Ghost

She so looks dead to me. Literally, dead.

Kristy is gorgeous. That's one thing I'm sure of. She's wearing a blue wool sweater over her uniform, her skirt specially tailored to reveal half the span of her sexy thighs.

She says, "Does it look good on me?"

You look like a corpse. That's true. At least in my perspective.

Her cheeks are a little too sunken although Derrick always compliment on how soft and squishy they are. Her dark eyes slightly bulge out of her sockets and her lips are wan and dry. Her whole pretty city girl face is gaunt and ghostly. She puts on light eyeliners to accentuate the shape of her eyes. But I don't know; it just sort of add to her gruesomeness.

Nothing of what I've just described is an exaggeration. I see what I see.

Yet aside from that girls don't ever really accept a No for that question, she'll freak out should I tell her how she looks to me; so, instead, I give the answer she dressed for. "It looks beautiful. You look beautiful. Though even a rag will look good on you."

Her cracked lips flutter. "Are you comparing me to a beggar?" She rolls her round eyes.

I touch her cold arms and squeeze them softly. "Well, if a beggar could be as lovely as you, yeah."

John butts in, "No way a beggar like that remains a beggar forever."

"Wow, is that how you praise me?" She replies smugly.

I put out my phone. "Now, I wanna just take a pic of this beautiful beggar in blue." I hold it out steadily in front of me.

Tim exclaimed rather loudly, "Dude, don't tell me you're gonna jock off -"

"Shut up Tim," I say.

"Well, as long as it's Jude it's fine," she backs him off with a really proud smile. Is a thank you in order here?

In the picture Kristy looks like the way Kristy must appear to me. Oval eyes of black. Lips red and shining with lip gloss. Cheeks that are soft and tender and a bit round. This is how I want to see her. When I look at her, I want to see her for what she is now, not for what she's about to become the day she dies.

Tim is currently my best buddy ever since my first playmate dumped me. Except for a few bruises and cuts, there are no marks on his body yet; that's why I choose to hang out with him most of the time. I think he's got a long life ahead of him.

Derick will break his arm in about three years. And that is all he's got right now.

John on the other hand had the eyes of a hepatitis patient and the vague lines of a car accident about ten years from today. Like the ones I used to see on Mom.

Telling the time is only an inference. I've been seeing like this since I was born so I've come to know that the wounds grow worse and more lucid as the fateful second arrives. Although I miss by a few days or sometimes a month, I think I've got the hang of it.

As for Kristy, she has little time left.

I've met her about midway in my sophomore year. She's one of the most ghastly faces in the campus, even more horribble than my professors. She had been rumored to be pretty but atrocious. So she had no real friends. And she is to die in a year if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, she asked for my number when we bumped shoulders on the corridor. To cut the long story short, I have become her man. She could be slightly cruel at times. At other times, she's extremely outrageous. Tact is not really her best asset. It's her lips and her hands.

Frankly though, I don't want to be with her. Except when it's dark so I could not see her gaunt face and all. She'd probably die out of an illness. I've seen these kinds of death marks before. It's incurable. I think she knows. She's just keeping it from us.

I've taken two shots. She steps next to me to check out herself though she probably knows every single line in her dress. She's the type to be materialistic and a juicehead.

She's probably thinking what she ought to do in the whole year before her deadline. Well, what do you do knowing you only have such short time left to experience the world? She rents an apartment all by herself. I've been going out with her for the past consecutive weeks and on weekends, I stay with her. Not that I don't want it but seriously, she's not one sight to behold. I've been puking the hell out of me every morning.

She wraps her arms around me. Her skin feels so dry and thin and cold. "I love you," she whispers.

I dab a kiss on top of her head. When Kristy loves, she gives her all. That's one thing I dislike about her.

"Oh, if only Jennifer loves me like that," Derrick says.

"She doesn't even know your name," I say.

"I think we're late for class." Tim glances at his watch.

"We'll just go sleep the whole period off anyway so better not go at all," Derrick suggests.

"Only you doze it off."

Tim kneads his brows now. "Sleeping or no, we go."

Kristy is not in my class. She's a year behind. Not having her around somehow lets me breathe more comfortably. I have long wanted to dump her; but her days are drawing to a close. I need to stay by her side. Perhaps, I can do that much.

The teacher waiting behind the desk has the stone cold eyes of a Chemistry teacher and of one who is dying from a heart attack. They're rounder than Kristy's and certainly more terrified. Mr. De Leon possibly has only two years or so to torment the juniors of this campus with his projects. He's almost in the retirement age. Most of my classmates are what I deem clean and More Alive. Kristy is the exact definition of Near Dead.

This is the type of light I perceive - that only I can perceive. If I could see x-rays that would have been much better. I wouldn't have to put up then with seeing corpses walk upright. But I was born with the macabre gift to see this form of light. It's gore and blood and pallidness.

So why me? Why not anybody else? Death is toying with me. That is as much as I figured.

I toyed with Death once. It didn't go well.

Lunchbreak is dedicated to myself. I would find some place where no one else goes and spend my leisure time there. It's not that I'm embarassed of eating the lunch Mom always prepares for me. I just don't want to munch on my food in front of anyone who are more often than not bloody and lacerated.

The perfect place is this room they call haunted. Yes, I can see Death written all over your face but no, I can't see ghosts. I could not affirm nor refute the rumors. The haunted room is actually being used for storing chairs and drums and equipments. Every inch may be covered in dust but I clear up a space where I could slump and wolf down everything.

