'Ghost' - A Short Story By Natasha Katherine Low

You ever had one of those days, where you just can't help but feel invisible?

I'd never been one to have many friends. I mean, I never had a particular need for them.

Never been exceptionally close to the rest of my family either. 

I suppose in retrospect, it should be plenty obvious by now that I'm pretty unpopular in general - not that the fact actually bothers me in the slightest. 

I'm not good at sports, and I don't have stellar grades. I listen to stupid top 40's pop music and soft-core rock and do all kinds of nothing for days on end. You know how it is. It's just the kind of stuff that gets me going.

You might expect my plebeian peers to graciously accept my vow of silence and leave me to my own devices, but in that, I'm afraid to say, you are really just set to be laughably disappointed. 

Not that we fail to operate on the same page all the time. 

Sometimes, a handful of them like to pretend I don't exist, which is really all dandy for me. It's like being part of an inside joke somehow - just run-of-the-mill buddies jockeying around. 

I should have chalked down a line somewhere though, when it became apparent that they'd even gotten to that cute girl working at the Starbucks near to my place - Sally, that is. 

It should have infuriated me, being one that liked to keep my school and private life separate, but it really seemed to be more exasperating than it was psychotic.

I was basically miffed because I happen to take my daily caffeine intake very seriously. That, and the sad fact that I had begun to associate paying for my $7 drink with paying for Sally's gorgeous, thousand-watt smile. 

... Which was disappointingly barren today, but I'm sure you've got the point.

"I said I wanted a Caramel Macchiato," I huffed loudly, my nostrils flaring up like they always did whenever I got too worked up about something. 

It was all in vain. Sally fixed me that same lopsided, dreamy expression on her face and washed her stupid milk-steamer cup for the thousandth time that day.

I'd found her whole act cute the first couple of seconds, but it didn't seem so amusing now that I was probably going to miss the start of my new Supernatural episode. Things could start to get messy if I didn't get my coffee fix in three minutes or under.

I sighed. I admit, it stung a little, but - as I mentioned before - I wasn't exactly new to being ignored.

I left the shop irritatedly, hoping agaisnt hope that I'd somehow managed to retain the illusion of some shred of dignity. 

I pushed hard agaisnt the glass door (had it always been this heavy?) and stepped out into the frigid winter air.

I frowned involuntarily when I heard a loud gasp come from behind me. 

It was her, Sally. She was staring after me with a shocked expression plastered across her face. 

I snorted. What was her deal? Never thought I'd get sick of being treated like air?

I shrugged, nearly placated now. I obviously had better things to do with my time. 

I let the door slam shut behind me and immediately crumbled under a sudden jolt of exhaustion. I felt my breath catch in my throat and clutched my chest in acute horror. What was going on?

The world spun around me. Once, twice. I was shivering when I gathered enough strength to look up around me again.

Nothing. Nobody even stirred in their seat. There was Mr Hummel, sipping his coffee as he stared down his newspaper. There went the snotty kids next door that had probably run out on their babysitter again. There lay the college kid that never seemed to attend any classes at all.

None of them seemed to give a single rats ass about my possible heart-attack.

No, wait. 

An old man stood a little way off. His eyes were misty but intelligent, a sharpened contrast from his decidedly wiry and withered frame. He stood dressed in a fine dark suit, his ringed finger clutched casually around a golden cane.

I'd never seen him before, but then again - eccentric weirdos like him weren't exactly common around these parts.

He stood there staring directly at me. There was no recognizable emotion in his face, but I recoiled a little at the intensity of his gaze. I shook myself firmly and marched forward to meet him.

He didn't know who I was, after all - I had the liberty to be whoever I wanted to be with him.

"You saw that?" I challenged sharply. I hated the fact that the only person who had noticed my vulnerability happened to be the only person on the street I didn't know.

He raised an eyebrow calmly.

"What if I did?" The man rumbled slowly. He seemed mildly surprised that I'd approached him. 

