Taking Risks

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“Shit.”
Miss gorgeous cheerleader just caught me talking to myself again. That should really help my reputation as a freak.
Luckily, I was a senior and after the school year was over I was going to be free of all these people and their label they had already stamped on me. See, I wasn’t exactly talking to myself. I was talking to Gray, my…err…ghost friend.

             
I glared daggers at Gray while I ran to my red 1958 Chevy Delray that my dad and I had restored in an attempt to bond. Having a classic car in the movies always makes the character mysterious and cool. In my case it just added to the weirdness. When I jumped into the car, Gray was already in the passenger seat waiting with that sly half smile that he always seemed to wear. “I have to be at work in an hour and I still have to wash off this milk that Jon Gillman threw on me. It’s really starting to stink.” Gray wrinkled his nose and nodded and we booked it out of the parking lot.

             
When I got home I dashed inside to clean the stink off of myself and Gray had already “ghost appeared” in my bedroom. He knew no boundaries. “Get out of here, I’m seriously in a hurry!” He just flashed a cocky grin and then vanished.
Show off.
I had just enough time to jump into the shower and rinse off before throwing my work uniform on and running back out of the front door to my car.

             
I’ve worked as a waitress, for the last two years, at a sports bar named Rocktop Bar and Grill. The tips are good and the customers are usually pleasant, however, I could do without the uniform. All of the girls wore a different sports team’s jersey, except for ours were
much
smaller than a regular jersey. Mine was a purple jersey with the Ravens logo bird on the front and the number 33 on the back for Christian Thompson. I also wore bright yellow shorts that, no matter how often I pulled them down, seemed to make their way back up to expose way too much of my rear end flesh, but what I hated most of all were the tights. They were supposed to hide cellulite and make your legs appear tightened and toned, but really they were just thick and ungodly tight and when the night got busy they were like wearing a heat blanket on your legs.

             
When I finally pulled into the parking lot I was already two minutes late. After getting inside and punching my time card, I grabbed my waitress apron and made my way to the the floor. When I spotted Gray he was sitting at a high-top table next to a pretty red head. It always made me smile to see Gray next to his choice woman of the night. If these women could actually see Gray than they would be drooling all over themselves and fighting for his attention.

             
Gray was tall, a little over six foot, with honey brown hair that was cut close to the scalp on the sides and left longer on the top so that it was chunky and stood up in every direction. He had an athletic build and always kept up with the latest fashions. Don’t ask me how a ghost can change clothes, but he does…frequently. Gray’s most dominate feature wasn’t the perfect hair or clothes though, it was his eyes. They’re an emerald green that are so bright and fierce that they seem to glow, and when the light hits them just right, and Gray is in the right mood, they sparkle.

             
Gray didn’t always appear to me as a god-like ghost. When I was little I didn’t see ghosts like I see them now. I could describe what I saw as blobs of colored air. Blobs of color that followed me around and talked, and when I would respond to them it would freak everyone around me out. When Gray first spoke to me he explained that he didn’t know what his name was, or what had happened to him. He knew nothing of himself from his life. I had been just barely able to talk. Gray was with me constantly for days after he introduced himself, but he never told me his name. I needed something to call him so I named him the color that he appeared to me, Gray.

             
It was a relatively slow night, being a Tuesday, so I left work an hour early. After taking a thorough shower to get the remaining sour milk off of me and brushing my teeth, I climbed into bed.

             
“Did you have a good night with your redhead?” I asked Gray as I bat my eyelashes. Gray just smirked at me and said, “Why is it that you’re the only one in the world that can provide me with some honest to goodness, interesting conversation?” Rolling my eyes I replied, “Probably because I’m the only one who can see and hear you.”

             
“I’m probably just your brains way of telling you that you’re nuts.” Gray joked.

             
“I’ve wondered that exact thing.”

             
Gray was still chuckling to himself as I drifted to sleep. The next day I went to my first period English class and over heard someone talking about a new student. What they were saying reminded me a lot of what I was so used to hearing about myself, and it made me curious to see who could have caught their interests the same way that I had. I leaned in to hear their conversation as far as I could without being obvious.

              Mean Skank: “Did you
hear
him going on and on about how he just moved here from some back woods town in the middle of nowhere, and that
great
mechanics job that he just landed? He must be making
almost
minimum wage!”

              Cheer Whore: “O.M.G! Did you see how sweaty he got when we all started laughing? He’s got to be some kind of reject! He
is
kind of delicious looking though…”

              Mean Skank: “
What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

              When I realized that the last question had been aimed at me I jumped and somehow landed on my ass on the floor with my books and papers scattered out around me. When I found enough courage, I looked up to find the Mean Girls standing over me. I blushed furiously, but it wasn’t the girls that got under my skin, it was that I had just shown the whole class how clumsy I was which gave them just another reason to hate me. I thought that, at least, I might have taken some of the heat off of the new kid.

             
Just as the mean girls were walking out of the door, someone stooped beside me to help me collect my things. I didn’t look at them because I was just too embarrassed. I could only mutter a “thank you” and got the hell out of there as fast as I could. Not until later did it occur to me that I didn’t even know who
would
help me out at that school. I was pretty sure that the majority of the senior classman were afraid of me, or the rumors of me, and I couldn’t see any of them sparing five seconds to save me any embarrassment.

