The GIft of Seeing Ghosts

It was Wednesday when Emily Dupont completely snapped. Yelling and spouting what seemed like nonsense to an empty space beside her. The people around her quickly moved away and pretended she didn’t exist. After finishing her rant she sprinted home, slammed her door, shoved ear buds in her ears and turned the volume all the way up. She wiped away the tears as quickly as they came.
Emily Dupont had just turned nineteen and moved out of her mom’s apartment. She would have liked to say she left her mother sobbing and pleading for her only child to stay only a little longer. But she couldn’t, her departure had earned only a sigh of relief and the heavy close of a door. But Emily couldn’t blame her mother too much, she had always known she was a heavy burden. She was the girl that had imaginary friends too long, disappeared from school,  and people whispered about behind her back. Emily Dupont was very different because of one defining trait that separated her from normal.
Earlier that same Wednesday, Emily woke up exhausted. Besides collage and a job, her dreams had left her restless at night, waking her up suddenly, out of breath with her heart beating rapidly. But she could never remember her dream. She forced herself to leave her warm blankets and open her sleepy eyes. She looked in the mirror, like always she had large purple bags under her eyes, her light brown hair was messily pulled back and her dull grey eyes looked blank and empty. She looked at the clock. 6:47. She would miss her train if she didn’t leave now. Emily quickly dressed and and left.
After arriving at work, which was a library, Emily settled behind the counter with her laptop and continued working on an unfinished paper, looking up every once in a while to make sure no one was waiting. Soon a boy stood before her, “I’m sorry can I help you?” He was silent but a smile grew on his face. “Hello?”
“You can see me! Please I need help, I have to talk to mother but she can’t hear or see me.” Emily’s face visibly paled. Usually could she could tell them apart but she had been distracted.
“No. I can’t help. Leave me alone,” she said harshly. She didn’t want to be mean but they never left her once they found her. Always chatting into her ear, begging for help, asking questions, or just bored. Then they would tell others and she’d have a crowd following behind her.
“I can’t leave. You have to help me. Shes been so sad, always crying. I just want to tell her goodbye before I leave,” he pleaded.
“I said NO! Get away from me! I don’t care ab-” She said vehemently then stopped suddenly and looked around. The few people wandering around the library at this early hour were staring at her, her supervisor, Sarah, hurried over to her.
“Are you okay. Who were you yelling out?” She whispered like her works were taboo. Emily glanced back at the boy, and wasn’t shocked to see him right next to her now, staring directly at her. She looked back up at Sarah and said,
“No one. I fell asleep and it was a nightmare,” she looked suspiciously at Emily.
“Then maybe you should go home and rest,” Emily sighed but nodded.
“Yeah, that sound great thanks Sarah,” she smiled and Emily left, the boy was still next to her, matching her step-by-step.
The next train didn’t come for another hour so Emily decided to walk. The young boy kept talking to her, non-stop. She learned that his name was Jeremy and he was 14. He explained over and over again that his mother was crying so much, she wouldn’t leave her house, talk to her friends, or go to work. But thats the thing about parents, they cry when their child dies, and Jeremy had died 6 months ago in a car crash. But talking to the dead wasn’t new to Emily, it was a curse she's always lived with. Ghosts were everywhere and they looked just like the living except they always seemed to have a dark cloud hanging over them, the longer Emily was in one’s presence, the more melancholy she became.
Jeremy’s constant chatting suddenly became too much when he brought up her mother. “What if you died tragically and you had to watch your mother cry over you everyday?” Emily stopped dead in her tracks and looked at him, she didn’t care that they were in the middle of the sidewalk amid many people, her emotion had overcame her and left her with the intense need to yell.
“Not all of us have such caring mothers. I would prefer that you didn’t pretend to know my mother and JUST LEAVE ME ALONE! Leave! Get away! I don’t care! Maybe it’s about time your mother stops wallowing in her own misery and got over you! Just because i can talk to you doesn’t mean i want too. I just want to live my life and i’m NOT GOING TO HELP YOU. What don’t you understand about that? YOU HAVE RUINED MY LIFE, ALL OF YOU, BECAUSE OF YOU, NO ONE LIKES ME. My own mother couldn’t wait to shove me out the the door! I WON’T HELP YOU AND I NEVER WILL!” Jeremy looked taken aback then mournful, his last hope had just died. He faded, like he had just melted into the air, and was gone. Emily immediately felt awful, he just wanted to tell his mother he loved her and she had just yelled at him blaming all her problems on a poor little dead boy. Then Emily finally felt reality crashing around her and looked around, she was on a public and crowded street. She felt many judgeful eyes on her. She was mortified, she hid her face in her hood and sprinted the few remaining blocks home.
She didn’t leave her house for days, too afraid of running into another ghost, or worse having to face little Jeremy again after what she had said. Half the day she would lay on her bed crying, pitying herself. Saying how life wasn’t fair and she didn’t deserve this. Crying over her cruel words to Jeremy, slashing apart his hopes with her sharp tongue. The other half rage coursed through her veins. This was the ghosts’ fault if they would just leave her alone she would be fine, they had done this her, they had destroyed her. As she endured her self inflicted solitude she’d just wanted to call her mother and tell her everything, and hear how everything would be alright and how she was perfect the way she was and that she loved her. The warmth of those words might have been able to drag Emily from her apartment. But she already knew none of that would come from her mother. All she would say was that it was all in her head, none of it was real. Just stop thinking about it and it will go away. But that wasn’t what Emily wanted to hear, she had believed that explanation till she was 13 and all it had achieve was making her think she was crazy. No, if she could just turn them off, it would of happened a long time ago.
She didn’t call her mom, she just laid there feeling hollow, empty. Everything about her now seemed meaningless, what was the point of her job or school when these ghosts controlled her life. Making her paranoid and careful of the world. Her decision came to her gradually, unconsciously at first since it had already been implemented. She decided that it was time to give up, but realized she already had. She didn’t move from her bed for hours not thinking, not sleeping, not anything, just being. Nothing mattered to her anymore, her curse had slowly strangled her happiness till she was forced to stop fighting, to lay down her arms and face the truth, that ever since her first imaginary friend this had always been her fate.
Time passed and Emily let it.