Wingspan(Paranormal, Young Adult) MAJOR EDITING**

thirty one

Today, I was in low spirits again, except my loneliness was easier to withstand because thankfully I had the right kind of people keeping me afloat. I considered myself lucky and blessed to have such a great bunch of people in my life that treated me like I was one of them even though I was not deserving. I was a freak and there was no pretending like i wasn't.

So far this wintry weather was the only measurably acceptable phenomena that had left me feeling stationary and anchored. Of all the months, winter was the hardest and December seemed to stretch on.

Lost and on my own, silver clouds showered down my hope and peeled away my blinders.

Nobody could tell but I was falling fast to the ground and nothing was as clear as day. Now that I had people in my life I never imagined this was what I'd needed until I'd met them. Crazy as this was going to sound, I, Aislin the nobody, the freak, never wanted to let my friends go.

In spite of the fear that I was going to be abandoned, I still had class to take and I had Mya and Wesley and all the other people who I'd made friends with that were normal and didn't have a clue.

On the outside to the human disposition everything was normal, a typical day. I was doing everything that the good doctor asked of me. I was participating in class, writing in a journal, and following a schedule.

But to the naked eye, on a different plane of existence not too far away, ghosts were making their presence known and they were starting to take an interest in Chanel, my friend that just so happened to be a ghost.

Chanel insisted that the ghosts had every right to make amends with their shadows and bow to them until god had called them under.

I didn't agree with her. Trouble was, they were still here. Like aliens that didn't belong and were uninvited.

Back to my existing reality, the excited people around me very much infected my mood. I knew what all the sighing was about; they were audibly backward counting....

No matter the turmoil that infected my insides, the energy in the air was very much calm and steady. It was a week until we officially 'whooped it up' and made merry and all the students let off steam to meet with their parents at separately exclusive corners of the country for school holiday.

Even Mr. Honeycott was surprisingly cool about letting us off the hook.

I had thick skin and my pinkish and punctured crystalline fickle heart echoed in my ears when I breathed, leaving me an empty vessel with crooked teeth as I stood shaking like a leaf swirling through the winter wind. Would it always feel this way? For a split second Mason's loud voice drowned out my sorrows and made me forget.

"Watching this godamn thing makes me glad I'm alive and in this century. I don't know what I'd do without my boom box."

"Seriously, Mason? Way to go old school dude." Mr. Honeycott was lax, his orange and purple tipped dreads draped over his shoulder.

Mason rolled his eyes upwards and snorted, a dark glint in his green eyes. Uh-oh. It was the perfect sunset before a jolting day.

Mason was never satisfied unless we all got defensive and people were being outed for something they did years ago. It made for great joke telling Mason had said. I knew what that look in his eye meant. He was up to no good.

Masons cheek twitched, a broad ear to ear grin creeping its way up.

"Please. The younger generation has it all and its way better than what you got anytime. What are you running on anyway? A stereo 8 system? My brother showed it to me once, claimed that year it changed his life, but if you ask me what he needed was to get out more, see some ladies."

"Its fairly simple mechanically, but from what I could tell too many difficulties in various prime areas; capstan wear and buildup, head alignment. Need I go on? I myself dabble in double tracking. I have it in my room. You haven't seen my awesomeness." Masons light blue shirt fit him perfectly: I'm kind of a big dill.

Mr. Honeycott chuckled. He waved the clipboard with his hands, as if he were erasing the suggestion from the air.

"We get it. Most of you here are lucky and fortunate. Hows 'bout we get back on track to the main reason why I put this documentary on, shall we? Any other conclusions, better ones, about what you have learned about the variation among individual human beings from size and shape, to skin tone to eye color?"

We'd been watching a roots documentary film that extended back 200,000 years, to the emergence of the first modern humans in Africa and back more than 6 million years to the evolution of the earliest human species in Africa. It was an amazing story about adaption and survival composed in the language of our genes, in every cell of our bodies- as well as in the fossil and behavioral evidence.

"Plus, they don't got delicious hot pockets, composting hasn't been invented for another hundred and thousands of years, and nobody would get to see my creative skills." Josh had taken over the conversation where Mason had left it.

GEEZ. Super lame much. The testosterone in here was just gross.

"You're the shit man. Wiz Wes and myself can't knack it when you're in the building. Matter fact, Big Champ..." Mason crossed his arms over his chest and twisted his thin lips into an evil, sardonic smile.

For whatever reason those two could not stand the other, which was too bad because I thought both of them had a lot in common, even if they failed to realize it.

"Why don't you pack up and go back home and let the rest of us seniors get back to our happy lives when you weren't here spoiling it for the rest of us?"

Josh shrugged.

I put two and two together and internally mimicked what Josh's body language meant into something like: What can I say, I'm blessed. Don't you wish you were as good as me? In my head I made him stick his tongue out.

Back to reality, I caught Mason rolling his eyes.

"Genius is genius. I have natural talent." Josh shrugged and flicked his hand outward as if he were dismissing my friend some place else.

Fortunately, the ringing of the bell interrupted Mr. Honeycott from finishing his lecture. Thank. God.