I know this might sound completely insane, and I also know most of you wont even believe what I have to say, but I have a very…great (horrible) gift (curse).

I can see, hear, touch, and talk to ghosts.

No, I am not crazy. Ghosts do exist. It isn’t my fault that most people don’t even know that they are standing around. Its not like I go around announcing that I can see them… I try to hide it. But sometimes, things just happen. Things like people finding me talking to myself (a ghost) and telling everyone else, so everyone thinks I’m crazy.

Which is why no one in school talks to me anymore. At all.

There is only one person I can talk to about my…gift, and that’s my twin sister, Olivia. She cant see ghosts, but she believes me when I tell her I can.

The first time I saw a ghost, I was seven. I was lying in bed when suddenly, I woke up. Grandma was standing over my bed, smiling down at me.

“Grandma?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“Ava.” Grandma said, smiling at me. She lightly ran a hand over my cheek and I flinched at how cold she seemed. “I love you, honey. And Olivia.”

“I know, Grandma.” I said, confused by why she had woken my up to tell me this.

“Ava?” Olivia asked from her side of the room.

I looked over at her. She was sitting up in bed, staring at me. “Who are you talking to?”

I frowned at her, wondering what was wrong with my sister. Couldn’t she see grandma standing right in front of me? “Grandma.” I said, turning back to face my grandmother.

She wasn’t there.

I stared at the space she had been in a moment ago, then looked back at my sister. “Grandma was standing right there!”

“No, Ava.” Olivia said, shaking her head. “She wasn’t. You were talking to yourself.” She giggled.

I just looked at her, a frown on my face. I knew I had talked to Grandma, I couldn’t have just been talking to myself.

It was the next morning that mom told us that Grandma died the night before.

Now I was seventeen, and more than just Olivia had seen me talking to myself. My mother and father had got a divorce three years ago. My older brother moved three states away with dad. Olivia and I stayed with mom, and with a town full of people who knew I went to a therapist three times a week.

Mom and Dad decided to send me to see my first shrink when I was thirteen, but it didn’t work. No matter how many times the therapist’s told me the ghosts weren’t real, they were just a figment of my imagination, they didn’t go away. They were real.

Olivia believed me. Mom and Dad didn’t, of course. It caused a lot of problems between them. They divorced when I was fifteen. My brother, Cole, who is two years older than us, moved with dad. I hadn’t talked to him since he left.

The last sentence the spoke to me told me how he really felt. “Ava, you ruined my life. My friends always make fun of me because of my “crazy sister”, no girl wants to be seen in public with me. You’re like a plague. Maybe its time you just stopped this imaginary game.” Then he walked away.

Cole had called to talk to me many times over the next few months after he left, but I never spoke to him. Finally, he just stopped trying.

But now, Olivia and I were seventeen, and mom got married. And she didn’t want us there. She didn’t say it, but Olivia and I both knew. George, our new step-father, was always uncomfortable when I was in the room, looking away and muttering to himself.

So, Olivia called dad a couple of weeks ago, asking if we could come live with him, Cole, his new wife, and our new step-sister and step-brother.

And, surprisingly, dad agreed.

Dad had married a year ago. Olivia had gone to the wedding and come home to say that our new step-mother was really nice. Apparently, dad had told he all about me and she didn’t care, just kept telling Olivia how she would love to meet me.

That was enough for Olivia. She instantly loved the woman, though she didn’t have the same thoughts about her kids.

She had explained about our new step-siblings in great detail, and I already didn’t like them. Apparently, Jay was the same age as Cole, and a lot like him. You know, the jock, most popular guy in the school type.

And, from what Olivia says, his sister, Emily was the girl version of that. The type of girl that made my life hell.

Oh well, I guess its better than living with two people who don’t want you.

:”””””””””””””””LKJHGFDSDFGHJK””””””””””””:

Olivia and I packed everything up in our car, then headed to dads. The drive took two days, but it was worth it.

Olivia pulled into the driveway of a huge, old house. I immediately froze. Old house. Old meant more chances for ghosts. More chances for ghosts meant more reasons for people to think I was crazy.

“I know.” Olivia said quickly, reading my thoughts. “But just because its old doesn’t automatically mean that there are ghosts in it.”

Yeah, right.