Andy

Gym is where things really started to decline.

I got out of my last classroom class for the day and was met by the duo in the hallway. Andy held the book, still in it’s paper wrapping, tucked safely under his arm.

He smiled politely at me as I approached them, careful to keep enough distance between us to avoid a sudden disappearance in the school’s halls. Something was troubling him, though... It was obvious as he looked at me that they had encountered another obstacle.

“What?” I whispered, peeking down the hall to my left to see if I’d be joined by Elizabeth or Mark.

“I’ll tell you what I can on the way to the gym.” He frowns and jerks his head in the direction of the exit. I nod in agreement, and follow them out.

“We haven’t opened the book yet, as par instructions... However, we were thinking... We need blood samples, right? And other bodily nasties? How the hell are we supposed to get those for Ash?”

I look to Ashley, and he looks pretty invested in the conversation. I sigh, “Shit... I didn’t think of that.”

“I’m sure we can probably salvage a few things...” Ashley shrugs, not looking too sure. “We’re definitely not getting blood, though.”

“Can we get any of those things from your ghost form?” I wondered, and Andy and Ashley exchanged glances.

Andy pursed his lips. “We were thinking that, too... So while we were gone, we experimented.” He looks around, then tugs me off the sidewalk into the thick shrubs around the school, pulling a knife from his jacket. I watch him in confusion as he rolls the handle around in his palm before plunging it into his abdomen.

I jump back, surprised by how willing he was to do it. He gasps and curls himself around his wound for a moment, absorbing the pain. Then he lifts his head, showing the clear trails of spit running from his mouth. Slightly disgusted, I watch him straighten his back again and yank out the knife, wipe the blade on his pant leg, and tuck it back into his jacket.

I give him a questioning look, which prompts him to lift the hem of his shirt, revealing an incision the size of the blade, with more clear goo dripping from it. After fifteen seconds, the skin pulled back together and he sighed in frustration.

“Problem is,” he starts, his tone sounding nonchalant as though he hadn’t just stabbed himself in a vital organ. “We don’t have blood. We don’t have any of the necessary stuff to make this work.”

“What about toenails?”

“That doesn’t work, either.” He sighs, reaching into his jacket, this time pulling out a pair of pliers, quickly positioning the teeth over his index finger nail.

“No, no no!” I raise my voice, ripping the pliers from his hands, “I don’t need to see more examples, thanks...” I wince, and hand the rubber handled tool back to him with a sickened look on my face.

“Sorry,” he apologizes with a grin, accepting the tool from me, putting it back where it was. “I’ve kinds gotten desensitized to the whole self-mutilation thing.”

“Does it even hurt?” I ask in confusion.

“Of course it does,” He says matter-of-factly like it’s common knowledge. “It hurts like a bitch for several seconds before it starts to heal. The whole process takes around a minute. I can recover from any bodily wound. So to speak, I'm a stunt dummy that can take blow after blow. I could join the circus."

“Just like you always wanted.” Ashley speaks up with a roll of his eyes and a hint of sarcasm to his tone.

“Anyways... We’re going to have to figure something else out. In the meantime, any word from Juliet?”

I shake my head. “She texted me at lunch to let me know that tonight she’s headed to your dorm with backup to get the jar... Assuming no one’s gone to clean it up yet, or they haven’t just thrown everything out yet.”

Andy frowns in confusion and we merge onto the sidewalk again, walking close enough together to be invisible to all the prying eyes of the students pouring out of the school.

“I wonder why no one’s dealt with it yet? I’ve almost been dead a month, and no one’s made an effort to go clean up my things... Not even my parents. What are they waiting for?”

I have an answer on the tip of my tongue, and I quickly think better of it. While it’s an honest response, I know he doesn’t like to talk about the combination of his parents and his ‘new’ self.

I believe the reason they haven’t yet is because they’re still in shock. It hasn’t completely hit them, yet... They know he’s dead. They buried him in the southern cemetery in the middle of April. They went home to continue living life in any way they could, trying to get by. They don’t speak of him in past-tense... They mentally treat him as though he is still fully alive, ready to walk through their front door at any moment.

