When Love Hurts and Ghosts Linger

Robyn’s Story

Copyright 2015 R.J. Adams -
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When I was a little girl, from as far back as I could remember; I always imagined that when you grew up you would fall in love with your prince charming, get married, have babies and live happily ever after and that life was lovely and simple. 

This is what we read about after-all or what we see in movies, look at Cinderella for example, she had a crappy life and then in the end all worked out perfectly, nice and simple, no hurt, no pain like blissful lovely fairy tale. As a kid, well, in my case anyway, I would play with my Barbie and Ken dolls and they would be happy in their make believe world.

I thought love was simple too, I thought once you gave your heart away then that man, whoever he was, would always be there to protect you or the heart that you gave to him, after looking at my parents who were together from a young age and still in love as I grew it seemed so easy, but I guess as you grow older you realise love isn’t a fairy tale, love isn’t some dream, love actually hurts and whether it was my family or some bloke I came to realise that my heart was never ever protected unless I chose to protect it myself. 

Especially when I was, well you could say I was a little different and it was never going to be a fairy tale for me, well, not that I could see anyway, for me love was never going to be simple; I had a ‘gift’ you see and it made falling in love difficult because I was always the one keeping this huge secret, never to hurt anyone, I didn't want to tell them in-case I sounded insane, never did I think that they would hide something from me, something that would hurt me.

It all started when I was really little from as far back as I could remember, give or take eight years old was my earliest memory and I had my first boyfriend, he was a sweet kid I guess, you know when your that little you think it will last forever, aww, how kids can be dull!

But it wasn’t all that simple, you see, I could and can now see ghosts and finding friends or boyfriends was a little bit hard at times, if I did meet someone then I had this huge secret looming over my head that drove me crazy, even at that age I knew I couldn’t tell no-one, I would think telling someone that would make you sound like a right weirdo. 

I was always told that sometimes I would be sat in class at nursery playing with the toys and I would randomly start chatting to myself, or what appeared to be to myself, I don’t really remember that far back though. When I was younger, my parents and my doctors put it down to having an imaginary friend but then as I got older it seemed to get a bit weird for them to keep suggesting that this is still what it was, I mean what eight year old still has an imaginary friend? I even asked myself the same thing. 

I began to think I was a bit of a freak and believe me; it’s not nice for a child to feel that way so when I had a boyfriend at eight, if you could call them that at, at that age then I was relieved to have someone, a friend I guess. My boyfriend when I was eight was the sweet, caring and romantic type, I guess you can say he was a gentleman already, that came from being brought up well by his mother and father who, when you looked at them, were clearly in love and lovely people themselves.

He would write me little cards and leave them on my chair to find and would draw little hearts for me on a piece of paper that he would then pass over the table, wasn’t that just cute? 

But even then as he was doing that, some stupid bloody ghost person would pop up next to me, either for a chat or just to sit there and freak me out, always caught me by surprise, god knows what they wanted to chat about but hey, I’m not dead, I can only guess right. I would always know it was a ghost, the room would go cold and when I saw them they had a grey/blue appearance, sort of see through.

It came to the point my parents were so worried they sent me to see a specialist, because apparently I needed help with my delusions, even at eight I began to think there was something wrong with me, I mean, seriously, I was the only one who could see and speak to these people so of course I would think that.

I remember the doctor’s office, plain walls in a cream colour with minimal décor a big huge desk and a chair for patients to lie on. Sat in the room with the doctor they tried to determine if I indeed did have a mental issue, I was fucking eight, how the fuck would I know? All I knew was that I could see people that clearly other people couldn’t. I was poked a prodded having tests done to determine if my mind was abnormal and showed any signs of mental issues.

Countless stupid therapy sessions determined I was not insane nor did I have a mental problem, they concluded that because of my loneliness at home I had simply invented friends to make myself feel better. Don’t get me wrong, I did have some friends and of course the sweet little boyfriend but at home I was an only child and as much as I longed for a sibling, my parents refused to have another, at eight I never understood why but this would become clear as I grew older when I was told they were not able to have any more children, kind of really sad I guess.

They believed I would grow out of this ‘situation’ they called it as I grew up, little did they know, it’s not so easy to tell ghosts to go away or to get rid of the ability that I had. They'd hang around like a bad bloody smell, like dog poo that lingers on the bottom of your shoe, really annoying and even if you did manage to get rid of the buggers there was always another one just waiting to pop up in-front of you. 

The room always tended to go slightly cold whenever one would appear, but it was only I who could feel this. Sometimes I would go to my room and stay in there for ages not wanting to come out, although most of them spoke and seemed very friendly, there were some that, well, what can I say, felt mean and dark, like they wanted to hurt me and at eight years old this would definitely make you shit the bed at night but I don’t remember them ever hurting me.

