Stacey Kade - The Ghost and the Goth

“No, no, no. This is not fair. This is such bullshit. I do not deserve this. I did everything right!” I sobbed, losing control completely. Crying ruins your makeup, not to mention the eventual cascade of snot you have to deal with, which was why I’d never allowed myself to shed a single tear in the company of these people. But none of them could see me now, and I’d never see any of them again, so who cared, right?

The bell rang, and everyone around me scrambled to gather up backpacks, purses, and guitar cases. Then they walked right through me on their way to the door. First, Jeff, who was quickly followed by Ashleigh and Jennifer (whose minuscule purses did not have any room to hold any kind of candle-wax sculpture, no matter how small). Then Ben sauntered through with an arm around his two chosen underclassmen virgin sacrifices. Leanne actually stood on me and checked her lipstick in her reflection on the shiny surface of her cell phone.

“Bitch,” I spat.

Chris and Misty, holding hands, did not walk through me, but only because they were already close to the door. And besides, hadn’t they walked over me enough?

With only my head left, I watched as the entire school paraded past me, laughing and joking and worrying about pop quizzes like I’d never even existed. Like I hadn’t just tragically died only THREE days ago.

“This is hell. This must be hell,” I said, my voice nasally and clotted with tears.

As if to confirm that fact, Will Killian, the biggest weirdo loser of all time, looked right at me and smirked as he ambled by, just ahead of his pot-smoking buddies.

“Hey,” I shouted, furious. Like he had the right to laugh at me! Even dead, I was more popular than him. He was total loser material, skin so pale he practically glowed, and shaggy black hair that hung down in front of his creepy blue eyes. Seriously, they were so pale, they were almost white. And hello, he acted like such a freak, always wearing headphones and pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up, even inside the building. Rumor had it he’d even spent a summer in some mental hospital somewhere. There wasn’t a tier of popularity low enough to signal where he belonged. And he was laughing at me?

Killian looked away quickly, hunching his shoulders in his sweatshirt and staring at the ground, his usual antisocial, psycho-in-training behavior.

Wait … wait. Something about that …

I frowned, even though I was pretty sure my mouth was gone, and my thoughts were getting fuzzy. If he was laughing at me, that could only mean that he could see me. And that meant …

Laughing at the dead is never a good idea. But I couldn’t help it. The great Alona Dare, reduced to a crying, runny-nosed bobblehead? How often do you get to see stuff like that?

Not often. Unless, of course, you’re me. Lucky, lucky me.

But it was also me who, above anyone else, should have understood that laughing at someone else’s expense always comes with a karmic price.

“Mr. Killian.” Principal Robert “Sonny” Brewster greeted me as soon as my foot crossed over the threshold into the school. “Glad you could join us today. Though you seem to be running late … again.”

“I’m not—” I protested.

Brewster pointed at the ceiling, and, as if he’d willed it, the bell rang.

“Late,” I muttered.

Behind me, Erickson and Joonie scrambled to get through the door and to class, leaving me to deal with Brewster again. Joonie gave me an apologetic look over her shoulder, but I didn’t blame her or Erickson. They were just glad he’d decided to focus on me and leave them alone. After all, they were just as late as me, but apparently, they didn’t set off Brewster’s “freak-detector,” as he called it, like I did. I found that a little hard to believe, considering the number of piercings Joonie wore in her face and how bloodshot Erickson’s eyes were. But, for whatever reason, I was just Brewster’s favorite.

Brewster smiled, an expression that did nothing to soften the hardness of his face and the brutal line of his buzz cut. Former military all the way, that was Brewster. Oh, and don’t forget barely repressed homophobia, testosterone driven violence sprees, and a hard-on for following rules because they are RULES.

“I think it’s time we have another conversation about your future, Mr. Killian.” He caught his hands behind his back and rocked back on his heels.

“Again? People are starting to talk.”

His hand snapped out, snatching the shoulder of my sweatshirt and crushing the cloth in his fist. I stumbled toward him under the force of his grab. His dark eyes gleamed with fury and eagerness.

“Go ahead,” I said. If he hit me, he’d be fired. He knew it. Everyone knew it. There’d already been a couple of complaints against him for his temper. So what if I helped him along a little? My life would be so much easier with him gone.

He released me and wiped his hand down his suit coat, like touching me had covered him in slime. “My office, now.”

He stalked across the main hall toward the administrative offices without even checking to see if I followed. It was tempting to ditch and leave him sitting there alone, but I only had a few weeks left. Just twenty-eight more days, and I’d be eighteen and a high school graduate, both conditions for accessing the little bit of money my father and grandmother left me. Once I had that, I’d be out of here, bound for someplace with only a few people and, therefore, even fewer ghosts. Like some deserted island … or Idaho.

If Brewster suspended me, that would be the end of that plan.

So, I followed him, as he’d instructed. I just took my own sweet time about it.

See, here’s the bullshit about high school, and believe me, I’ve had plenty of time to think about this. Teachers, parents, guidance counselors … all of them are always pushing this crap about how it’s okay to be different, just be yourself. Don’t give in to peer pressure, blah, blah, blah. The truth is, it’s really only okay to be yourself if that self is within an accepted range of “normal.” You like soccer instead of basketball, Johnny? Well, okay, I guess, so long as you still like sports. What’s that, Susie, you want to wear the blue sweater instead of the red? You know we’re all about expressing individuality here … so long as it’s still a sweater.

How can you expect any of us to believe that it’s okay to be different when even the adults don’t believe it? Just because the popular, so-called first-tier kids look “normal” and say the “right” things, no one even looks twice at them. Ben Rogers supplies weed for most of the school, but has he ever been searched? This year alone, I’ve been called to Brewster’s office twelve times and had my locker searched once a week.

Brewster was waiting at the door of his personal office when I finally made it to the secretary’s desk. I could see his jaw muscle twitching from where I stood.

I nodded at Mrs. Piaget, the school secretary, who smiled in return but quickly looked away. She always had a soft spot for me, probably seeing all the notes over the years for various doctor appointments and illnesses, but even she knew better than to challenge Brewster.

Brewster slammed his office door shut as soon as I stepped inside, nearly clipping my shoulder in the process.

“Backpack,” he demanded, his hand out.

Oh, please. I resisted the urge, barely, to laugh at him. I’d learned a long time ago that backpacks were, for all intents and purposes, seen as school property. You’d never find anything illegal in mine.

I slid the pack off my shoulders and handed it to him, and then I dropped into one of the blue plastic visitor chairs in front of his desk.