We're Ghosts in a Hail of Bullets

There was something wrong me. His lips were poisonous and I could feel them infecting my body. All of my emotions were enhanced, in a bad way. I couldn't take any direction because my veins would burst into flames and I would erupt with anger. I refused to listen to people. During English I would zone out. Jessica could hardly get words out of me because I was too busy looking around the room. But I would respond to her most of the time because I didn't want anyone to ask me questions. She was the only person who bothered to talk to me, besides Alex in fourth hour, but he wouldn't care if I responded or not. He had a friend in every body.
As we were typing up our short stories on the second day and I allowed my eyes to wander around the library. They found a plaque, made of gold with some carved in it. I couldn't see the small words from where I was sitting, but I saw In Memory Of. It was enough to spark my interest me, but not enough to steer off of my story. Mrs. Weber was walking behind me us, checking our screens to make sure we were on task. I wasn't past page two yet, so she wanted to talk with me. I was only partially there. The only I noticed during our short conversation was my autobiography. The students were assigned them in the beginning of the year, but since I was new I had to write it a few days ago. It was pointless, but I made it long. She tried to explain to me that I was an amazing writer and I should be doing better than typing a paragraph a day. She also suggested on seeing my guidance counselor, but I couldn't bring myself to that. I didn't trust them. It was odd because I was usually an honest and trustworthy person. I had nothing to hide, but the poison that infected my body caused me to put my walls up. I didn't know they existed.

I was standing outside the library after school. Jessica offered to walk me home, but I lied to her. I said that I had a ton of homework and there was trouble at home. Everything was fine at home and I only had a few problems to do in Math. I could have done them in class but my body and mind remained numb.
I walked inside the library, trying to avoid the helping students' eyes. They were super anal about others being in there after school hours. The actual librarians didn't care, but one sophomore who worked in there, Charlotte, took everything too seriously. I dashed around the giant room, like a ninja in the shadows. If only I was that elusive. I just stood out in the open by a few tables, starring at the golden plaque. I read off the names in my head. There were fifteen in total under the title In Memory of Our Fallen Brothers and Sisters. None of them really stuck in my head, but as I read them off, individual shivers trickled down my spine. I got to the last one, Jennifer Wright, I think, then Charlotte told me that I needed to leave.

At home, I found the gay ghosts drinking wine with my mother in the kitchen. They were talking about redecorating the upstairs rooms. Moira was dusting the study and my dad was at work. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, checking my phone for texts from a few friends back in Vermont. It took them a while to reply back, but I didn't really care. Our answers were short and pointless. Soon we just stop talking all together because the conversation was going no where. I felt very alone but the numbness took care of that. It made my body feel tingly, like all of my limbs were asleep. I sort of loved that pins and needle feeling, even if it did tickle whenever I moved. It was better than nothing.

How long did I lay there? Hours? I think so. I laid there on my bed, motionless for a few hours. Contemplating on whether I was depressed or not. I never came to a conclusion. I snapped out of my trance when I heard the Misfits blaring out of my iHome speakers. I saw Tate flipping through songs on my iPod dressed in a black and white, striped, long sleeved shirt, a pair of blue jeans, a long black coat, and wearing a pair of combat boots that I haven't seen on him before.

"Whose My Chemical Romance?" he asked, examining my iPod closely.

"They're a band," I replied blankly as I sat myself up against my bed frame. He flipped through their songs and played one called "I Never Told You What I Did for a Living". He stood there for a few seconds to listen to it before he walked over to me, sat down, and smiled.

"They aren't bad," he commented and then kissed me quickly.

"They're pretty big. You've never heard of them before?" I asked. His kiss seemed to remedy me. I smiled at him and all of the numbness dispersed from my body. Tate shook his head as I tried to take control over all of the feelings that were coming back to me.

"I listen to a lot of metal and grunge. This is too...soft for me," he said before smiling again. "How was school?" he asked, gently rubbing my outer thigh.

"It was boring. My English teacher tried telling me how good of a writer I am and that I might need to see my councilor. I might be depressed," I said. I shouldn't have had that because the smile on his face disappeared. His eyes shut down it's light, giving me a blank, worried stare. "I'm not," I tried to reassure him, but he still grabbed my arms and checked them for marks. When he found nothing, he sighed gratefully and then pulled me close. I thought he was crying for a moment but no tears fell on my shirt, but he was heaving and sigh. Trying to regain his control on his own emotions.

