Amazing, Because It Is.

If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do. - Angelina Jolie.

The house was an elephantine Victorian Tudor which was elegantly beautiful, but undeniably old. I was slightly befuddled, considering that my parents weren’t really the kind of people to recognize and or appreciate old architecture, but nonetheless, I basked in each lungful of dusty old air, each creak of the sprawling wooden staircase beneath my tennis shoes. I had an odd appreciation for things of the old and spooky nature.

The ‘rents gifted me with the attic of the somewhat decrepit house for my bedroom, though they preferred to call it the ‘loft.’

A rose by any other name.

They clung tooth and nail to their claim that their intention was to warrant my privacy, but in my highly esteemed opinion, it came across more like their desire to see me as little as possible had earned me such a isolated room.

Although I had intensely negative thoughts and emotions about their newfound aversion to me, – and each other – it did not mean that I wasn’t thankful to have said privacy and seclusion.

I was still a teenage girl, no matter how muddled and messed up my life happened to be currently.

But unfortunately, that supposed privacy? That blessed seclusion? It was short lived. It slipped right through my fingers like running water, and oh did I resent it.

Surveying my room, giving it the old once-over, deciding what would go where, and how I’d decorate, like any typical new inhabitant would, my eyes came to rest upon a sight more shocking than the size of the house itself had been – and trust me, I had been taken aback. I was suddenly looking at and through a strikingly attractive, semi-transparent, pearly white, teenage boy, with messy, honey colored, high-lighted hair, and dark brown eyes that still managed to make an impact, though I could see out my bedroom window to the neighbor’s house through them.

“What’s the matter? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost!” Promptly, the apparition began laughing in a hard and high-pitched manner, cackling more like it, clutching the worn out knees of his jeans as he doubled over, content to continue his obnoxious carryings-on as I stood there, eyes wide in horror, face blanched.

“Is that…is that what you – are?” I whispered, more than immediately crashing into the conclusion that I’d absolutely allowed my mind to slip through my fingers. I had to be imagining him. Had. To. Ghosts were not real.

“What? Dead?” he demanded frankly, eyebrows darting upward in question as he drew closer to me, threateningly so. He wasn’t gliding or floating. He actually seemed to be…walking. “Yeah, I kicked the bucket. Bit the dust. Cashed in my chips. Pushed up daisies. Snuffed it…”

“Stop,” I commanded shakily, an unusual thrum of feeling forcing itself up and down my spine, like an internal shiver.

“Ooh, someone’s a little…sensitive about the issue. But it’s the truth, love!” he exclaimed, throwing his big, rough-looking, transparent hands up, palms skyward. He didn’t seem to mind the ‘truth’ at all. “My number was up! Now I’m dead as a doornail.”

“I get it,” I insisted, gritting my teeth as he carried on, knowing how uncomfortable I was with the way he so callously referred to death. Granted, he didn’t know why, and for that I was thankful. He’d probably only use it against me. He seemed pretty spiteful. “Why is it that you’re in my room, though?”

I wasn’t usually so precautious around strangers, and never was I at such a loss for words. I wasn’t the most eloquent of a speaker, but never before would I have turned to such a bold, almost rude question after someone had told me that they had died. Then again, no one had ever told me that before, so how would I know? And really, how was one meant to speak to a ghost?

“I’m flattered that you’re so interested,” the ghost affirmed, suddenly no longer standing in front of me. He was now lying directly in the center of my bed, arms behind his head, propping it up, without ever having moved, eerily enough. I had blinked and missed it. “But the truth is, I don’t even know. Granted, I did used to live here before I kicked it, but I couldn’t tell you why I haven’t crossed over to the other side yet.”

“The other side?” I asked softly, not understanding his terminology, still coming to terms with the fact that I was having a conversation with someone who obviously wasn’t even real.

“You know, moved on. Met my maker. Heaven – hell. If you believe in that. Maybe I was just too good for either.”

So, in summation, the ghost living in my bedroom was unbelievably arrogant – and breathtakingly gorgeous.