Ghosts {L.P.}

0:10

Another one of Lucy's oddities, she never touched Riya, her hand always hovered above her, never quite making contact. But Riya didn't ever press on, it could've been she just didn't like physical touch.

"No! It's not alright. It's rude and unfair that they keep ignoring you." Riya countered, doing her best to give the principal a glare without getting herself in too much trouble by both her father and the principal.

However, they didn't seem angry in the slightest, just exasperated.

The principal gave Riya's father an 'I told you so' look while her father sighed, slumping down on the cushioned chair.

Slowly the principal slid over a pamphlet, Riya's father snatching it so fast she couldn't even catch a glimpse of a word on it before he had stuffed it in the pocket of his jacket.

"You can call any of those numbers, they'll be glad to help both of you."

"Thank you. Riya, let's go." Her dad left little space to argue before he had grabbed her arm and steered her out of the room.

"Bye Lucy." Riya muttered under her breath, giving Lucy a last sad wave, which she responded to right before the door was shut behind her by the principal.

Except something unimaginable happened.

The principal walked straight through Lucy as if she wasn't even there, like she was just a cloud of mist standing in the middle of the room. And then she quite literally poofed out of thin air, disappearing just as the principal closed the door in Riya's face.

And Lucy never walked past her to leave.

♪ ✭ ♪ ✭ ♪ ✭ ♫ ♪ ✭ ♪ ✭ ♪ ✭

The drive back home was completely silent, salve for the honking of the cars around them and the slowly dying engine of their second-hand car.

Los Angeles wasn't the nicest city when it came to drivers—or people in general—but Riya would always love it because it was where her parents met.

An aspiring immigrant musician with the talent for bringing a smile on to anyone's face, and a man who had always dreamt about being a cop and nothing else.

Only one of the two had achieved their dreams.

"You know," Riya's father suddenly broke the silence as he eased the car to a stop right before a red light. "Your mother also had this... talent. To see people who others didn't see."

"Really?" Her dad hummed in agreement.

Riya's mother, Adhira, had tragically died in a car accident on her way back from an open mic night at a nearby café when Riya was six. A drunk driver who didn't know the difference between driving way over the speed limit on a sidewalk and on a street.

Riya didn't remember much about her mother, only bits and pieces, and her father didn't talk much about her either, but whenever he did, Riya clung on to his every word and treasured it close to her heart.

The light turned green, her father easing the car into a decent speed to roll down the traffic-filled streets. "They didn't really have conversations with her like you did with Lucy, but... every time we went out she always said she saw some ghost on the way."