Ghost

Author's Note – I've had this in the works for ages, but it's finally written and complete! Be reminded that one – the chapters are longer than in most stories. They were originally shorter, but it works better this way, I think. Secondly, this is written in present tense. I just started writing it that way and that's how it ended up. There are five chapters total. I hope you enjoy the story! Also, each chapter alternates between narrators. Just read the chapter title and it will tell you who is narrating.

.cameron

"I hate seeing dead people!" Cameron Harrington exclaims, dropping his book bag onto the table. There's no one there to hear his complaints, though, so he goes to the counter where that chocolate cake his mother bought last week is sitting. He cuts himself a large slice and opens the freezer to find some ice cream to go along with it. He sits down with his food and takes a large forkful. There's nothing like chocolate cake after a hard day at school he thinks to himself, but realizes how stupid that sounds.

He thinks about what had happened at school that day. Like every other day, he gets teased by his classmates, the big muscular football players and the pretty blond girls. No one likes him, because he's fat and shy and has big glasses. But right in the middle of Algebra, the ghost of a dead girl, wearing a ripped and shredded pink dress, sits down on Cameron's desk and starts running her cold, dead hands up his arms. It's hard to ignore her, but he knows he really can't respond to her without everyone in the class wondering what he's doing. After all, they can't see her. He closes his eyes for a minute and when he opens them, she's gone but he knows she'll be back.

He's had experience with them before, and he doesn't quite know how to deal with it. His mom keeps telling him that he should go on one of those psychic shows and get paid for what he can do, but he tells her that he can't just demand it to come and go. He hates being able to do it, see dead people. If he had a choice, he would want to be a regular boy: not ugly, not fat, and definitely not psychic.

He finishes his cake and cleans up before going upstairs. He doesn't want his mom to come home and yell at him for not doing his homework. He knows she wouldn't yell, exactly, but she'd make a big deal about how she's so disappointed in him.

His homework doesn't take him very long to complete, and he's once again stuck with nothing to do. He wonders if he should try to do some research on the ghost at the school and see if he can figure out why she's there, but he doesn't even know where to start. He figures she'll go away eventually if he ignores her, which is what usually happens.

.&.

She bothers him again the next day, and the day after, but he ignores her, and by the end of the week, she's gone. He's not really in the business of helping ghosts, though he's sure that's what they want from him. He can't really help other people if he can't even help himself. His own life is bad enough; why should he care about helping dead people with their afterlives?

He's sleeping in his bed the next time a ghost shows up. He can feel the cold before he sees anything, and he opens his eyes to see a translucent figure standing by his bed. It's a male this time, and it doesn't even look dead, except for the fact that Cameron can see right through him. There's no blood or cuts or anything on him. In fact, he looks quite well put together, if Cameron did say so (which he doesn't, because it's wrong to think things like that).

"Well, it's about time you woke up!" the ghost says. Cameron is startled because this is the first ghost that's ever spoken to him. He picks up his glasses from the side table and puts them on to take a better look. The ghost is talking to him, which hasn't happened before.

"Who are you?" he asks. If the ghost can speak, he might as well get the important information of out him right off.

"Thayer Masterson," he answers, nodding slightly. Cameron pushes the blankets off his body and slides out of bed. He is almost worried about how his fat legs look in the boxer shorts he's wearing, how his stomach hangs over the top of the elastic under his shirt, but he knows it's ridiculous. Why does a ghost care what he looks like? And why should he care what a ghost thinks about him?

"What are you doing here?" Cameron asks, as Thayer doesn't seem eager to offer more information. He shrugs.

"I don't know really. But I was hoping you could help me get home," he says, "I went to bed and I woke up here. It's beyond being weird, but if you could just help me get home, that'd be super." Cameron gets the weird feeling that Thayer doesn't know that he is dead.

"Where do you live?" he asks, thinking it might shed some light on the subject. Thayer looks thoughtful for a minute, but he doesn't answer right away.