It’s not really a surprise that they haven’t made the daunting trip to California, yet... If I lost a kid, that’s the last thing I’d want to do is go to the place they called home, and dig through their private possessions, deciding based on personal preference what’s trash and what is worth keeping or giving away... The hardest part of that is not knowing what they thought of the things you’re throwing away. Those old ticket stumps, wrinkled dry cleaning tickets and fliers for some college Sororities, given to him by a friendly face in the hall when he could have been down to his last. You never know how much the simpilest things mean to someone.

He takes a deep breath and dismisses the thought with a sigh. “So, tonight we dig.” He says with a ominious tint to his tone, like it’s our last stand.

Ashley winces, but nods in agreement. “And I guess if we fuck it up, we can at least say we tried.” He purses his lips and pushes his dark hair off his forehead, reaching up to pull down his sunglasses over his eyes.

Just another habit, I suppose... There’s still things that both of them do, that they don’t need to do anymore. The sun can’t harm his eyes, or burn his skin, or soak it full of vitamin D, yet, he takes the precautions.

Ashley gets the gym door and holds it open. The group of kids following us stop dead in their tracks when they see the door fly open in front of them, standing open invitingly until they got closer.

It must really be strange being unaware of the dead... And even stranger to be the dead one.

You’d have endless pranks to play and things to do, but even then, I still feel like you could get bored of it all and you would start to crave some of the incredibly basic, tedious tasks that you did before.

As soon as we get in, my ears are greeted by the familiar squeals coming from the girls’ locker room. I wince and hesitate in front of the door.

“Well, this is where we depart.”

“Try not to get water bombed, it sounds like someone’s armed in there.” Andy nods towards the door with a look of mock concern.

I nod, “Yeah, yeah...”

I pull open the door, and as expected, a jagged ray of water surged through the air, colliding into the pale green tile behind me. I contorted my body at the last second to avoid it. With a deep breath, I do my best to turn invisible and get to my locker.

Another chorus of screams break out behind me, followed by the manical laughter of one of the girls on the cheerleader squad who was armed with a big, pump-action water gun.

I don’t know why I never fit in with these kinds of people. There was never anything about me and set me apart, it just never worked out when I tried squeezing into their seamless lives. The reality of it is, there was no opening in the stitches for me. I simply did not belong among them.

I would love to say that I’ve always enjoyed being the outcast, and how it felt so open and free, but that would be a lie. I can’t count how many times I wished that I could just fit in.

I change into my gym shorts and tank top quickly, taking a moment to inspect my arm in the mirror. The burns were slowly healing, but were still red as an angry blister.

“Asheen?”

I look and see Elizabeth, dressed in the same dulldrum mandatory gym uniform as me, her expression sheepish. I was taken back for a moment... Elizabeth seldom calls me by my full first name.

“Yeah?”

“Can I talk to you? It’s something that’s been bugging me a bit.”

I nod in encouragement, “Yeah, go for it.”

She fiddles with her hands, and finally forces out the words. “I know that you don’t like him, but...”

I already know where it’s going, and instead of interupting her, I entertain her plea.

“Can you give him more of a chance?... Or at least sieze all relations to him? It’s making harder than it needs to be to be around him. It’d make it a lot easier on me.”

“Are you asking me to be nicer to him?”

“No nicer... Per se, but more like, tolerable? Just ignore him and he’ll ignore you.”

“Did he agree to this?” I laugh humorlessly, unable to get across my disbelief in any other fashion.

“Not consciously, but I know he will. Do this for me, please?”

I hesitate, knowing full well that I have control over how things play out. My angry, devil-on-my-shoulder is yelling in my ear to remind him of the utter pile of shit her boyfriend is.... And it takes a lot for the angel side to win over. With a wince, I force out my answer through gritted teeth “You’ve got it.”

“Thanks, girl!” She has instantly enveloped me in a tight, thankful hug. “You won’t regret this, I promise you.”

I nod, deciding not to resppond to that. I know that sometime in the future, for whatever reason it may be, I will undoubtedly regret this.

We walk out of the locker room together, and Elizabeth has taken control of the conversation - which makes it easier for me, because all I have to do is nod along and answer agreeingly here and there. I want to be more invested in her teenage issues, but I have so many other, far more pressing subjects on my mind.

I look up to the left side of the gym and spot Andy and Ashley sitting on the top row of the bleachers, chatting quietly, looking down at all the obnoxious teenagers below, and sending concerned glances to the boys throwing each other down on the blue wrestling mat.

