Thankfully, I didn't end up having to tell Jamie what the hell just happened. Ava interrupted to take us home before I could answer, but I know the inevitability of having to explain myself to him is fast approaching. As such, I've been avoiding him all morning. It's not even eleven yet, and he's knocked on my bedroom door about five times, and when I headed into the kitchen for my hangover bread, I ordered Annabel to check it was empty beforehand. I know I can only ignore him for so long, but I've got no goddamn clue what I'm going to say to him. The fact my eyebrow feels like it's falling off isn't helping.

I've managed to escape the flat unnoticed to grab a well-needed full English breakfast at one of the uni cafés. Annabel and I are about to go over the shitstorm that was last night, which I refused to bring up until I had some food in me, much to her annoyance. Considering the alcohol rendered my abilities non-existent last night, I've got nothing to give anyway. We're sitting in the corner of the café, and I'm facing the wall so that no one thinks I'm having an in-depth conversation with myself.

"Right, okay, hit me with it," I say as I take the first bite of my breakfast. I go for the bacon, and it's good. It's so, so good. "What dead bastard is after me now?"

"This isn't a joke, Felix." Annabel's voice is the most serious I've ever heard it. "You've had a spirit warn you you're in danger, you're seeing flashbacks to the moment our parents died--the moment I died, you're being stalked by something demonic not even I can see, you've had your brain turned to mush by underground caves, and now you've almost been killed by a poltergeist. Something really, really bad is happening."

Jesus, way to kill the mood. I don't really know how to respond in a way that won't piss her off, so I just take another bite out of my breakfast and shrug. Turns out that's the perfect response to piss her off.

"Felix!" she snaps. "Why is everything a joke to you?"

I drop my knife and fork onto the plate and sigh. "It's not, I just--Look, let's start with last night. What happened?"

Annabel tucks her hair behind her ears and clears her throat. "Well, you were being an idiot and almost revealed to everyone that you can see spirits, so--"

"What? No, I didn't."

She shakes her head at me. "You asked Ava if there was such thing as the Ghost of Christmas Past, then proceeded to tell a story about that spirit--David, I think his name was--we ran into a few years back."

"Oh, yeah! I remember David. God, he was an ugly shit." I laugh, but Annabel just glares at me. "Oh, so was the spilled drink your doing?"

"Yeah, and the head flicking. Everything else... wasn't." I nod for her to continue. "The poltergeist was already outside when you left the building, but it wasn't... it wasn't random. I think it had been waiting for you. It wasn't in a human form or anything, just a pool of darkness like the one we saw a few years back, but I could sense it come to life when you stepped outside. I don't know why, but it didn't start attacking until Jamie appeared, it's like it... it--I don't know, wanted something from you, and then Jamie interrupted it."

"You sure?" I ask. "It might've just been a coincidence that it started attacking then."

Annabel immediately shakes her head. "It's a poltergeist, it's their instinct to mess with the first breathing thing it sees, and it didn't bother you straight away. It wanted something."

"You don't reckon it has something to do with my gangly stalkers, do you?" I ask with a mouthful of toast, to which Annabel nods as if I'm stupid. "Alright, alright, sheesh. Everything has to be connected--it has to be. I just have no idea how. Maybe we should try Ava again. She knows when you're around, so she must at least have some kind of--"

There's a tap on my shoulder, and I turn my head to see Jamie standing above me. Oh, shit.

"Who are you talking to?"

"No one..." I say far too slowly for it to sound genuine.

Jamie scoffs. Without any invitation on my part, he pulls up a chair at my table. It's the one Annabel was using, so she has to swap to another. Once he's sat down, he doesn't say anything. He just stares at me expectantly. When I ignore him and continue gnawing the hash brown I was in the middle of devouring, he scoffs again.

"You want my black pudding? Never been into that shit. Grimey as hell," I say, my eyes still fixed onto my plate.

"What happened last night?"

Straight to the point then. I ignore him.

"Maybe you should tell him the truth," Annabel pipes up, to which I shoot her a look of I'd rather chew my little toe off.

"What are you looking at?" Jamie again.

"Nothing," I reply.

"Yes you are, you just looked at that chair."

"Nah."

He bangs the table. "What happened last night?"

I groan. "I'm just as clueless as you are, mate, I don't know why you're asking me all this."

"You're lying. I'm not an idiot," he snaps. He glances at my food. "I thought you were vegetarian."

