If it weren’t for Olivia, I would have most likely never have found happiness in social situations, or accepted my abilities at all. After that encounter, I said goodbye and walked home. The first thing I did was introduce myself to the elderly woman by my window. Her name was Chastity and she liked to crochet. She was also quite determined to make a young gentleman out of me, and constantly hounded me on my behavior and how I dressed myself. After I started talking to her, all I ever heard was “comb your hair,” “Tuck in those pants,” and “you look like a half drowned orphan child, you know!” If she hadn’t been old and dead, I could swear she was a drill sergeant. However, I did start taking her advice.

As I finished up my years as a high school student, Chastity had taught me the “proper” manners of a gentleman. I dressed nicer, I spoke more eloquently, and people actually began talking to me. Though this was a change and people liked me more, I disliked them as much as I ever had. I graduated and almost immediately moved to a tiny house off by a wooded cemetery.

Something I had learned in my years of coping with my abilities was that the spirits that inhabited graveyards were much more at peace than any other kind of ghost. Even if I did wake them up, they rarely sought me out, with only a few exceptions.

One morning, while I had gone out to get my mail, I saw a cat lying dead on the side of the road. I felt absolutely horrible, but I picked up the tiny grey animal and brought it inside, humming to myself. I don’t know why it surprised me, but I was shocked to see the spirit of the cat dart out in front of my legs as if it were trying to rub up against me. I had never seen an animal spirit until then. From that point on, that was officially my cat. It was constantly around the house, doing everything that a normal cat would do. And it never went away unless I had to leave the house. When I returned, I just hummed some more and the cat showed up again. I eventually named it Smokey, as unoriginal as that may have been. At that point, I just didn’t care all too much.

The only times I ever left my property (aside from the basic functions like shopping) were to visit Olivia. I went and spoke to her once a week at first, then it was once a month, and then it was hardly ever. I kept to myself. I enjoyed being alone and away from people, mostly the living ones. But those times I did get to visit Olivia were enjoyable. She constantly commented on how she got to watch me grow older and older with every visit. Of course, by this point I was only thirty, but twelve years could change a lot, I suppose. I didn’t really notice because Olivia stayed exactly the same… as did our conversations. We spoke about life, the afterlife, and the problems in the world. She managed to keep surprisingly up to date on current events, considering her life (death) situation.

It was during one of these now infrequent visits that I surprised myself with my own impulses. I had been speaking to Ollie for a couple of hours and the sun was beginning to sink slowly down the multicolored sky over the horizon. As it grew harder and harder to see, I finally decided to say farewell to my friend and I moved to head toward my car, which I had parked on the side of the road. Another car was coming from the opposite direction, though I didn’t think much of it at first. I did notice that its lights were not on at all, and that bothered me slightly. I turned to say a final goodbye to Ollie when I saw a young girl dressed in punkish attire, possibly middle school aged, walk straight into the road… directly into the path of the oncoming vehicle. There wasn’t enough time to call out to get her attention, and the driver clearly didn’t see her at all. I did the only thing I could think of.

I pushed her out of the way.

After that, it was screaming and darkness. The last thing my living, conscious mind retained was the distant wailing of sirens and a sobbing girl.

--

I felt drowned in a surrounding darkness. It was very peaceful, but so silent. It took me quite awhile to wrap my mind around what was going on around me or what had happened, when a sudden thought struck me like a brutal slap on the face.

I was dead.

It all made sense. Everything that Olivia had told me seemed to make itself real around me. I felt warm and at peace, as if I were sleeping in a giant, pitch black down blanket. And then something quite suddenly disturbed me in my peace and darkness.

A hand placed itself against my bare shoulder. It was a cold hand. It was not the hand of someone who had been out in the cold, but of someone who had poor circulation. It was a small hand as well. Then the hand moved, brushing hair back from my face as gently as someone could possibly manage. I opened my mouth to speak and heard practically incoherent groaning that barely managed to form the word.

“Olivia?”

I can’t say it didn’t surprise me to hear my own voice. After all, I was dead, right? Spirits didn’t have vocal chords, or at least not that I knew of. But I could feel my voice strain in a tight sort of way against my chest; which meant I had a chest; which meant I also had a body.

“Olivia?” I repeated, now slightly unsure of myself. There was a soft shushing noise. It was female, but it was most definitely not Ollie.

“Hey, stop that,” the voice said. “You’re going to hurt yourself, you know.” My mind then registered another unexpected sound… a gentle, constant beeping. It was that telltale beeping that told me I was alive. I inhaled deeply and was welcomed by some of the cleanest air I had ever had the pleasure of inhaling, though it carried the faint smell of chemicals and plastic. I was breathing through a mask. Yes, I was definitely in a hospital.

“I’m so glad you’re still here,” the female voice continued. I decided to test my current bodily control by forcing my eyelids open. They were almost impossible to pry apart, but I managed it. Bright lights, enhanced by the abnormally white walls surrounding me greeted my eyes, forcing me to squint to see who was speaking to me. It was the punk kid. Now that I could see her closer, the older she looked. Her spiked purple hair and school uniform implied that she was actually most likely a high school student. This was the girl I had saved.

“…hi,” I croaked hoarsely, barely able to use my voice. The girl shook her head, purple spikes swishing slightly from side to side.

“Stop talking. Like I said, you’re going to get hurt.” She grinned slightly. “Oh, man… I still can’t believe you did that! You could have gotten yourself killed! And you did it to save me, too. I’m not going to lie, that’s probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard of, but it looked really freaking cool. Like one of those movies, you know?” She laughed quietly.

“I’m just…glad you’re okay,” I muttered. It sounded like the right thing to say… or at least what I was supposed to say. This girl had the personality of someone who could easily get very annoying very quickly… but I was surprisingly glad for her company. She wasn’t like the people I hated. The people who had pointless, meaningless existences. She seemed like someone who belonged.

“But yeah. We were pretty worried about you,” she continued. “Your girlfriend stayed by you until they loaded you up into the ambulance.” I must have had a very confused expression on the face that I was barely able to move because then she decided to explain. “You know…the one you had been talking to before you did that awesome leaping jump thing in front of the car?”

“Oh, Ollie.” I laughed nervously. “She’s not my girlfriend…” I found that words were coming easier now. “Hey…kid… don’t you need to go home or school or something?” She stared at me and laughed. She had the same happy laugh Olivia had.

“School? Screw that. I’m skipping. I didn’t pull an all-nighter here just to go to school today.”

“All-nighter? Wait, how did you get in here?” I asked, frowning. She smiled deviously at me.

“Because I’m your daughter. Duh.” I was dangerously close to being too shocked for comfort before she went on. “Well, at least until you’re out of the hospital. They wouldn’t have let me in if they had no idea I didn’t know you.” I sighed with relief. This didn’t need to be any more of a soap opera than it already was.

A nurse entered the room, giving the purple-haired girl a frown.

“Your dad needs his rest,” she insisted, shooing her out of the room.

“Bye, Dad!” she said with a wide grin, waving at me as the nurse kicked her out. I managed to muster enough energy to give her a little wave back.

“Bye…uhh… kid…” I said lamely before she was completely out of my sight. I closed my eyes and sighed, feeling warm sleep wash over me again.

But then my eyes flew open.

She saw Olivia. That girl could see them too.

And I never even got to know her name.