I look there, and I immediately identify the leader victor as Reece. He shoves a boy of similiar height and build to himself down on the mat and straddles him, shouting over everyone else the countdown numbers while the boy squirms under him, shoving and kicking, attempting to get back up with all his strength.

“3, 2, 1!” He hops up, raising his arms in victory, marching in a little circle on the mat, showing off his hairy ape pits to everyone with a triumphant grin. I wince in disgust and look down, then glance at Elizabeth, to see that she is completely enthralled with him.

“Alright, kids! We’re playing volleyball today - girls vs boys.” Coach Joan calls out, following up her statement with a loud clap of her hands.

I position myself between Elizabeth and Jessica - a nice girl I know from my History class.

Coach calls out the rules, and all the while, I make eye contact with Reece across the net, and he narrows his eyes at me - not in a friendly, competitive way... But in a ‘I’ll fucking kill you’ kind of way.

Coach Joan concluded the rules, along with some aggresivelly worded warnings.

“Absolutely no targeting. If I see you go out of your way to hit somebody on the opposing team, you’re out.”

There was a quiet murmur of protests, but no one went out of their way to make a scene.

She went over a few of the gameplay details so that we could freshen up on it. She and the boy’s coach gave us an example of a proper spike, and then tossed it in to the center of the court, calling out for us to do a practice round first.

The ball rolled over into the boys’ side of the court, bumping into the toe of Reece’s blood orange colored Nikes. He scooped it up in one hand with a wicked grin and served it first. I watched the braided white ball soar up above the net, and rotate in the air before making it’s decent back to our side. Jessica darted forward with her wrists locked together, and jumped up to slam her palms into it, sending it well over the heads of the rest of the boys on Reece’s team. It slamed against the floor behind them, and bounced several times before rolling off the court and drifting into the open door of the boys’ locker room.

They all groaned at the perfect loss while the girls congratulated Jessica and gave her high fives. Bradon, one of the boys I’d seen Mark hanging with before, sighed and offered to go get the ball.

There was something brewing in Reece’s eyes, something that burned deeper than a simple rivalry. His hazel gaze shifted from each face on our team, landing on mine without fail, and then darting to Elizabeth’s by my side.

“Your love looks like he wants to kill me.” I mutter to her under my breath, causing her to laugh. “He’s just competitive. Don’t worry about it.”

Bradon returned to the game with the ball in hand and served it for his team to start us off. I locked my knees into a semi-crouched position, ready to swat away the ball if it came my way.

Elizabeth moved forward this time, and Ross caught it and sent it back to Brianna. I just remained prepared, and kept an eye on Reece. His gaze never failed to come back to me, and everytime it did and I met it, I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. His eyes were so full of hate without even narrowing his eyes. They were something to fear.

Jessica went to hit it back, but was a bit shy of the power to send it over the net. It bounced above our team and fell down towards me. On instinct, I pressed my palms together and brought them up in unision to slam the ball up and over the net.

When it came down, the boys fumbled to catch it and it rolled across outstretched hands before tumbling to the floor and rolling off the court.

“You boys need to pull it together. This isn’t Kindergarten field-day sports.” Coach Joan taunted them with a lighthearted laugh, tossing the ball back in. This time, though, Reece caught it and held it in an iron grip, his expression contorting into one of malicious and psychotic intent.

I didn’t have a lot of time to react, because before I could even move my arms in front of my face, he was leaping into the air like a damn jaguar, holding the ball over his head like it was a massive boulder, and my face was its’ final destination.

He flung it down hard, his gaze locked on my face with a smug, triumphant grin across his face.

For a moment, I only saw his smile... Then I saw the ball hurling towards my face with no chance of being stopped.

I’ll never forget the sound... Ew... The sound of cartilage bending and snapping from the impact. I was on my ass in an instant.

I don’t think that anyone thought it was all that severe until they saw the blood running down my face and rushed in to help.

I heard Reece’s stupid, fucking voice... Asking if I was okay, saying it was just an accident. I looked up and saw him looming over me, just on the other side of the net, with that mocking look of concern on his face. Beneath it all, was a proud glimmer in his eyes that said this was no accident.

Tears start to sting my lower lid, not because I’m upset or anything, but it’s just a response the the abundance of pain I am in. Coach Joan is trying to catch my attention, but my gaze is elsewhere, locked on Andy’s face as he cuts through the crowd, screeching venomous cureses at Reece. He comes to my side and crouches, but not to look at me or speak, but to scoop up the bloodied volley ball.