"This probably sounds really stupid, but I can't remember," he replies, looking sheepish. Cameron nods and pushes his hair away from his eyes. Thayer runs his eyes up and down Cameron's body, and Cameron crosses his arms over his chest, trying to hide himself. No one's ever looked at him like that before and it makes him feel naked.

"I didn't..." Thayer blushes and looks down at the ground, "I mean, we didn't... do anything last night, did we? I mean, I think I would remember..." He's refusing to look at Cameron. It takes Cameron a minute and then he realizes what Thayer is suggesting and blushes as well.

"No, we didn't," Cameron replies, and he tries to hide the bitterness in his voice. No one would do anything with him, no matter how desperate they are.

"Oh... well, then why I am here?" Thayer asks, confused. Cameron sighs deeply and doesn't know how he's going to explain this to Thayer. All he can think of is that kid in The Sixth Sense who says "I see dead people... and sometimes they don't know they're dead".

"I hate to be the one to explain this to you," Cameron begins, and Thayer looks worried, "but you're dead."

"I am not!" Thayer exclaims. Cameron shrugs.

"Don't believe me then, but it's true," he replies. Thayer puts hands on his hips and looks at Cameron as though he is crazy. Cameron thinks that maybe he is crazy, but he's not the one who thinks he's still alive.

"You're lying," Thayer says, "I'm just... I'm going to walk out that door and find my way home. I'm not dead, okay? I don't know how I got here, but I'm leaving and I'm going home." He doesn't wait for a reply from Cameron, and he walks out the door (somehow managing to grab a hold of the handle, despite the fact that he's dead and shouldn't be able to grab hold of anything) and Cameron hears him walk down the stairs. He waits five minutes, ten, and when Thayer doesn't come back, he climbs back under the sheets and falls back asleep.

.&.

He suffers through school the next day, barely paying attention. He makes a stop in the bathroom before going home, and when he's washing his hands, Thayer shows up. He isn't there one minute, and then he is there the next. He's got his hands on his hips again, and Cameron swallows hard.

"Okay, so maybe you're right," he says. Cameron wipes his hands off and tries not to look at Thayer. Because he'd been hoping he'd seen the last of him.

"What am I right about?" he asks, though he knows the answer. And he realizes that if anyone walks in, they'll see Cameron - fat, stupid Cameron - talking to himself. But he doesn't care. They hate him anyway, what's one more reason?

"I guess I'm dead. But, I don't remember dying. If I died, wouldn't I remember it?" Thayer asks, looking a little confused. Cameron shrugs.

"I've never died, so I wouldn't know." He wonders if Thayer looked this good when he was alive. He's got kind of darkish hair and his jeans are kind of low, and when he stretches, his wife beater doesn't touch the top of his pants. Only, unlike Cameron, he has a flat stomach, and a thin trail of hair leading right into the waistband of his pants. Cameron tries not to think about why he even noticed this. Thayer is a ghost, and it's no use lusting after someone he can't even touch.

"Anyway, even if I am dead, you can see me, right?" Thayer asks, "okay, stupid question. Obviously you can see me. But anyway, I figure maybe I can hang out at your house until I figure out what happened to me. If that's okay with you," he says, and Cameron almost swears he looks nervous.

"Okay," he says. He's finished in the bathroom now, so he picks up his backpack off the floor and Thayer follows him out the door. Cameron has to walk home from school, because his house is too close for the bus to bring him home, and his mom doesn't think he's responsible enough to get his driver's license, which is yet another thing to make him an outcast among his peers.

"So how old are you, exactly?" Thayer asks as they walk out of the school. Cameron waits until they are out of earshot of anyone before he answers.

"Seventeen," he replies, "and you?" He doesn't think about how odd it is that he's having a conversation with a ghost, and instead thinks about the fact that he is having a conversation with someone other than his mother. Someone is actually talking to him... though that person isn't exactly living, it's still an improvement to him.