I tried to play off nonchalance, like it was every other day that some geezer caught me choking to my death.

"You could have helped," I pointed out snottily. 

Okay, I admit it. I was a little more miffed than I should be at the whole prank the guys had going on. Sally. Seriously?

I know I probably shouldn't be taking it out on a man three times my age, but he seemed to be the only person willing to talk to me at the moment.

"I don't think that you'd have liked that," The man chuckled lightly. His response confused me - caught me off guard - but his tone was matter-of-fact. 

I stared at him uncertainly. What a strange answer.

"What makes you so sure?" I demanded, refusing to lose out to him. I mean, he hadn't been the one gasping for air a couple of moments back. 

I was sick of it. So sick of being invisible. So sick of losing at everything.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" The man asked me pleasantly. I snorted, bewilderment giving away to stubborn teenage superiority. Old fleabag, I thought maliciously. Just my luck to be raging off at some eccentric louse.

"No," I snapped loudly, only just short of putting my hands on my hips. "Forget it," I snorted. I turned on my heels and shoved my hands in my pockets.

"What if I told you you were one?"

I froze. I'd been about to take a step away from him, but now every muscle in my body locked down in surprise. I sucked in a deep breath.

I felt my hands curl into fists involuntarily as I turned to stare at him. His face, though aged with time, was deadly serious. I forced myself to chuckle, but now it felt weird. The stiffness of it caught in my throat.

"Excuse me?" I asked him quietly. I tried to retain some of that smug teenage amusement in my tone, but it had dispersed the second my heart had skipped a beat. A grim dissatisfaction was all I could manage.

"You're dead," He emphasized easily. "Second question - have you heard of Grim Reapers?"

"Hah," I felt the air leave my lungs in one fell swoop. Was he joking?

The sick part was the understanding. The horrible understanding that corroded my brain and made me start to believe him.

It would explain a lot of things.

I'd always been invisible before. But today had been different somehow.

My mind whirred. To be entirely honest, I didn't remember how I had got to the cafe in the first place. I'd been on the way to the park by the beach. I'd been running there, listening to Hot Chelle Rae, and then...

"Shut up," I muttered lightly. My voice sounded foreign to me.

"But it's true," the old man insisted indignantly. His eyebrows were knitted together in his agitation.

"How did I get here?" I blurted out angrily. "Did you bring me here?"

No, this was not good. I was playing into his insane idea without even realizing it. I opened my mouth to void that thought, but he waved it off like I'd uttered something entirely redundant.

"You came here. You made the choice," came the reply. He sounded just as mystified as I was. "Here's where you wanted to be."

"This isn't funny anymore," I growled. "It was funny when a couple of kids were doing it, but Starbucks? And what did they pay you to do this shit?"

He frowned. "I don't understand what you mean."

I sucked in a breath. My confusion had quickly given away to anger. I shot him a dirty look before I turned to go.

"If you don't come with me before your time runs out, you'll be stuck here forever," He murmured lightly.

I shivered again. My mouth went dry as his words sank in.

"Who are you?" I said at last. I glanced around at the people sitting around me, hoping for some kind of response. I got none, as had been expected.

"I'm your Grim Reaper. Everybody has one," he replied pleasantly. "I take charge of this jurisdiction, you see."

"Hah," I breathed, vaguely amused at the sheer impossibility of my situation. "A Grim Reaper, of course. So tell me then," I hesitated briefly. "How did I..?"

"A truck," the old man nodded calmly. "You were run over on your way to the park. Your immediate family is at the scene right now."

"Take me there," I blurted out abruptly. The old man smiled sheepishly at my demand.

"I can't do that," he told me wryly. "I could take you away from here, but I wouldn't be taking you to anywhere on this plane."

"One minute. Please," I breathed dryly. "Please."

He sighed. He glanced down at his watch thoughtfully, the edges of his eyes pulling down in his uncertainty.

"Fine," He said at last. I barely registered his agreement before the world spun around me again.