I watch him, unable to find words. I see him straighten his back and take calculated steps around the court until he stands just behind Reece. With a ruthless, dead look in his eyes, he hurls the ball at the back of Reece’s knees.

The sound of the leather slapping against exposed skin sends a sharp clapping noise echoing throughout the gym. The force of the blow knocks Reece on his ass and brings him to tears - which only confuses the hell out of the Coaches when they turn and see that the instigator is on his ass, bawling his eyes out.

Elizabeth and Coach Joan and lifting me to my feet, trying to get me to talk, but I am so much more invested in what’s going on on the other side of the court. The boy’s coach rolls over Reece’s legs to expose two large, splotchy purple bruises forming.

“Brianna, can you call up to the nurse’s office and ask them to send down a medic? Tell her we’ll be in the locker room.”

I hobble forth with the support of them on either side of me, with Andy cursing up a storm somewhere nearby.

They push open the squealing metal door to the locker room and sit me down on a bench. Coach Joan sends Elizabeth to get a wet washcloth to clean up my face. Normally Coach Joan is your typical hard-ass Coach where nothing phases her, but a look of worried disgust crosses her face when she looks at me.

“I’ll be back in a moment, darling.” She says as we exits the locker room to go back out into the gym.

That leaves me alone with Andy.

“Let me see.” He breaths, sitting down on the smooth wooden bench beside me. He uses a ginger touch as he examines it, lifting my chin and touching my cheeks to get different views of it.

“I should have known he’d do something like this.” He murmurs, his eyes hardened with regret.

“You couldn’t have known.” I reply, looking down.

He pauses for a moment, then gets his sigmature crooked smile. “Want to see something ‘ghostly’?”

I shrug, then smile as much as my broken face will allow. Breathing out my nose brings a surging burn similar to the feeling of getting your skin too close to an open flame. When I look down at the bridge of my nose, I can see that it’s horrifically crooked.

He lifts his hands and presses the icy pads of his fingers to the bridge, causing me to wince. He closed his eyes in concentration and locks his jaw. My fascination overcomes the pain as I watch him do something incredible and confusing.

He lets out a low, agonized cry and it makes my heart leap into my throat in terror and surprise. I’ve never heard a human make such a noise.

The color drains from his skin and his image flickers.

“Andy?” I choke out in terror, “You’re disappearing!”

“It’s fine.” He strains through gritted teeth, and after a few seconds, he slowly begins to bend my nose back. His hair, which is a pale shade of brown, grows an ashey white at the roots, and the skin of his cheeks becomes withered and creased - his youthful complexion gone.

His hands, which are curled around my nose, become boney and more defined. His fingers grow thin, and the joints in them protrude through thin skin.

My heart is pounding in a panic, unable to stand what he is doing to himself.

With slow, even pressure, he straightens out my nose, and the cartilage pops in response and locks into place. His frozen fingers remain for several seonds, and then he pulls them away.

I stare at his face in horror as he raises his eyes, showing sunken in sockets and tired, faded blue irisis.

“You- You’re old!” I shout, trying to control my voice not to alert anyone else.

“It’s fine.” He repeats with an aged, broken voice. “I just need to rest.”

“You - you need...” I can’t think of anything to fix his condition.

“I will be fine!” He laughs, and it sounds wispy and light. “See? I’m fine.”

I look into his eyes to see the color brightening up again, and the crows feet around his eyes start to recede. “I call it the Christmas Healing.” He chuckles while I watch him transform in disbelief.

“I can give you some of my energy to heal you, and you can give me some of yours to heal myself. Giving and taking - though, I’ll never do this to you.”

“When did you find out that you have that power?!”

“I experimented on the ill in the hospital after your encounter with Ferguson.” He admitted sheepishly. “I healed several from various illnesses.”

“Cancer?”
He frowns, and wrings his boney fingers together, “No... That would ultimately kill me. I can heal cuts and mend people from the flu or get them through withdrawl symptoms, but doing something for them that is life altering is equalvelent to me just giving them what life I have in this universe. I don’t know what would happen to me after.”

His hair is no longer brittle and frail looking and the skin of his face stretches back into place, returning to his flawless complexion. After another minute, he was almost back to his old self.