"That's a good question," Thayer said, "and I think I'm eighteen. I mean, that sounds right to me, but I don't know for sure."

"You don't remember anything about your life? Your parents, your friends, your house?" Cameron asks, because he finds it hard to believe that even a dead person can't remember what his life was like.

"I wish I could, but all I know is my name, and a few vague ideas that I'm not sure are true or not," Thayer answers with a shrug.

"What vague ideas?" Cameron asks, "They might have some clues." Thayer pauses for a minute and Cameron waits for him to answer.

"Well, there was something about my boyfriend... I mean, I sort of get this feeling that I had one, and that he had something to do with something important. I know that doesn't help a lot, but that's really all I get," he says. Cameron nods, but doesn't know what to say. He's really not sure what to think of what all that information means. It's not really information though. And he wonders why Thayer appeared in his room. Is he supposed to help him somehow? Is that what this power is for?

They reach his house and they walk inside. Cameron's mom is gone, but she usually is. She works three days a week, and when she's not working, she's usually out shopping, spending the little money they have. Cameron has been considering getting an after-school job to help pay for the money his mother spends, but he doesn't think he'd like to spend his days on his feet waiting on tables or bagging people's groceries.

Cameron drops his bag in the front hall and goes into the kitchen to find something to eat, but there is nothing he really wants. Cameron has a sweet tooth, and he likes to have something sugary when he gets home from school. He decides to heat up the leftover pizza and see if he can make some chocolate chip cookies. He starts going through the cabinets to see if they have the ingredients they need, and meanwhile Thayer is standing there watching him.

"What are you doing?" he asks, and Cameron finally stops to look at him.

"I'm going to bake cookies," he says, and feels himself getting embarrassed again. Why is he feeling this way?

"Oh," he says, and lets Cameron get back to what he was doing. It feels weird for Cameron to be baking with Thayer standing right there, watching him, but he ignores it and thinks about how delicious the cookies will be when they're done. After he puts the first batch into the oven, he eats his pizza, though it doesn't taste as good to him, now that he is expecting the cookies. He eats it anyway.

"You know, I just realized that I haven't felt hungry at all, since I woke up in your room," Thayer says suddenly.

"That makes sense," Cameron replies, "you are dead, after all. Most dead people don't eat." Thayer laughs, as though Cameron has said something funny, and this makes him blush.

"I guess you're right," Thayer says, "and I don't need to sleep either. Last night I left your house and I went all around the neighborhood trying to see if anything was familiar. I walked forever and I didn't get tired, and I didn't even hear my feet on the sidewalk. And I knew that you had to be telling the truth, I mean, I knew you were right, but I kept walking anyway, but nothing looked right to me, and then I tried to go back. I came back to your house, but there was no one here, and I guessed you were probably at school, so I went there, and then I didn't know where to look for you. And the weirdest thing was, I was thinking in my head 'gee, I wish I knew where that guy was,' and then there I was!" he says, and then looks at Cameron for a minute, "which reminds me... I never asked you what your name was."

"It's Cameron. Harrington, Cameron Harrington." The buzzer goes off, and Cameron slips on the oven mitts in order to pull the cookies out. The smell makes him feel better immediately, and he just breathes in for a minute, eyes closed, letting the scent envelope him. He knows that it's silly, the way he feels about food, but he can't help himself, and he's not sure he wants to.

"Those must be some good cookies," Thayer says, and Cameron opens his eyes. Thayer doesn't seem to be making fun of him, though. He's still just standing there (though, Cameron supposes it's really more like floating) with his hands crossed over his chest.

"I hope so," Cameron replies, and uses the spatula to move the cookies to the cooling rack before putting another batch into the oven. He doesn't want to wait for the cookies to cool, but he does, because he's had experiences when he has been too eager to have one that he's burnt his tongue on the hot chocolate chips.

Author's Note - Hope you like it!