They never seemed to want anything from me, well not that I could tell anyway, I’m not psychic and when they spoke they spoke like they were alive most of the time, I could have a normal conversation with them, except for the upset ones, they seemed to dwell on what happened to them, so I could only assume that they were lonely in death, I gathered after dying they went to a sad place and they just didn’t want to be there, what did I know? I was eight! This was all assumptions I had made in my head.

However, one day I was at my boyfriend’s house and we were watching a film, as families did back then, the whole family were gathered in the living room, nice family time together with the exception of me. I loved their house, it was a small bungalow located down some private lanes so it was always nice and quiet, their garden was covered in wild flowers and trimmed shrub trees and the house always smelled of some type of incense, like berries or winter, you always felt at home there.

Watching the movie and snuggled on the sofa something caught the corner of my eye, it walked passed the living room door. The living room door was made of that type of frosty glass so you couldn’t see the hallway clearly but you could see things in a distorted way. I looked around the living room and could see we were all sat there so who could that have been out in the hallway? 

I excused myself stating I needed the loo and as I walked out into the hallway I saw a woman walk into his parent’s bedroom, well I wasn’t going to go in there was I, my parents had always taught me that it was rude and you should never enter someone’s room without their permission.

So I went into the bathroom and closed the door; I felt the room go cold, like an ice-cold snowy winter where you could see your own breath leave your mouth. I knew this woman or this ghost was close, I closed my eyes  to see if it would go away but then I could feel as if something or someone was there in-front of me.

When I opened my eyes there she was! She was a grey/blue colour and see through. She was wearing a wedding dress and you could see the tears falling from her eyes.

“Why did he do this to me” her rattled voice echoed.

I looked at her; I didn’t know who 
‘he’
 was and what was I supposed to say to her? I was eight years old for Christ’s sake, I mean, what I supposed to do? Again, I closed my eyes so tight I could feel my top eye-lid squish down on my lower lid. 

This woman scared me, although she seemed more sad than angry and I didn’t feel like she wanted to hurt me, I could definitely feel her pain and was worried about what she would say or do next. I suddenly heard a loud knock on the door and as I opened my eyes she had gone. I opened the door and there was my boyfriend’s mum, I remember the look on her face, she seemed scared and concerned but I didn’t understand why, I was only in the bloody bathroom!

“My dear are you alright?” I could hear the worry in her tone.

“Yes thank you, I’m ok” I was confused as to what the fuss was about.

Now I have grown up, when I look back I remember that day well because I will always remember the first time I saw that woman and it definitely wouldn’t be the last time I would see her and as time came she would need my help, my boyfriend’s mum stated I had been in there for a long, long time and she was worried because she couldn’t open the door.

To be honest I didn’t hear her calling me or the knocking, I only remember hearing it the one time when she practically banged on the door to the point you heard the hinges rattle. Why I didn’t hear her I didn’t know, maybe it was the ghost blocking things out? Maybe it was me in some sort of scary trance as I focused on the situation, no idea, but that happened frequently if they scared me as I grew older.

I returned to the living room and we all continued to watch the film together. I kept looking out into the hallway but the woman wasn’t there and I didn’t see her again for the rest of that day.

How they found me was always a mystery to me, maybe there was a secret ghost code that told all the other ghosts that I could see them and then they would just seek me out and come after me. Seriously though, couldn’t they have waited until I was older, I mean, this, seeing ghosts as a kid is enough to make you think your loopy let alone anyone else and it’s certainly not a nice experience.

I still don’t know why I followed that ghostly woman into the bathroom but since that day, they came to me more than before and the more I saw them, the more withdrawn and weird I became, so as I grew older, when it would come to falling in love and relationships, it sometimes never proved easy on dates when ghosts lingered.

As I reached the age of eleven, I had seen so many ghosts in my life time that I swear if I had one pound for every single one I saw, I would be a millionaire today.

I remember at this point I fancied a young lad in my street, he was the bad boy type, my mum and dad hated him and his family, they were known as the ‘trouble’ family that people tried to stay away from. But I didn’t care, at a young age bad boys were my thing, it made me feel a bit accepted because they were outcasts from other families or school because of their reputation so I seemed to fit in with them. 

I don’t know if you could actually have a type at the age of eleven but I found this boy to be much better than the boyfriend I was still with. Yes, that’s right, I still had the same boyfriend I had at eight years old, three years for a kid, that’s pretty good I think, some marriages don’t even last that long!