I get drawn to them, these broken kids. Like a moth to a flame. I can't help it, even though every time they forget me I feel like I lose a part of myself with them. Most of them don't need me for much. The last girl wanted me to buy cigarettes for her because I can make myself look at any age, from sixteen to sixty (which is how old I'd be now if I was still alive). She offered me one, but I was already gone.
The one before her needed me to babysit her brother while she went out to work. I remember when she got home, I was picking up the kid's dropped dummy, blinked, opened my eyes and I was back at the school I died in. I always know what they want and I've learned not to let myself find out any more. I do the thing they need, get thanked, then fade back into nothing.
Find a problem kid. Help them. Solve the problem. Get forgotten. Get over it. Rinse and repeat.
The greatest threat I've ever had to help a kid from this school through was a pedophile teacher, the man who taught French at the time. I turned into a man in his mid-twenties with arms like tree trunks and used my new-found strength to beat the teacher's face in. The boy he wouldn't leave alone helped me drag his unconscious body to the police station. When he was behind bars for good, the boy hugged me and cried into my too-tight school uniform and I was gone from his memory before I even had the chance to return the embrace
I still think about that boy when I walk the corridors at night, the moonlight not touching me and the floor only just bothering to stop me sinking. I wonder over and over again if he was okay after what he went through, if he's okay now and what he's doing, knowing that I'll never find out.
After him, I decided not to get attached.
YOU ARE READING
Goodbye, Evan
Mystery / Thriller*ongoing* In the school's ancient halls, Evan remains a ghost, stuck in limbo since his untimely death fifty years ago. He's used to helping troubled souls, only to be forgotten afterward. Theodore appears to be another lost cause, until Evan feels...
