Of course, that wouldn't solve all of my problems. What could? But a little bit of the pressure was taken off after that night. My mom came downstairs the next day to find me asleep on the couch, hugging my arms, and apparently decided not to wake me up and inform me of how stupid I looked. Thanks, mom.

But the following week, when I went to school, things seemed a little brighter. I didn't listen to people as much when they called me annoying, or a dick, or whatever. Sure, I still heard it and it didn't feel that great. But I didn't listen. I knew there was at least one person who didn't see me that way, and surprisingly that was all I needed to know to lift my spirits just a little bit.

Meghan seemed to notice a couple days later during lunch, when I sat at her table again.

"You look happy."

"Eh, I don't know about happy. Just...less sad." I rested my chin in my palm and gazed behind her at some poster on the wall for some student-run club that nobody seemed to care about. She hesitated.

"Which is...good, right?"

I gave her an odd look. "What do you mean? Of course that's good."

"I know, it's just...some people prefer to be sad. I've met 'em. Not real fun people to be around, but que sera, sera. Y'know?"

"I guess."

Meghan Flores was a funny one. She was just about your stereotypical high school geek; you could smell the 711 soda on her, and having headgear and a lisp didn't help her image much. But she was one of the smartest and surprisingly most insightful people I knew, and pretty open-minded as well.

It was no wonder she was just another one of the rejects of the school.

Eventually, my mind wandered to something more troubling. No matter how much he told me...

"Meg, what would you do if somebody kept telling you that you're not a bad person, but you still don't believe it?"

She looked taken aback. "Oh. Um, Ave, you know lunch only started five minutes ago..."

I sighed. "I know. It's just been bothering me for a while. Wanted to get an opinion from, like, the most honest person I know."

"Aw, you couldn't be more wrong, but thanks. I guess...well, this probably isn't what someone giving advice would want to say, but I'd probably just keep it inside, to be honest. I know that's not what you want to hear—"

"No, I get it. That's what I'd do too. But it doesn't help. Maybe just...forget I said that. Okay?"

"Uh, okay. Do you have Ms. Henderson?"

"Yeah, why?"

The rest of lunch proceeded as usual, and I got no real answers for the rest of the day.

—

After checking to see that my mom wasn't home yet, I half-yelled my usual greeting to Ben.

"What's up, nerd."

Five seconds passed.

"What's up with you, douche," I heard muffled from upstairs. I gave in and smiled. He still remembers the first thing I officially said to him.

"What are you doing upstairs?"

"I got bored. You know, the only two places I really go in this house are the living room and your bedroom. It was bound to happen that I take a nice stroll even further up and find some of your childhood stuff..."

"What? No way."

I'd set down my bag on an armchair in the kitchen, about to grab a snack, but that could wait. Discoveries were being made. I rushed upstairs to the attic to find Ben crouched curiously over a cardboard box with something that resembled a moon lamp barely poking out.

"Oh my god...I haven't seen that in years!"

He turned around and gave me a funny look. "Really? How? It's, like, right here."

"Yeah, but I haven't had a reason to come up here in so long." I sat down next to him and started digging through all my old things, exhilarated by the feeling of memories rushing back to me. Ben laughed a bit.

"Then I guess we should explore together, hm?" He muttered, wrapping an arm around me. I snorted.

"Ha. Gay."

"Shut it, you."

I spent a couple of hours up there with him, sifting through the boxes, uncovering old (and sometimes embarrassing) stories, and feeling for just a tiny moment that for once, nothing was wrong with my life. Turns out, I really was obsessed with space as a kid. Given my current houseguest, I thought it'd be a bad idea to go down that road, but he somehow didn't seem to mind. In fact, it was pretty obvious that he found it cute. It made all this a whole lot more comforting.

Buzz.

"Coming home soon. Might need to order for dinner. Finish your homework soon"

"Hm." I bit my cheek at Mom's text and sighed, standing up. "Well, I guess we can't stick around here for much longer. My mom's gonna have a couple questions as to why I'm up here looking at all my junk from when I was ten."

"What if you brought some of it back down?"

I looked to my side to see Ben suspended in the air, cross-legged and with his thinking face on. After a moment, I smiled.

"Yeah. That'd be fun, wouldn't it."

Long story short, my room became just a tiny bit less empty than it was before, and nostalgia now flooded my senses every time I went upstairs after school.

The next week, I decided to lend some time to Jason, the poor kid. Nobody seemed to like him, either, so Meghan and I were kind of his only options when it came to socializing. It turns out he's a lot smarter than he lets on; he's scarily aware of what everybody says about him, he apparently hears "creepy" and "shithead" every day from whoever happens to be talking about him in the halls, and he hasn't had a real friend since 4th grade. His parents had become more distant, stopped setting up playdates for him with other kids, and before long he kind of just lost everybody who'd considered him normal as a friend. Before now I'd only felt a little bad for ignoring him in general, but not a day after I'd gotten the full story I decided to walk home with him from school.

It was definitely awkward. Like him, I hadn't actually walked alongside someone for a long time so I didn't really have anything to talk about. What could I talk about, anyway? Hey Jason, I have a ghost living in my house who also happens to be my new boyfriend as of a week ago? So I just stayed quiet until the topic of video games came up. I was very much an amateur at them (still am, to be honest) so I let Jason explain his undying passion for the Sonic franchise and why the fandom is single-handedly causing both Sega and the Internet's various communities to go downhill. He was enthusiastic, to say the least, which I did like. It was surprisingly hard to get someone to talk endlessly about something they like in high school, so it was refreshing to hear this, no less from someone I'd barely talked to before. It was probably cathartic for him, too, looking back.

After a while, my mind started trailing off, and I found myself nodding along to whatever Jason was saying, until he paused and stopped walking.

"...oh! Forgot, I have to stop by here to pick something up. I'm pretty sure I left my coat in here."

I snapped out of my little daze and looked up to the building we'd just paused at.

The old abandoned church.

"...so this thing's still running? People actually go here?"

"I know, right? I think they just don't wanna ask for the money to renovate it. They're pretty humble people, but not really the type to accept gifts or other people's cash that easily."

"Huh. So you go here too?"

"Yeah. I mean, it's mostly because of my parents. Pretty die-hard about the whole thing but I shouldn't judge. Everyone here's pretty nice, actually. I'd ask you to stop by, but we haven't had a new attendant in so long it'd be kind of awkward."

"Not really into the whole religion scene in general. But that's nice of you, Jason."

"I know." It took him a second to realize what it sounded like he was saying. "I-I mean about the religion thing! Uh..." he held up his hands defensively, and I laughed.

"No, it's fine. See you later."

"See you," he muttered, like he'd just blown his chance to make a good friend. But I strongly disagreed.