Whispers of the Dead

III

Amethyst left Hope standing in the classroom, her dark eyes shimmering with rage. Had she really gone crazy? Posting about possible abuse on her stupid blog? As if that would solve the problem. Amethyst's hands started to tremble, the old panic surfacing. They couldn't do this. It was too much. How in fuck's sake could she solve every problem in the world?

You could at least try, she said to herself while she walked through the hallway to the cafeteria. Don't be like her.

She would eat first. Talking with Katie right now would be suspicious. And she suspected that the girl wouldn't be happy if someone expected something. She wanted to keep it a secret, otherwise she would have contacted someone, and then Mr. Johnson wouldn't be at this school anymore. She pushed against the doors of the room where everyone was now eating, got her food, and dropped it on the table where her friends sat. She sat down herself and sighed.

"What's wrong? That's the second time she wanted to speak with you," Elizabeth asked her. Her tone was disapproving, and the whole table turned in their direction, each and every face curious.

"I think she just wants to be irritating," Amethyst replied, shooting a glare in the direction of the closed cafeteria doors. It wasn't fair, she knew that – without Hope she wouldn't even know of the situation – but she couldn't expose Hope's secret, and with that her own.

"You should ask to switch rooms," Charity commented, while taking a bite off her apple. She looked at Amethyst from behind the fruit, eyebrows raised. It was the bazillionth time on of the six other people in her group of friends said it, and if Amethyst was honest, she, too, had thought about it a lot. Hope wasn't nice at all, and she kept going with that stupid game of hers. Amethyst sometimes got sick off her pessimism, and her lack of sense of privacy, but Hope also was the only one on campus who knew about Amethyst's "gift". She was the only one who knew about the graveyard, and Samuel. She would never go with her, but Amy didn't want to.

What's up with the ghosts, by the way? Hope had asked the first time they met. She had lain on the sofa in their shared rooms, legs dangling from the armrest. Amethyst had blinked at her, dumbstruck. She almost had run out of there.

"Your friendship is so weird," Elizabeth said, and Charity nodded.

"We're not exactly friends," Amethyst said patiently. "It's more like a... ceasefire?"

"You were never in war. Uhm, what the fuck?" Hannah glared up at a girl who almost dumped a glass of soda over her head. The girl walked off without even looking at her. Amethyst looked around, searching for Katie. Could she get away with just asking her to talk with her after school? She might say no, and then she was fucked. But if she didn't, Katie could just escape without talking to her and then she would be fucked, too, because that would mean a night without sleep.

She was trembling again, without even knowing it, and she felt how someone took her hand.

"Are you really okay?" Hayden asked her. They were looking at her with big, concerned eyes. Amethyst sighed. "Yes. No. I don't know. Everything just feels..."

"Weird. Yeah, I know what you mean," Hayden said. Amethyst smiled at them, and they smiled back. Her friends couldn't possibly feel what she felt, but she also didn't think any of the other people in this cafeteria felt something.

"I know what you mean," Austin commented, tossing his apple between his hands, confirming Amethyst thought. She was often wondering why she felt so attached to these people. They often joked they were brought together because almost none of them were really straight, but Amy sometimes thought she, especially, came to them because of the things they felt. The things that were almost like hers.

She had never dared to ask further, though. It was not as if she thought they would reject her if they knew she could talk to ghosts – the majority of them would think it was pretty cool – but she just... I don't know, she thought. It doesn't feel right.

"You know that girl, Katie?" she asked no one in peculiar. Immediately, she wanted to take back her words, but almost the whole table was nodding, except for Charity and Payton, who were both juniors.

"Not very well, though," Elizabeth finished her apple and dropped it on her empty plate. Amethyst found she herself hadn't eaten a thing, which was probably the reason Hayden had payed attention at her well-being in the first place. Amy loved food. She tried picking up a carrot, lifted it to her mouth, and then lowered her fork without taking a bite. "I have English with her. Do you know who Hope was texting, by the way? She got her phone taken away."

"She was texting me," Amy sighed. "No more questions."

"Why did you ask about that Katie, anyway?" Payton asked her.

"That's a question."

"It's not a question about Hope."

Sometimes Amethyst wished her friends wouldn't be so observant.

"I don't know. She was particularly quiet today during Math." That was the truth, but Amethyst hadn't minded it. It was Monday morning, after all, and she also couldn't very well remember if Katie had been friends with Lauri. "Do you think something's wrong with her?"

Hayden looked thoughtful.

"I don't know. I didn't have any classes with her today. But she got almost called out last Friday. I remember thinking that was pretty weird for her," they said.

"Huh," Amy said, and dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand. "I'm probably just overreacting. You know me. And the situation with Lauri made everything worse."

Austin reached over the table to take her hand.

"Oh, honey. Is that what is bothering you? Were you guys friends?"

"Not really." Amy didn't have to say she would even react like this if she had hated the girl. And if she hadn't talked with her after her death.

She rubbed her forehead, ruffling her bangs, and was thankful Elizabeth caught it as the cry for another subject it was. She looked over at Payton.

"Aaron is looking particularly hot today, isn't he?" Eliza said with her typical naughty grin.

Payton blushed, with hiding behind her fair hair and everything that came with blushing like a highschooler in love.

"Yeah," she muttered, and Amethyst looked over at the table where Aaron sat. And where Hope had just arrived. She caught Amy's eye, and nodded at another table. Amethyst saw Katie sitting there, and returned Hope's nod, almost unnoticeable. She would intercept her after school. She didn't want to make her feel cornered right now, because if she did, she would be tempted to say no. She could talk with her best when she wasn't expecting it, when she didn't have the time to think about it. Maybe she would tell her more if she wasn't surrounded by friends.

Her stomach felt like it was all tangled up. Something was off. It was only know she dared to really think it. And she didn't just mean Katie, or Lauri, but the fact that it all happened together. And then there was the weird feeling Hayden and Austin had mentioned, one she felt all the same.