I sighed in relief, and he nods towards my face. “Well? Please tell me I didn’t just wither to the brink of death for nothing.” He jokes. I smile and get up, going to the mirrors, looking back at my nose - now exactly the same as it was five minutes ago, save for the murder scene of blood staining my neck and chin.

“I got you a washclot- What happened to your nose?” Elizabeth stops in her tracks several feet away, looking absolutely bewildered.

“Oh...”

My mind blanks and I can’t think of any excuse worthy enough. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

She doesn’t respond, but continues to eye me skeptically as she cleans up my face. I see Andy hanging back, watching me warily.

“You know you’re a terrible liar.” She sighs once she’s finished up, looking me hard in the eye. I fight the urge to recoil under her authorative gaze.

“It’s probably some bizzare ghost shit that you won’t tell me - right?”

I neither agree or disagree, I choose to let her comment hang.

She frowns in disappointment and sets aside the cloth, looking like she wants to say something, but decides better of it and says something else.

“They’re always with you, aren’t they? Like bodyguards?”

I choose to agree to this one. Not vocally, I just slightly jerk my chin up in response and she catches it, and nods slowly in response, looking more annoyed with me with every passing second.

“Well, at least they’ve got your back, I’m a sucky best friend.” She plops down onto the wooden bench and places her head in her hands, cradling her face, squishing her cheeks.

As much as I could mentally agree, I decide to butter her up and offer her a smile. “You’re not a bad friend,” I defend, “You’re the only one I’ve told any of this stuff you, so I must trust you.”

She looks up at me the way someone looks when you slap their fresh, blistering sunburn on their shoulders. “But you didn’t tell me, Ash. I found out because I did some detective work. Besides, you should have known better than to bring him around publicly with the wounds so fresh...” She mutters under her breath. “His face was hanging on every bulletin board within a ten mile radius of this school for two weeks - of course people know his face.”

For some reason, this has never occurred to me... I guess I got too caught up in the concept of having someone so flashy and handsome to wave around as my own that I overlooked the safety hazards and inevitable, eventual backfiring.

“Anyways, I’m not mad.”

She sounds wounded, nonetheless.

“Just disappointed.”

There it is.

Coach Joan burst through the locker room door a moment later, looking more confused than when she left. She took one glance at me and took a double take. I held my hands up in defense before she could rapid-fire off any questions or concerns.

“Elizabeth reset my nose and checked it out for me. We used to wrestle a lot when we were kids, we’re both pretty educated on broken noses and fractured bones.” I laugh, and to my surprise, it doesn’t sound like I’m choking on my lies like I normally do.

Joan looks at Elizabeth proudly.

“Nicely done! Nonetheless, we’re still going to have the school medic take a look at it...”

“What about Reece?” Elizabeth stands up, stepping up to my side.

Her eyebrows raise like she has no clue what to respond with. “I’m not even sure, to be completely honest with you... He looks like someone took an aluminum bat to the back of his knees. He’s definitely going to be down for the rest of the semester as far as sports go.”

I can hear a distinct chorus of triumphant laughter coming from somewhere in the locker room, and it reminds me of the same way Reece had laughed earlier.

“He can’t play?!” Elizabeth’s voice raises a bit hysterically.

Coach Joan shakes her head, “Not unless he wants to risk further injury. From the looks of it, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he didn’t have fractures of some kind.”

“What happened to him?”

She shrugs, “I poked around, and asked the other kids if they’d seen anything - even the ones real close to him. They all said the same thing.”

“Which is?” Elizabeth prods, the worry in her voice very evident.

“No one touched him or was near him, and in under fifteen seconds following Ash’s injury, he’s on his ass, pardon my French, crying his eyes out, with a wound caused by excessive force brought on by a volley ball.”

“No one saw anything?” Elizabeth whispers incredulously.

“Nope... Some of them compared it to the activities of a ghost, but how realistic is that?” She laughs, “Anyways, I’ll go check to see if the medic is here yet.”

The door clatters shut behind her, leaving me and her in complete silence. I risk a glance in her direction, and I can see her jaw flexing as she struggles to maintain her composure.

“Well, Asheen,” She sings in a forced, high pitched voice, “I’ll bet your fucking friends didn’t have a damn thing to do with this, right?!”

I wince from the sharpness of her tone. Fuck. This is not going to be fun.

Notes

Ooh a lot happened in this chapter.