Just As Invisible

PROLOGUE

I could tell her patience was slowly dwindling as she lingered behind my chatty friend Katie - her hands planted firmly on her hips and her foot tapping repeatedly on the ceramic tile of the high school hallway.

"...and then I-"

"Katie!" I interrupted, "um... sorry to cut you off and all, but I don't want to be late for class and I need to stop by the washroom first." I really hoped she wouldn't get upset with me for having disrupted her spiel on her past weekend's events. I again glanced over at the transparent girl behind her.

"No, no, no... It's alright Skylar," she replied, "I needed that. You know me, I tend to lose myself in conversation sometimes."

I gave a short laugh, "Right... Well then I guess I'll see you after school."

"Ok! See you Sky!" And just like that she pranced off down the hall. I noticed the ghostly girl staring at me, I turned my back on her and headed straight for the washrooms. I didn't have to check over my shoulder to see if she was following me, I was the only one who could talk to her, nonetheless see her, so I knew she would undoubtedly follow.

When I entered the washroom I checked the stalls to make sure nobody else was there, then turned and faced the girl.

With a sigh I said, "What do you want Eva?" I couldn't believe she had decided to show up at my school! Of all the places in the world, it had to be where there was a huge crowd of people that could find me "talking to the air." My whole life I've been trying extremely hard to not let anyone find out about my strange ability to communicate with spirits. It was hard enough trying to get noticed at school without seeming like a freak, I didn't need these unnatural occurrences to mess with that!

The girl snorted. "You know what I want! Why aren't you helping me?!" She shrieked and stamped her foot.

"Eva! I'm in school! There's nothing I can do right now!" She was causing my patience to run short. "I told you I would help you afterwards, but right at this moment I'm sort of busy!" I said exasperated, waving my arms around me to emphasize our whereabouts.

Her eyebrows knitted together in desperation and she held fast onto my arm. 

"Skylar, please, you're the only one who can help me! You don't know what it's like being ignored all the time because nobody can see you!"

"Oh really? And you think you know what it's like having dead people coming up to you all the time asking for your help? I never have any time to myself because I'm always putting you guys first!" We stood there for a while, staring at each other in silence.

I admit that I felt bad about not being able to help her when she wanted it most; my parents raised me to care about others and taught me to not be selfish and to try as much as possible to put others first. However, it was reasonable to deal with Eva's problems after I was out of school; I couldn't leave my classes every time they called. I didn't want to get kicked out of school!

In the end, the dejected expression on her face finally made me crumble. 

"Fine... I'll skip the rest of my classes and we'll head back to my place and sort this out." 

Her face lit up and she cheerfully skipped out of the washroom.

I let out an exasperated sigh and trailed after her. It's always been excruciatingly difficult to juggle these apparitions' troubles with my own. I have never confided with anyone about my 'gift,' because I knew it would bring up too many problems and I had enough to deal with already - not to mention people would think I'm crazy and ignore me. I didn't want to be left out of the crowd all because of some ghosts.

Not only would these ghosts be around 24/7, but they seemed to have the worst timing whenever they came to see me - like just five minutes ago when I was hanging with Katie, Eva decided it was time to confront me, therefore I had to ditch my friend in order to deal with the annoying girl. I know it is unethical of me to think of them negatively, it isn't right to judge people based on what you first see, but they made my life a big jumble of lies. These unnatural "beings" could not be seen by anyone else but me and trying to communicate my ghostly problems with someone would make me come off as a psycho that desperately needed help. Lots of it.

I had no idea how I would ever be able to get myself out of this situation. My whole life would have to revolve around ghosts and I would always have to stop everything I was doing just to attend to them. What a bother. My life as I knew it would always consist of having to reason with them.