Ugh, this again. "I'm having an off day," I mutter.

Jamie scoffs. Again. "Sure you are. Last night, you knew what to do, you knew what the streetlights meant, you started talking to someone who wasn't there, and then as though there was someone there, it did exactly what you told it to." He pauses, quickly scans the room, then turns back to me. "Was it a... you know, was it a ghost?"

I stare at Jamie silently. This is one mess I'm really not sure how to get out of. I glance back to Annabel with pleading eyes in hope of her knowing what to do, but she just shrugs. She thinks I should tell him. She doesn't have to say it, I can just tell. The only other time she's given me this look is before I told my foster mother about my abilities because y'know, that went so brilliantly.

Shit, what do I do?

I doubt Jamie would believe me, come to think of it; the guy's the biggest sceptic I've ever met. I'm nineteen now too, not twelve. It's not like he can ship me back to a kid's home if he doesn't believe me. I could tell him it's a joke.

"Felix," Annabel says quietly from across the table. "Just tell him. It won't be like last time."

"Please tell me what happened." Jamie speaks up again, and there's desperation in his voice.

I take a deep breath. "It was a poltergeist," I say into my food.

"A what?"

I lift my eyes to his face. "A poltergeist."

Jamie's staring at me now. I can see a million words running through his head, but he can't get any of them out. His mouth is moving slightly, but he's making no sound. Annabel gives me an encouraging nod. Screw it, there's no turning back now. I take another deep breath, and shut my eyes as I speak because if I don't, I'll realise what I'm doing.

"I've been able to see ghosts since my parents died, the person I was speaking to last night was my sister--she's dead--and because I know you'll want proof, I can tell you that your grandmother died wearing a red dressing gown and white slippers, and she was found in her house because you tried calling her but got no answer." I open my eyes, then turn to Annabel. "And that salt shaker is going to fall over."

As if perfectly rehearsed, Annabel knocks over the salt in the middle of our table. Now Jamie really looks scared. All I can do is wait. Adrenaline is shooting through my body, and I'm rhythmically tapping my foot under the table. What the hell am I doing?

"Was that why you told me to call my family the day she died?" is all Jamie says. He's not looking at me; he's staring emptily at the table.

It takes me a moment to realise he's talking about his grandmother. I say yes.

"You saw her that day." He says it as a statement, but I can hear the question in his voice, so I say yes again.

Finally, Jamie lifts his eyes to my face. He remains silent for a while, and he's gazing at me like he doesn't want to miss a single move I make. Annabel's watching him, and she looks just as anxious as me. He's not told me I'm wrong, or that I'm a liar, or that I'm insane. I think that's a good thing.

He's still not saying anything. I've lost my entire family to a car crash, been left to deal with the fact I see dead people alone since I can remember, spent the past few months being stalked by evil entities, and been attacked by a poltergeist, yet this is the most scared I think I've ever felt. Say something, I repeat in my head over and over again. Say something.

Finally, Jamie speaks. "I think I believe in ghosts now."

Jamie doesn't say anything else for the remainder of the time we're at the café. He's not left my side, but his mouth has stayed shut the whole time. It's a nice change, really. When I mention going back to the flat, he still says nothing. He just nods. Ava's moving back in for good in a few days, and no one else is returning for at least a week, so it's just Jamie and me in the flat.

In ways, I'm pleased because at least I know he's not going to be able to run around announcing my confession to anyone. Nonetheless, this is the most awkward thing I've ever experienced in my life because he's not taking his eyes off me for a second. I could probably go for a shit, and he'd follow me. I'm trying to revise in the kitchen, but I can feel him staring at me.

After about an hour of pretending I don't notice him stalking me, Jamie finally speaks.

"Does Ava know?" he asks quietly.

I shake my head.

"Have you told Carmen?" is his next question.

I shake my head again.

"How about--"

"I've not told anyone else."

Jamie's quiet again, but not for long. "Was your sister killed in the same accident as your parents?"

I sigh. I think I preferred it when things were awkward. I close the textbook I was reading, then swivel around on the kitchen stool to face Jamie. It's not like I was getting anything done anyway. I nod at him with a shrug. He nods back, slowly.

He's about to open his mouth, but pauses briefly as his eyes narrow. He eventually remembers how to speak. "Is your sister here now then?" He says it like he's scared Annabel is going to lob him at a wall or something.