A flurry of voices and faces and sceneries. My knees buckled as the world steadied itself around me once more, everything placed back as they should be.

Except I knew I wasn't at the cafe anymore. I was at the entrance of the park. My park - the one just behind my house.

The first thing I noticed was a huge truck, the type that carries cement around or something. It was parked sloppily up agaisnt the pavement. A steady mass of people stood around it. They were talking in hushed whispers, looking down at something crumpled right at the head of the vehicle.

I hesitated. Somehow, it felt like my limbs hadn't been used in centuries. 

I felt a hand on my shoulder and recoiled from it with a gasp.

It was only the old man. He was watching me with shadowed eyes, his gaze was questioning. I shook it off and straightened in a huge show of pride.

I approached the crowd like you could expect one to approach a hungry pack of hyenas. I skirted around the edge of the ring, closing my eyes briefly when I edged my way in.

"No," Shawn choked out hoarsely. My eyelids fluttered open at the sound of his voice. The last time I'd heard him so upset was... never.

Yet there he was. Crouched over a lifeless body, his usually impeccable hair a mess agaisnt his cheeks. I was surprised. His flawless gray eyes, eyes I never seemed to inherit - all squinched up and blotchy in his cheeks.

"You kid. Stop playing around," Shawn added angrily. There was fury in his tone now. Like I'd actually planned on being hit by a truck that day.

A flush of guilt made its way down my spine. 

Not a truck. But maybe that wasn't too far off.

"Don't touch him, Shawn," I felt a rush of shock as my father materialized out of the crowd. His eyes were red-rimmed too, hardened underneath his square-set spectacles. 

His mouth was set in a hard line as he bent and firmly tugged my brother away from my body bag. "Stop it," he said firmly.

"No," It was my mother this time. She bounded past my father and stood over my body with absolute emptiness in her eyes. I was surprised at her anguish. Pleasantly so, if I may sadistically admit.

My mother was shivering a great deal. She extended a shaky hand towards the ground, like she somehow expected me to sit up and acknowledge her presence.

"My son. My precious son," She breathed jaggedly. Her anguish filled my with some confusion.

Didn't she find me a burden? Hadn't she spent her entire life wishing I had been somebody else?

I closed my eyes, my head a turmoil of unfamiliar emotions. I took in a breath to clear it and turned away from the fray, walking squarely to meet the old man that stood a little way away. 

His face was set into a hard line.

"One minute," He echoed carefully. "On the dot."

"This isn't how I expected it to go," I murmured quietly. Half to myself, half to him. He raised an eyebrow slowly. "They should be happy now," I explained dully, exasperating carefully underlining my words.

"Happy?" The old man frowned. "That you died?"

My cheeks stung at the obvious doubt in his tone. What did he know? He knew nothing about me. I was a disgrace to my family and anybody I ever cared about. A black sheep.

"This is wrong," I emphasized strongly. I felt my eyes flash in my determination. "I did this to make them feel better."

The old man only seemed even more confused. "This was not a suicide, Peter," he drawled slowly. I shot him a look of contempt. 

"By the end of this week," I told him stiffly. I couldn't finish the thought. It seemed... embarrassing now. Childish, almost. Nothing like the heroic act of sacrifice it had seemed like in my mind this morning.

His eyes widened at that, a surprised understanding in those dark blue moon-pools.

"Oh," he echoed. "That would have been a shame."

"Are you a ghost? Can you... travel through time, perhaps?" I said instead, trying hard to keep the impatience out of my voice.

He appeared slightly offended at this. It was a pleasant distraction from the obvious pity that had begun to form on his face.

"I told you before that I was a Grim Reaper," he sighed irritably. "But, yes, I could do that. It helps me to collect the people that have and will pass on through the ages."

"I see," I said agitatedly. "Then how about this. Let me see ahead, to a week from now. Could you?" I sucked in a breath as the unfamiliar word rolled of my tongue for the third time today. "Please." 

He smiled disapprovingly. "I already brought you here, Peter. This already going agaisnt my duties as an usher."

