Before I knew it, the bell rang, and class was over. Samantha had been following me from class to class, and I had to get out of there before she tracked me down. I felt slightly bad leaving her to fend for herself, but I just couldn’t deal with her. Not today.
Luckily, I knew the hiding places in school like the back of my hand, and I used them whenever I needed to get away from the crowd. My favorite was the bathroom next to the janitor’s closet on the second floor.
It was inconvenient and dark. Nobody went there, not even to smoke or ditch, because it was supposed to be only used by teachers. Of course, even teachers didn’t use it because it was out of the way from their classrooms. So, I usually had it to myself, except when Katie joined me. I guess I would have it to myself forever now.
“This always was your favorite place,” Katie’s voice whispered to me.
“Get out of my head,” I said, pacing back and forth. “What do you want from me? Isn’t it enough that I’m racked with guilt and pain? Do you have to drive me crazy, too?”
“I’m not trying to drive you crazy,” Katie replied. “I’m here because I need your help. Because the world needs your help.”
I scoffed. “Oh, does it? That’s pretty convenient.”
“It’s not convenient. It sucks, but that doesn’t change the fact that I need your help.”
“To do what?”
“Save the world,” Katie said. “I thought we’d been over this already.”
“Oh, is that all? Nobody would come to me to save the world, Katie. You know that, and I know that. You wouldn’t even be here if you knew me at all.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “You’re the perfect person to help me. You’re kind, and wise, and brave, and…”
I paced across the tile floor. “And a mess. None of this holds up to scrutiny, Katie. None of it.”
“Life doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, Anna banana.”
I pressed my hands to my ears. “I hate that name.”
“Not when I say it, you don’t.”
I slammed my hands against the counter. “This sucks. How am I supposed to get over you if I can’t get you out of my head?”
“How do you think I feel?” Katie said. “I’m dead, and my friend doesn’t believe I’m really here. If this sucks for you, think of how much it must suck for me.”
“I do think about that,” I said. “I think about that all the time. It’s almost all I think about.”
From under the only stall in the room, a blue light began to show. I caught it in the mirror, throbbing dimly at first, but it began to fill the room with light. I waited for it to explode out of the stall, but it didn’t. Instead, it pushed through the metal door and floated in front of me.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It looked like Katie. Not the Katie from the last days of her sickness, but the Katie that was full of life. The one with long hair and chubby cheeks, who ran and played with me like she didn’t have a care in the world, back when we didn’t have a care in the world.
“I thought this would be easier for you,” she said, “but we don’t have much time.”
My mind fritzed out, and my eyes went black. It was too much for my brain to handle. I fell onto the floor and my mind drifted away.
A few minutes later, I woke up, and Katie was gone. The bell rang, and I pushed myself off the floor and ran to class. I was going to need help to get over Katie appearing before me. Professional help.
Chapter 9
I had been going to therapy on and off since my father died, but after Katie was diagnosed with cancer, I went all the time. I thought I would hate it, but I honestly loved therapy. It’s the only place in the whole world where I could talk about my fears and problems without somebody judging me. I couldn’t talk about Katie with Mom or Joanne, because I didn’t want to make them depressed or anything. They had enough on their plates, and I didn’t need to pile on any more.
Therapy was my sanctuary, which was why it was so disappointing that Katie’s ghost showed up during my appointment. I knew it wasn’t actually her, but it made it hard to concentrate on the doctor when Katie was staring at me in her fake, glowing, blue body.
“I’m sorry about your friend, Anna,” Doctor Rachel said after we’d sat in silence for a long time. I didn’t like calling doctors by their first names, but if it helped her feel more relatable, I was willing to do it for her, since in every other way she was amazing.
She was younger than any other doctor I had ever met. She didn’t seem older than thirty, though I never asked how old she was. That would be impolite. All I cared about was that I felt safe around her. I don’t think I would have felt safe around an old, stuffy doctor, but Doctor Rachel had bookcases accented with Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles, which made her all right in my book.
“Thank you,” I said. “It’s been…hard.”
“I can imagine,” she said. “I mean, I can only imagine. It’s not like anything like that has ever happened to me.”
What I liked most about Doctor Rachel was that she didn’t talk down to me. She didn’t sugar coat things or pretend to have all the answers. She just wanted to help, even if it was messy.
“It sucks,” I said, my eyes ping ponging back and forth between Doctor Rachel and the ghost of Katie in the corner of the room.
“You seem distracted,” Doctor Rachel said, watching me.
I rubbed my eyes with my hands. “I—I am. Honestly. Can I ask you something, and
