeroom too, (okay, so my luck wasn’t that good). There were some guys who were really hot and I knew they must be from the football team because they were all wearing a letter jacket.
This classroom was very nice. It was very bright, with light green walls and posters all over, a lot of bookshelves and a mini sofa at the corner. It also had a big board with some phrases of famous people; I recognized one from Shakespeare. I liked it. There was a round table left at the back of the class next to the board with phrases. Sitting there was Peter.