"Please. Just fifteen minutes, and then I'll go with you," I shook gently as I took in another breath. "You could do this, and I just... I need to know this."

He sighed melodramatically. He held up one finger, his glassy eyes flashing with indignation.

"This is the last request," He stated firmly, his expression sharp. 

I nodded wordlessly, barely registering the relief before the world shifted again and I found myself in my house this time.

"We can start clearing out his stuff now that the funeral complications have been worked out."

I felt a rush of warmth as I found myself staring at my older sister Diane. I hadn't seen her in months - not since she had left to pursue her law degree at Harvard.

Her face was colorless and her hair was unkept. Her voice sounded different from how I remembered it - scratchy, indistinct. She seemed different from the amazing person that I'd come to worship growing up.

It was my parents that really caught me off guard, though. 

My father - who would usually be bent over a pile of papers at this time of night - sat numbly on the edge of the sofa. The telly was turned on, but nobody seemed to be watching anything at all.

My mother was not dolled up, as she should also have been at this time of night. Instead, she moved wordlessly across the room to lean agaisnt my father, sweat pants and all.

Like they needed each other again.

Another surprise. I hadn't seen my parents physically connect in what seemed like years. And it probably had been.

"I'll pull out of the games tomorrow," Shawn murmured quietly. His tone was subdued, nothing like the brash cockiness that had underlined his words since he'd become captain of that goddamn team.

"Don't be stupid," My dad barked. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I hadn't expected a frail-looking figure like that to still possess that much venom. "We shouldn't let a thing like this ruin anything in our lives." 

"You haven't been to work in days," Shawn shot back angrily. I couldn't believe the lack of respect in his words. Shawn had been terrified of my father since the day he'd been born.

"Don't fight," my mother murmured wearily. My mother hadn't bothered with family disputes before.

"You know it's your fault," Shawn carried on silently. "Both of you."

"Stop," my mother mouthed brokenly.

"And so crying about it makes it okay?" My father retorted. But it wasn't like before. There was no indignation in his tone. Only pain. Pain like I'd never seen in him before.

This was not right. My dad didn't have feelings. He didn't care if I lived or died.

"You will go to school, Shawn," Diane called out firmly. As expected, my older sister was the only one in the family that seemed to have it partly put together. 

Except my heart hurt for her. 

Looking at her with those puffy eyes and the colorless lips, my heart hurt me in a way that I simply couldn't understand.

"I heard the kids are planning a memorial for Peter."

Now that warranted unadulterated surprise. A memorial. For me?

I glanced back at the old man pleadingly. He sighed as he glanced at his watch one more time.

Another change of scenery. I was in the school hallway. I felt my heart drop as I stared down at the beautiful demonstration that had been put up agaisnt my locker.

There were candles, flowers... and pictures that actually had me in them. How did those even exist?

People I hadn't thought had even noticed me were bending down to add their own token to the bulk, or to stick another hand-written note onto my locker. 

I bent to read one, blinking uncertainly. "We miss you, Peter Holken," said one, written by a girl I'd never met before.

"You look uglier than usual, Briggs," A gruff voice called out half-heartedly. I glanced up in some surprise at the tall, lumbering football jock hanging by the doorway.

Daniel Sanders. Shawn's junior on the team who had apparently gotten used to treating me like a practice ball during school hours. 

It wasn't his smug face that really caught me by surprise, of course.

My best friend, Jonas Briggs. Or he'd be my best friend, anyway, if I had one. We'd taken many a ass-whooping together, and I guess that made us friends somehow.

Jonas looked horrible. I'd never seen him look so utterly destroyed. Not even when they'd busted everything in his desk, or dug up his 'fat pictures' and pinned them up for everybody to see.

Jonas shuffled past Daniel and slumped into his seat. The desk beside him was empty, of course. It was mine. I took it without anybody knowing and sat there in silence, studying Jonas' swollen face in utter horror.

"I'm sorry, Briggs," Mr. Marren called out quietly. I hadn't noticed that the class had already called into session.