When everyone else is headed straight for the canteen, I sneak in to the room. As soon as the door creaks open, the smell of dust lashes at my nostrils. But there is a unique odor to the air that wasn't there before. A girl's perfume. Lemons and flowers.

Then when I shut the door between me and the rest of the bustle in the school, it becomes silent enough for me to hear a sobbing. It sounds so soft. Does a ghost haunt this place after all? I feel goosebumps despite myself.

I move around the stack of broken chairs and useless instruments and other things, searchimg for the source of the sobs. The ghost appears to be young but wears an old woman's cardigan over uniform and she has her knees tucked up to her chest and her arms around her shins, her face buried in her arms. The sleeves of her sweater are rolled up to the elbow. I cannot see through her, though; so she must be real.

I see wounds. I see bruises. I see scars. But which among them are for tomorrow and which are for today? I put out my phone and focus the camera. Just as I press the button, she looks up, dammit! It's too late to put it away.

She springs to her feet. I'm so glad she doesn't scream.

"What are you doing? Pervert!" But she has a loud voice. She starts brushing her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I'm sorry, I-I-" I can't explain. I look at her picture. A number of the bruises on her arms and legs are real. The cigarette burns too. But her face...

She looks around. "Why are you here?" The room are filled with abandoned stuff. The corridor is quiet with no one passing by. And it is just the two of us in here: A girl covered in bruises and a boy who just took a pic of her without asking. I don't think the thoughts running through her mind right now are favorable. She picks up a torn leg of a wooden chair and points it threateningly at me.

I slip in the phone back to my pocket. "Look, I can ask you the same question."

"Well, I need to be alone."

"That goes for me too."

"You just took a picture of me! I can send you to the guidance office for that." She pokes the wooden weapon on my chest.

"Woah, woah. Hang on, I have no evil intentions." I hold up both hands helplessly.

She attempts putting on a ferocious face but with her eyes red and sore from crying and her tears making her cheeks glimmer, she looks like barely keeping herself together. She seems to consider my words, setting me with an intense wavering stare. "Give it to me." She holds out one hand.

"What?" I ask.

"The phone."

I do what she said, putting the device gingerly in her palm.

She presses a button and it flickers open. "Password?" She thrusts the wooden leg harder on my chest.

I input what she asked. She goes straight for the camera and for the images in there. The first picture is her. She doesn't erase it right away. She looks at herself. At the girl with limbs tucked in like a small ball, with a face so tired of weeping. She looks as the most vulnerable thing in here right now, broken like these armchairs.

She whispers something to herself, silently so I cannot hear. I could not properly see it as she maneuvers her thumb across the screen but one second it's dim then it lights up blue with the dress of Kristy. Man, that was some heartmelting photograph I shot there. What a waste.

She returns my phone reluctantly and shoves me back with the point of the wood. "Try that again and you'll regret it."

The weapon between us is lowered down and she comes back to her private corner. But she glances back at me. "Aren't you supposed to leave?"

"Well, the thing is this is my room," I say uncertainly.

"What do you mean your room?" She crosses her arms in front of her. The pain is draining from her eyes, being replaced by what I assume to be distaste towards me. Suddenly, she becomes the strongest woman in the world.

"I eat my lunch here. Always." I lower my backpack from my back to make my point and mark my territory.

"In this place?" She narrows her eyes with incredulity.

"Yup. Right in this place. But since you're seeking the quiet as well, I won't ask you to get out. Although, your leaving would be thoughtful right now."

"Then go eat your fricking lunch." She turns away and slumps down on the same spot where she curled up a while ago.

I find the plywood from the pile of stuffs and wipe it clean with a sheet of paper. I lay it down on the dusty floor on the corner just beside her and take my seat there, my back turned to her.

She seems to find it hard to start weeping again now that someone's listening. She buries her head back into her arms while I begin to chew on the chicken Mom had fried for me.

After a moment of utter silence save for the sound of my munching, she raises her head, complaining, "Ugh, are you dumb? Can't you read the situation?"

I think she's talking to me. "Well, do you want some chicken?" I don't glance at her. I'm eating right now and I fear I might vomit just thinking about her face. She's...

"Oh, just get done with it already!"

I finish in about ten minutes. That's actually a bit too long for a man as huge as I am. But then my appetite had fled the minute I saw her. I had to force myself to chew and swallow each spoonful.

I gulp down a whole bottle of water to keep the food from coming right back up. It has been my habit to remain here until the bell and today I choose not to divert from my routine.

The ghost has turned quiet. I can't help glancing at her. How can a girl have so much wounds? She's singed where the skirt and cardigan covers her up. I had glimpsed it. She has bruises - old and new - everywhere.

When I saw her face on the photograph, I kind of felt her pain if not understood it. She had laid it out, let it overwhelm her, thinking no one would lay eyes upon it in this haunted room. But I did. And now I know. And I can do nothing but be curious.

Nonetheless, she'll have to carry that pain to her grave, alone, because by the death marks on her face, I think she'll be gone by tomorrow.

She smells nice. The scent of her perfume doesn't sting my nose nor is it faint. It evokes calm and a memory of when I would just plop down on the couch and close my eyes, not to nap but to pretend I'm blind.

We stay like that. Her, curled up like a child. Me, furtively glancing at her every now and then. We stay like that for minutes. We stay like that until one p.m.. The bell finally rings. I prop myself up and walk to the door, while she - she remains there, her whole self tucked in into a ball - so small I could fit her in my pocket.