"Don't even hurt yourself," he ordered though the thought never crossed my mind so I didn't understand why he would be worried. Did I seem like the type to harm myself?

"Tate, I wouldn't ever do something like that,"

"Just promise me, Anna," he whimpered as soon as my last word left my lips. I took a deep breath and promised him. He held me tighter, burying his face in my shoulder and neck. He kissed me a little bit, relaxing me, but I felt eyes on us. It was so awkward and scary. It was then that I realized that they could pop in and out whenever they wanted, without being physically noticed. Their presence was still there and I could sense it. There was a heaviness in the air that weighed down my body. It was like a thick, invisible smog in the air.

"There's someone in here," I whispered in Tate's ear in a trembling voice. He pulled away from me, grabbing my hand, and lacing our fingers. He gave me a weak smile and kissed my forehead. Then he suddenly turned around and screamed, "Go away, Violet!". I gasped because it scared me when people raised their voice.
From the shadows of my room emerged the bloody, blonde from my bathroom. She carelessly dragged her feet across my hardwood floor, chuckling darkly at the two of us. She stopped at the end of my bed and rested her torn arms on the metallic board. Tate sat up on his knees, trying to assert some sort of dominance, but the girl known as Violet simply laughed at him.

"Sit your pathetic ass down," she muttered at him, but he wouldn't move. She leaned to side so I could see her face. She was smiling at me. "He totally wants your nuts, you know?". Neither Tate nor I said anything to her. What could we say? He was too busy huffing and puffing at the sight of this spirit and I was practically trembling with fear. I tried to stand strong, but a teenage girl, covered in blood was standing in my room.
She turned her attention back to Tate and said, "Why don't you just rape her already?". For a moment, he stopped breathing. Then he swung at her, but she disappeared only to reappeared in another part of my room.
"Or maybe you could shove a fire poker up her perky little ass? You like that sort of shit right?" she fired at him. He chased her around the room throwing punches at a ghosts, only to miss each time. Violet shot out insult after insult, rubbing salt into a open wound. Through all of their yelling and back and forth insults, I found my own voice.

"What do you want?" I screamed. When I didn't get an answered I yelled, "Go away!". She gave Tate a final look of disgust and then vanished for good. My face was concealed in my knees that were pressed against my chest. I inhales and exhaled deeply, trying to control my anger. I hated yelling and loud noises. They brought out the worse in me.
I felt Tate's arms wrap around me as he apologized over and over again for arguing with Violet and all of the things she said. I tried to tell him it was okay but I learned that he was very sensitive. He felt so bad. To stop him I had to kiss him. He didn't resist which was good because it calmed me down. My heart no longer raced and my breathing steadied. It helped him too. I could feel his heart beat slow down to a normal pace and his chest no longer heaved.
He kissed me back deeper, knocking me back. The kissing just got heavier as he tried to run his hands up my shirt, but I had to stop him. He apologized again, but I just kissed him and pulled away quickly.

"My moms home and those two gay guys are with her, plus there was just an angry ghost in my room," I said. He nodded and laid down next to me. He twirled my hair around his finger as he rested his head on his hand. I watched my posters, trying to see if I could find any movement in them, but of course I couldn't.

"Have you ever done it before?" Tate asked me randomly.

"Yeah. You?" I replied.

"Once. With my ex-girlfriend. When she lived here," he said almost in a depressing tone. I wanted to ask who it was because the last family died in here, but it all became clear the moment I looked into his eyes. Violet. He knew that I had figured it out so he began to unload her story on me.
"She lived here with her mom and dad. Her dad cheated on her mom with some whore, you met her. Hayden, I think. That's why they moved all the way out here. I was a patient of her dad's, Ben, and I met her while I was wandering around the house. She was cutting herself in the bathroom so I popped in, told that if she wanted to kill herself that she should cut downwards and not across. A few months later, she got all depressed for whatever stupid reason and offed herself. Now she's a ghost here. After her mom died and her dad hung himself, she kind of went insane, though they're ghosts here too. You might see them. They're pretty nice," he explained. I thought of the woman who saved me from Hayden. She had to be Violet's mom. I hadn't met Ben yet though.

"So now she's just a little bitch?" I asked. He nodded. It made sense. It also made me hate Violet even more knowing that she use to be Tate's. If only she was still alive. Then I could choke her stupid ass and kill herself myself, but that was only a wish. Tate held me for the rest of day and part of the night. I fell asleep somewhere in the middle.