Annabel, who is indeed here, and is currently lying on the sofa opposite him, perks up at the mention of her existence. She's trying to downplay it for my sake, but I can tell she's ecstatic at the prospect of someone else finally becoming aware of her. She's asked me if I want her to do anything spooky around Jamie at least five times since we left the café. She's saying it's to convince him further, but she knows as well as I do that he doesn't need any more convincing.

"Yeah," I mutter with another shrug. Still need to work on my shrugging problem.

Jamie stammers. "Can she see us? Is she watching?"

It's hard not to laugh at him, so I do. Only a tiny bit. It's kind of like when you play peek-a-boo with a little kid and they think that if they can't see you, you can't see them. It just sounds like such a dumb question to me. Annabel finds it just as amusing as I do, and turns to me with a mischievous look in her eyes. I hesitate, but eventually roll my eyes and nod. Go hard or go home, and all that.

Before Jamie can process why I'm pulling faces into thin air, Annabel grins in glee, jumps off the sofa, skips over to him, then flicks him hard on the back of his head. I'm laughing before he even feels it.

"Ow! What--what did you do?"

"Hey, I didn't do anything," I reply, still snickering.

I'm rapidly warming to this whole idea of revealing my darkest secrets. This is great. As Jamie continues stuttering like a fish having a stroke, it slowly occurs to me what I've done. I don't know what I expected to happen if I ever told anyone about this stuff, but it wasn't this. We're still in shallow water at the moment, I'm not ignorant of that, but I feel okay about it. Hell, I feel kind of good about it.

Part of me wants to sit down with Jamie and tell him everything; about Annabel, about all the ghosts I've encountered in the past, about my visions that accompany aura readings, about the creatures that have been stalking me, about the ghosts I saw at the haunted manor we visited, about the weird experience I had in the underground caves.

I've never been able to utter a word about any of this to anyone, so knowing that if I wanted to now, I could, is a surreal feeling. I know I'm getting carried away with these thoughts, so I don't allow them to spill out of my mouth. It's just weird. I've never experienced this situation, and I'm at a loss with what to do with it. My train of thought is interrupted by Jamie, who's finally recovered from Annabel's abuse.

"When are you going to tell everyone else?" he asks.

Now I'm the one looking shit scared. This may have gone better than expected, but no way in hell am I ready to do that. I need at least another ten years.

#

I manage to convince Jamie to keep my secret to himself. Mainly through threats. I told him I'd instruct Annabel to summon evil spirits to curse him if he told a soul about what I can do. He shit himself. So that was funny. He's asked some pretty dumb questions so far. Do they float and walk through walls? being one of my personal favourites. I didn't realise people actually thought that shit. Messing with him is the best, though. He asked me something about if spirits can read minds, so I told him they could, just for the shits and giggles. He constantly looks like he's on edge now, it's brilliant.

It turns out he's actually quite a valuable asset. I've not revealed everything, but I've hinted that there may be something weird going on, and that our run in with the poltergeist isn't the first shady thing to have happened recently. He read Ava's book on spirits within three days, and is on a constant internet search to find out more about life after death. He even thinks he's found what my stalker friends are, and he might be onto something. He reckons they're these things called Trackers.

Their appearance isn't known, so we can't guess based on that, but the online forum post Jamie found defines them as creatures formed of the remnants of disfigured souls created to locate stranded spirits and/or enemies in order to aid in furthering the agenda of dark forces, and eliminate potential interferences. Their name is literally a synonym for stalker, which they one-hundred percent are, and the spirit at the manor mentioned their usual task being locating spirits, so it sounds close enough. Plus I've always been a bit of an interference.

I'm silently hoping that the so-called dark forces consist of the one poltergeist we ran into the other night, and that it stops there. This poltergeist has a vendetta against me because I was rude to it five years ago or something, so the bastard has sent out some Trackers to find me. It finally got to me, and we evaded it, and we're all going to live happily ever after.

I'm about ninety-nine percent sure that's utter bullshit, but that's the theory I'm rolling with to make myself feel better about the probability that something is out to murder me. The fact it didn't immediately attack me outside the pub suggests something more complex, and as Jamie pointed out the other day, one of the first things Ava noted about the paranormal is that even those with abilities can't physically see the dead. The fact I can might spell bad news for me.

But I'm remaining optimistic. I'm sure everything is fine and I'm definitely not going to be dead by the time my first year of university is over.