Slow Motion

Slow Motion 04

My first two classes passed by easily. I spent so much time looking around and observing people that the time went by rather quickly. I was happy to note that there were in fact students with natural hair colors and far fewer accessories - just none that looked like they wanted to talk to me.

Julia and I turned out to have completely matched schedules so at least I had a friendly face everywhere I went. She pulled me along through the halls pointing out students and quickly giving me their rap sheets. She seemed to know something about everyone. I could tell she was going to be the type who would ask all about me and I would have to decide what exactly I was going to tell her when the time came.

We walked into Algebra deep into a discussion about what to avoid in the cafeteria since lunch was coming up soon. I was able to take a desk near Julia's after the obligatory new student introduction. 

A somewhat lanky boy with dark tussled hair and black rimmed glasses came in and sunk down into a seat nearby us with an exasperated sigh.

"If this high school is so alternative why do we still have to attend gym class, can someone answer me that?" He did look like the sort to be way more into Algebra than dodge ball.

"Vivian, Luke. Luke, Vivian. Vivian is new so try not to bore her to death with the details of your failed sporting attempts and she might just be our friend," Julia flashed a smile and threw in a toss of the purple mane in the boys direction.

"She can decide if she wants to be friends after you force her to pose for one of your ridiculous art pieces. Hi, I'm Luke. Welcome to Reject High."

There was no more time left to talk as the teacher quickly got down to business reviewing the previous week's homework. I was relieved to find out they were behind where I was in my last school. I could use a little coasting. I settled back into my seat and lost focus as my head filled with the possibilities that this new school could bring. Maybe I could hide my utter strangeness here better than I had hoped. Or maybe I didn't have to. Maybe these new friends would accept who I was and believe what I was going through and put up with my moody sarcasm because, after all, look what I had put up with.

Suddenly I realized that the room had grown cold and that all I could hear was the sound of wind and rustling papers. The teacher was still talking up at the front of the room and Julia looked over at me and whispered something with a wicked grin but I couldn't hear anything they were saying. Suddenly feeling very isolated, I pulled my arms tightly across my chest and forced myself to look around the room.

Standing near the door, looking pale and worn, was Molly. She was swaying back and forth ever so slightly like the breeze in the room was enough to unsteady her. Her eyes looked sad and tired. She lifted them slightly towards me but couldn't quite meet my own. Her right hand kept touching her chest just between her collar bones, as if there was something missing there.

My thoughts went back to the first day I saw her since she died. I had been walking past the empty guest bedroom that was full of unpacked boxes when I caught sight of her, rummaging through the boxes. I shouldn't have been expecting her. Lost souls seemed to wander around the vast nothingness lost and alone until they randomly stumbled upon someone like me who could see them. Then they seemed to get stuck in place, unable to move on once they finally found a connection with another person again. Vast nothingness was, well, vast. There was no reason to believe that you would randomly run into someone that you knew who had both died and not moved on properly to the afterlife or whatever the hell was out there. But Molly was different. She wasn't just someone I knew. She was my sister and my twin sister at that. I just had a feeling that she would find me.

When we were little we had no idea that the ghosts weren't regular breathing living people. What we did know was that they were terrifying. For a long time after they first started showing up we stopped talking, at all, to anyone but each other. A ghost would walk through the living room and I would start to shake. My mother would beg me to tell her what was wrong but instead I would share my fears only with Molly using our special twin speak language that we had made up so that the "strangers" would not be able to understand us.

I hated seeing her like this, just a haunting of her former self. I was no longer mad at her for leaving me the way she did. She had spent the last several years being the strong one. I could always rely on her to be brave, assertive and calm. She could make me laugh even when everything about our life just got too depressing or scary for words. Obviously, it was harder on her than she had let on.

Tears were streaming down my face. I tried to wipe them away but they just kept flowing. Molly wasn't just swaying anymore she was rocking back and forth, her face twisted in either anger or pain I couldn't tell which. She opened her mouth and let out a soundless scream which I could hear clearly in my head but knew no one else could pick up on. She was gone just as quickly as she had appeared. The cold haze surrounding me started to fade.

That's when I realized that everyone was staring at me.

I wasn't just crying dainty little girly tears. I was sobbing - loudly. The bell rang and students reluctantly got up from their seats as the teacher ushered them out the door. Julia didn't move. She took my hand and looked at me, concerned. We sat there until the pudgy red faced guidance counselor from that morning appeared at the door. At first I didn't move but it was clear that he wasn't going anywhere without me so I started to pick up my things. I saw that something was scrawled on my notebook in big angry letters, a page which had been blank before. I looked at it in silent shock and quickly covered it with my text book so no one else would see.

"LIARS!!" in bold capital letters, underlined three times.

I had no memory of writing that.