             
When I finally made it home from school I found Gray was there waiting for me. He had decided to stay at the house since Mom was home between business meetings. Gray loved it when my mom was home because he said that she “comforted his spirit.” I walked into the door and lit up when I saw the peaceful look on Grays face. “Hey slacker!” I said, then my mom came up from behind me. “Who are you talking to?” She asked in a skeptical tone. I cringed as I realized she had caught me “talking to myself” again.

             
“No one Mom. Just rehearsing for a school thing.” Her face paled and then she looked away. She knew that I never got involved with anything to do with school, and she also knew how completely friendless I was when it came to the land of the living. I tried explaining to her exactly what it is that I can do, but she would have no part in it. She said that she would never hear it out of my mouth again or she would lock me in an institution herself. I know my mom and I knew that she didn’t mean it. I just freaked her out and it was something that was out of her control, which also caused her anxiety.

             
“I think you’ve had a long day at school. You need to go take a little nap before dinner tonight.” I had no doubt that that was a command and not a suggestion.

             
“Okay Mom, see you in a bit.” I kissed her cheek and darted up the stairs.

             
Gray met me in my room wearing a red pullover sweater and light wash jeans that had small holes throughout them. He looked sad when he turned to face me.

             
“What’s wrong?” I asked with a puzzled look. “You were just starry eyed and content downstairs.”

             
Gray huffed and said, “I hate the way that you’re treated because I chose to follow you around your whole life.”

             
“Hey, really it’s no big deal. If it wasn’t you following me around than it could be some super freaky psycho ghost instead. Plus you’ve been around so long that people would start to think that something were wrong with me if I
didn’t
talk to myself.”

             
Gray chuckled. “I suppose you’re right. I just wish that I could do something creepy to protect you from the people who try and torture you.”

             
“Well you should’ve come with me to school today. I think they’ve found someone else to punk on, finally.” Gray laughed like he didn’t believe me.

             
“Oh yeah? Guess I’ll be coming with you tomorrow then. I
have
to see who could be more repulsive than
you!”
He scrunched his face up in mock disgust and then pretended to punch me in the arm. I laughed hysterically when his hand vanished as it made contact with my flesh.

             
Gray was more like a big brother to me than a best friend. I was an only child and I think that’s because I scared my parents out of having anymore. I’ve been talking to shadows since I could say my first words, and most people looked at that as strange behavior.

             
I had only been in my room for about ten minutes before my door swung open and Mom said, “What the hell are you laughing at Marlee?”
Oh shit.
“Who could you
possibly
be talking to?”

             
I stumbled around with some words so that I had some time to come up with an answer that she would accept, but I’m sure I looked like a deer in headlights. “Mom…Just don’t…worry about it. I’m…fine…I’m fine.” I tried to sound as sure of myself as I hoped she would be, but it didn’t work that time.

             
“I’m tired of coming home to this, Marlee. I’m tired of worrying about you all the time. Please stop doing this to me. Please be normal and have friends, go get drunk, smoke cigarettes!
Please
be a normal teenager with normal teenaged problems!” Her eyes started to well with tears.

             
“I’m sorry Mom. I can’t make them go away. They need me, they need my help. I
want
to help them.” Mom looked extremely surprised with my honesty, then her surprise turned in to anger.

             
“Listen to me young lady. There are no
THEM
for you to help, and if you keep insisting that there are than I’m going to have no other option than to put you somewhere where they can give you the help that you need, and I
know
you don’t want to go there.”

             
“Mom, I’m eighteen now. You can’t send me there, I’ll refuse treatment. We’ve been through this. You know I don’t understand it either, but I accept it, and that’s all I’m asking you to do. Remember when I told you how I helped Dad?” That was apparently a bad thing to bring up because I was expecting, maybe, a flow of tears and a big bear hug, but instead I got a sudden slap to the face. Before I even opened my eyes she stormed out of my room and slammed my door shut behind her. “Maybe you should be disappointed that I haven’t gotten knocked up yet.” I spat out as I made a completely unladylike gesture at the closed door.

             
Gray didn’t look surprised. He was used to the arguments between my mother and me whenever she came home. It had gotten so much worse since my dad died. I didn’t know that he had become a Lost One until Gray showed me. He didn’t want to show me, he didn’t want me to try and help him, but he knew that I would never forgive him, or myself, if I found his soul wandering around town one day and I could’ve done something about it. What kind of person wouldn’t want to help their father? Especially if they believed that they were the only person on earth that could, and Gray and I didn’t know of anyone else who could see souls like I could. When I explained to my mom why dads soul was still here she cried for so long that I thought she might cry herself into dehydration, and when she calmed down, Dad left our world for good. I think Mom has been freaked out by me ever since.

             
Knowing that I needed some ghost therapy, Gray urged me to sneak away from the house. Every time I was upset or anxious about something, Gray would take me to go help the Lost Ones, which was his more respectful way of saying “ghost.” I never called them ghosts to their faces either, I was always afraid that I would offend them. It seemed to me that if you experienced dying than you probably deserved a respectful name. Almost like being a veteran of life.