Our classmates, the ones that never ever gave us a second glance, now turned to Jonas with actual sympathy in their eyes. They didn't say anything though, but it was enough for both of us.

Or maybe it wasn't. Jonas didn't seem to register anything at all. He simply stared straight ahead, his expression dead-pan and his mouth slightly agape.

"If anything else, we're glad to have you back with us today," Mr. Marren carried on. I was a little surprised at that, but then I realized that he was talking to Jonas, not me.

"Can I say a few words?" Jonas said unceremoniously. Now that was unexpected. Jonas, volunteering to speak out?

"Of course," Mr. Marren agreed quickly. He'd never been that polite to either of us before.

"One week ago, I caught Peter taking his mother's supply of sleeping pills," Jonas began. His voice was shaky but his eyes were dead-set. The corners of his eyes pulled down in his grief.

I felt uncomfortable at his words. The scene he described played in my head like an embarrassing story. Jonas had panicked a lot more than I had thought was necessary.

"We'd been through a lot together, Peter and I. Sometimes I thought that he was the only good thing I'd gotten out of this school." A bitter laugh. This was unlike Jonas. Jonas never got upset. 

"I went home last week feeling better about myself, because I thought I had talked him out of ending his life that weekend. I'd planned to call him continuously over the next few days, of course. And I'd even have slept over if I'd thought it necessary."

"But who would have guessed," Jonas laughed again. His tone steadied and his eyes flashed once, dangerously.

This was starting to make me feel even more uncomfortable. This was all wrong. Jonas - the happiest, most easy-go-lucky, goodnatured kid in the entire school - .... what in the hell had happened to him?

There was uncertainty in Mr. Marren's eyes now, and he got up to usher Jonas back to his seat. But he didn't get there in them.

"This is all your fault, every single one of you!" Jonas shrieked angrily. Mr. Marren ducked in some horror as Jonas flung his laptop at him, tugging at his face as he scuttled out of the classroom, eyes agaisnt his sleeve.

I sucked in a deep breath as I got up from my seat. This was all wrong.

"Was this not what you expected?" The old man called out calmly. I spun on my heels. I hadn't been aware of the tears flowing down my face, but I slapped at them now, angrily. 

"Your sister is very gifted," he carried on. "She will graduate from her university, but will move back in to your house to care for your mother."

I stared at him. "My mother?" I echoed dully.

"Your father committed suicide sometime during the next month," the old man said gravely. "Your brother Shawn will start working as soon as he graduates next February."

"Jonas?" I choked out. Please.

"Nothing changed for him. He went through everything you used to go through together. Except he did it alone, and he never had the courage to get close to anyone ever again."

"No," I breathed. "This is all wrong."

"I'm sorry," the old man said sympathetically. "I've been watching you for months now, Peter. And you've always been looking at things in the wrong way."

I glanced at him with some disbelief. It was dulled agaisnt the turmoil I had inside me - the sharpened guilt and the anguish - but it was there.

This wasn't what I had wanted. This wasn't what I'd thought would happen at all.

"You taking the easy way out wasn't good for anybody," The old man went on. His tone was gentle but firm. "Not even yourself."

"I'm sorry," I whispered throatily. "I'm sorry-"

"Sorry doesn't cut it, Peter!"

I glanced up in shock. My body was still shaking uncontrollably, but I was no longer in the hallway.

The boy's bathroom. On the second floor. Just like I had been. One week ago.

Jonas was glaring at me with wide eyes. He was looking at me intently, his face red with disbelief.

My mouth fell open slowly. I glanced down at my hands shakily, like somebody torn, in a daze. My right hand was clutching a bottle of my mother's sleeping pills so tightly that my knuckles had turned white.

My brain throbbed along my temple as the world spun around me one last time.

"What?" I breathed jaggedly. I glanced up at Jonas, at the very present fear in his frightened brown eyes.

I caught myself before he had to. 

Before the world needed to catch me for me, one last time.