Vision of Secrets

You might think that for a person
who has seen their own murder since they were six, the idea of
bearing your secrets to a stranger wouldn’t be so frightening.
Here’s the thing: you’d be wrong. I’m not the
lie-back-and-tell-me-about-your-life
kind of girl. But, as I faced Mary, one of my school’s most
respected counselors in years, I knew I was going to have to do a
little soul baring.

I sat down opposite her and tried to look
comfortable. I was terrified. Not by Mary herself. I was more
comfortable around someone like her than my own parents. It was the
fact that she was going to want to discuss things I don’t ever talk
about. She knew enough already. She would believe me. And I
believed without a doubt that nothing I said would ever be
repeated.

Mary was dressed in a pretty flower dress. Her
black hair reached the bottom tip of her shoulders. A friendly
smile graced her face. “It’s good to see you, Ms. Blackburn,” she
said.

“Bristol,” I said. “Please, call me
Bristol.”

“All right, Bristol. So nobody knows that
you’re here with me?” Mary asked.

“Nobody except Ricky,” I responded. “There are
no secrets between us.”

“Is Ricky your boyfriend?”

That earned a laugh from me. Mary raised an
eyebrow in response.

“Sorry,” I said. “Ricky is my hamster. And he’d
probably say he’s out of my league. Anyway, I don’t
date.”

“Ever?”

I shook my head.

“Why not?”

“I just… don’t,” I said. I had my reasons, but
I didn’t want to get into them. Thankfully, she let it drop,
although I could tell she was filing it away for later.

“Your parents won’t worry that you’re late
coming home from school?”

“Worry?” I asked. “No, they won’t worry. I’m
not sure they’ll even notice, but let’s not go there right
now.”

“All right,” Mary said. “Why don’t we talk
about you? How long have you been able to talk to
ghosts?”

I blinked in surprise. “Wow, right to it, huh?
No ‘tell me about your childhood?’”

Mary smiled warmly. “We can talk about your
childhood if you like, but that seems to put you off.”

It was true. I didn’t like to talk about my
family. I was just afraid we were going to have to before we were
done.

“So yeah,” I said. “I’ve been able to talk to
ghosts for as long as I can remember. Since I was
little.”

“I imagine that it must have been scary when
you were a child,” she said. “Seeing people like that.”

I thought back on it and shook my head. “Nope,
not really. I’ve never been afraid of ghosts. Never had a reason to
be. They’d show up, talk to me. I think, instinctively, I always
knew that they wouldn’t hurt me. Some of them were a lot of fun.
They could be very sweet. I’ve had a few that could annoy the crap
out of me, but never scare me.”

“Annoy you how?”

I thought for a moment. “Jerry.”

“Jerry?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “This was just last week, in
fact. If he weren’t already dead, I may have killed
him.”

Mary raised her eyebrows.

“I’m kidding,” I told her. “It was just a few
days ago. I was getting ready for school…

* * * *

It was the day before my seventeenth birthday.
Birthdays aren’t a big deal to me, but this one was important
somehow.

But I tried to put that out of my
mind for now. I took a look in the mirror to see if I looked all
right for school. I consider myself to be a rather ordinary girl,
at least as far as looks are concerned. I’m about five feet
six
inches tall. I’ve got
an average build. I was wearing jeans and a nice purple blouse. I
didn’t stand out, which is normally the way I like it.

“How do I look?” I asked Ricky. He squeaked his
approval before running into his soup can to nap for the
day.

I went to leave but stopped when I heard
singing. Really bad singing. Someone was mangling the melody and
the lyrics to some song.

I spun around and saw a man standing in the
corner of my room. He wore a grey suit that looked a little
disheveled. His glasses were askew and his dark curly hair was a
mess. He was covered in bruises and blood. My guess was that he had
just been hit by a car or something.

“I’m Bristol,” I said, introducing
myself.

“Hi,” he said. “Jerry. You won’t believe what
happened to me.”

“Hit by a car?”

“No,” Jerry said. “A truck. A big one too. It
just smashed into me and sent me flying. I must have sailed twelve
feet in the air before I crashed into the windshield of that VW
Bug.”

I winced at the mental image, not to mention
the irony. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Was it quick?”

Jerry thought for a moment before he nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “I barely felt a thing. I guess that’s
good.”

I agreed. “I hate to do this, but I’ve got to
go or I’ll be late. Maybe I’ll see you later?”

Jerry smiled as I left. I didn’t want to be
late for school. People noticed when you were late, and I don’t
like to be noticed.

I didn’t see my parents as I left, but that
wasn’t unusual. I barely saw them anymore. When we were together,
they didn’t have much to say to me anyway.

Wish I could say the same for the ghost who had
decided to follow me. Jerry spent a good amount of time yammering
on about the most mundane details of his life. How he never did get
his mother a birthday gift or about how someone at work would have
to take over the collection for the water club.

When he wasn’t talking, he was singing. The
same song, over and over again. And he never finished it. The
lyrics kept changing from one moment to the next.

“What
is
that song?” I asked when I was sure
nobody on the bus would overhear.

