Spirit

Chapter 22: Apology
“Hey sleepy head,” Nathan said with a smile as I fluttered my eyelids open.
It took a while for me to adjust my eyes back to normal. “What time is it?” I asked.
“It’s six o’clock in the afternoon. You’ve been sleeping for a long time,” he said and chuckled.
“Oh jeez. My parents are probably wondering where I am!” I panicked and lifted my head up from Nathan’s lap.
“It’s okay, Natalia. It’s okay. I called them, telling them you were here with me.”
“Thank you,” I murmured and rested my head back down. Nathan and I were in a bedroom his I was guessing. His walls were pure white and they matched the carpet. Across from his bed we were laying on was a large flat screen TV and under that was a shelf of movies. To the right of us was his closet and bed stand that help a lamp, clock, and a couple of pictures. To the left was a sofa facing the closet and next to that was his balcony that was facing the lake.
After I was done examining the room, I tried to remember what happened before I fell asleep about eight hours ago. “I was so sleepy.”
“Good thing I caught you,” Nathan said. “You see, that’s what ghosts do. Have you ever watched one of those ghost hunting shows? They often say that when you are in the presence of a ghost, they often use up your energy to manifest itself and in our case, our ghost is in us and needs our energy to keep itself running.”
“You couldn’t have told me that before?”
“I honestly didn’t know you were going to be training for so long,” Nathan murmured, starring right into space. “Keith should have known better,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” he said and looked back down at me and smiled.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s okay, Natalia. You didn’t know,” he murmured and brushed my hair out of my face.
“I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Nathan. I’m beginning to regret wanting answers because every answer entails something twice as bad making me more the monster than I was before.”
“You are not a monster. You can do this, Natalia. We can help you to learn to control this then you wouldn’t have to worry no longer. Just hold on. We all felt the same way so I want you to know you aren’t alone. And inplus, if you hadn’t wanted answers, you would have never met any of us!”
I knew very well by when he said “us” he meant himself. It made me smile because he was right. Nathan was the very best part of all of this.
“So I have my own power,” I mused.
“We all do.”
“What’s yours?”
“Do you really want to see? I mean-do you want to feel?”
“Feel?”
“Yeah.
“Okay,” I said, confused.
He rested his hand on my arm and I watched what he was doing. Suddenly, I shivered. His hand was cold. I took his hand and rested it on my cheek. Although it was very cold, it felt good. The coldness slowly went away.
“That’s amazing,” I said, marveling over his power.
He grinned.
“What’s Keith’s? And Sarah?”
“Keith’s and illusionist. He can put images into one’s mind. And Sarah is a tracker. That’s how she found you, me, and Keith”
I nodded my head to absorb what I just heard.
Suddenly, I realized something. “Nathan!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t have the dream!”
“You did say I was your tranquilizer, right?” He asked and smiled widely.
“You heard that to?” I asked smiling.
“You need to get used to the fact that you aren’t the only ghost around here.”
“Do you know what we should do to keep my dreams away? We should sleep together!”
Nathan’s eyes widened at my notion.
“Not like that!” I added. “I mean like you should sleep over at my house sometime! Except you should be on the floor just so my dad doesn’t go berserk.”
He chuckled. “I’ll think about it.”
I adjusted myself so that I was laying on his chest. “I’m so stupid,” I murmured.
“Why do you think your stupid?”
“Nathan, I need to go. I need to apologize to my brother and sister. I need to make things right with them,” I said and jumped off of the bed. My head spun because of how fast I moved.
“Apologize for what?” He asked and jumped out of bed and put on his shoes.
“It’s a long story. I’ll glaze over it while you take me back home. I’m sorry I have to leave.”
“It’s alright, Natalia. Stop apologizing for ridiculous things,” he chuckled as started to shake.
I quickly slipped on my shoes and jumped onto his back. In a couple of seconds, he were outside of his house and he was running me home while I told him the story.
I felt bad and so stupid for ruining the moment we were in but I knew I had to apologize to my brother and sister while I had the guts to. Hopefully there will be another moment like we just had soon.
“I should probably go,” Nathan said as he set me down in my room. “You need some alone time with your brother and sister.”
“Your right,” I sighed. “When will I see you next? I’m going back to school tomorrow.”
“Soon,” he said with a smile.
“Okay,” I said and returned a smile. I gave him a hug and he left.
I took in a deep breath and walked out of my room. I heard Nicol and Jon playing video games downstairs.
As I walked down the stairs, I heard them talking and laughing but when they saw me walking down the stairs, they got quiet and Jonathon scooted closer to Nicol who put her arm around him.
“Can I talk to you?”
“If you’re going to talk about the freak you are, no. Mom already tried talking to us.”
“Maybe we should hear what she has to say,” Jon murmured, looking up at her.
She looked down at him and scrutinized his innocent face and looked back at me disgusted. “Fine. But she can‘t sit next to us,” she said smugly.
I walked over to the TV to pause their game and kneeled down right across from them in front of the coffee table.
“Can you hurry?” Nicol asked rudely. “We really don’t have time to talk to freaks.”
“Don’t say that to her,” Jonathon whispered. “She’s still our sister.”
Nicol made a sound of disgust deep back in her throat.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for keeping this from you, I’m sorry for not being the sister I should have been, and I’m sorry you no longer hold trust for me.
“I didn’t want to keep this from you but I also didn’t want to tell you because I thought you would think I’m a monster and that you’d tell people what I am but it looks like you already think of me as a monster.
“I didn’t want you to find out the way you did. Whenever I imagined me telling you, I wanted myself to tell you so that you’d understand.”
“So what are you?” Nicol asked. The rudeness in her voice had decreased.
I closed my eyes. “What I am….” I took in a deep breath and opened my eyes. “What I am is something you can believe or something you don’t believe but either way, I still am what I am and I know what I am. So here it is: I’m a…,” I took a deep breath, “I’m a ghost,” I finally said. “Now don’t be afraid!” I quickly added. “I’m not like those ghosts you see on TV or anything. I’m not dead. I’m what you call a Second-Hand Ghost….” I began to explain what I was to Nicol and Jon. I told them everything from the stalking to my first training. As I told them, it looked like they were really into my stories and it looked like they were no longer afraid of me. Nicol actually sat at the edge of the sofa to try to understand better and Jon actually looked like he was finally paying attention to something.
The conversation went on for quite a while. Nicol and Jon asked a bunch of questions; some that I wasn’t capable of even answering.
Finally I didn’t have to keep my secret from the people I love the most especially my family.
Saying sorry doesn’t mean anything nor does it do anything. The way of being sorry is to show it and mean it.