“Copacabana,” he said. “I woke up with this
song in my head, and I can’t get it out. Weird huh?”

Very
.

Jerry wasn’t the first ghost to latch onto me,
but he was definitely one of the most persistent. He kept singing
that damn song, off key, over and over again. And he just couldn’t
get it right.

“Her name was Lucy…” Jerry sang. “Or was it
Lilly? Damn it.”

He would disappear for a while, only to turn up
again. I saw him during math class while I was taking a test. I
could even hear him from outside the stall while I was in the
bathroom trying to pee.

“I’ve always loved this song,” he said as I
went to my locker.

“Uh huh,” I muttered under my
breath.

“I love all of Barry’s stuff,” Jerry continued
to say. “But this song was always my favorite. But I’ve been so
busy, I haven’t had time to listen to music for a while. I can’t
believe I forgot how it goes.”

I rolled my eyes, shut my locker, and turned on
my heel to head to lunch. I crashed into something that sent me
falling on my ass. I looked up and saw some guy with dark hair and
a hoodie looking down at me.

“You ok?” both Jerry and the guy I had slammed
into asked.

“Yeah,” I said to the live guy, not the dead
one. “My fault. Sorry.”

He held out his hand to help me up.

Grasping it, I felt him pull me to my feet, but
somewhere between the floor and the up position, I felt my world
shift.

The kid in the hoodie was standing
out in the rain, staring at a gravesite. Even through the rain, I
could see he was crying.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I wish you
could forgive me.”

There was a clap of thunder and I
was pulled back to the here and now.

Hoodie Boy was looking at me, waiting for me to
say something. I pretended to be lightheaded from the getting up so
quickly.

He nodded and quickly walked away.

“You sure you’re ok?” Jerry asked. “You look
like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

* * * *

“Wait,” Mary said. “What do you mean your world
shifted?”

“I don’t just see ghosts,” I explained. “I also
get these visions. I can see things. They often happen when I’m
asleep. I’ve had a few doozies, let me tell you. I’ll wake up in
the middle of the night and still feel his hands…”

I stopped talking, realizing I was about to go
into something I really didn’t want to. I lowered my hands from my
neck and folded them in my lap.

“If I touch someone,” I said, hoping she
wouldn’t call me on my change of subject, “that can trigger a
flash.”

“I see,” Mary said. “Bristol, you do know you
can trust me. You can tell me anything.”

I nodded. I knew I could, but that didn’t make
it easier.

She sighed, realizing I wasn’t there
yet.

“So I realized Hoodie Boy was in my history
class. Usually sits in the back, very quiet. So I decided I’d look
for him later that day.”

* * * *

Jerry was pacing right through the wall of my
history class, back and forth as he tried to remember the lyrics to
that song. I took a seat in the back next to Hoodie Boy.

“We were never formally introduced,” I said.
“My name is Bristol.”

“Brady,” he said. His eyes barely looked
up.

“You and I have been in the same class and
we’ve never really talked,” I said.

Brady just shrugged.

“Is everything ok?” I asked. “You seem
upset.”

He shrugged.

“If you want to talk,” I said, “I’m a good
listener.”

Brady finally made eye contact. I felt a wave
of sadness roll off of him. He gave me a quick grin and then looked
down at his notebook.

Mr. Blasdell, our history teacher who looked
old enough that the stuff we were now talking about was probably
current events when he was in school, cleared his throat to signal
for everyone to shut up. He then started to lecture us on the Civil
War.

When class was over, I turned to talk to Brady
again, but he was already packed up and headed for the door. I
could have chased after him, but felt that would come off as
creepy.

I got up and headed for the door, Jerry
following me as he sang.

“With yellow feathers in her hair, and an
orange orangutan.”

Orangutan?

* * * *

“
I’m starting to get an idea as to
why you found Jerry so annoying,” Mary said. “Did you see Brady
again?

“
Not that day,” I said. “I asked
around a little, but nobody seemed to know who he was. I don’t
think anyone really noticed him.”

“
So what did you do?”

“
I left,” I said. “What else was I
supposed to do? I figured I’d try again the next day. So I walked
home.”

“
You didn’t take the
bus?”

“
No,” I said. “I like to walk. I
prefer walking by the park. It helps settle my mind for some
reason, but I took a detour and did some shopping.”

“
Shopping can be fun,” Mary said.
“Did you go on your own or with some friends?”

“
Alone,” I said. “Don’t get me
wrong, I’m not as bad as Hoodie Boy. People know who I am, but I
don’t really have any close friends.”

“
Why not?”

“
I’m me,” I said, as if that
explained everything.

“
What does that mean?”

I sighed. Was it so hard to figure
out?

“
Look,” I said. “It’s hard to have
a lot of friends when you kind of have this psychic-freak thing
going on. I never know what kind of ghost or spirit might pop in.
Or in what condition they’ll be in. Jerry was just a little messed
up, but imagine trying to grab a pizza with your buddies only to
have someone stroll in who got mauled by a bear, or maybe they’ve
got a big chest wound from being shot. I once had this guy who
disarmed bombs for a living. Talk about a bad day at work—half his
head was gone and he was holding his left arm in his right
hand.”