The first thing Odyssey did was run.

Lily wasn't even sure if Odyssey had ever looked up to see who she was; she just bolted, right back the way she'd come. Lily took a step forward with a little exclamation of surprise, but she sunk back onto her heels again, deciding that it would be a bad idea to run after Odyssey. She watched for a moment as Odyssey weaved through the crowd, her dark hair waving behind her like it was in a hurry of its own. Lily thought she must have seen and recognized her when they ran into one another, or she wouldn't have turned away so quickly. Lily sighed, just enough to feel it, and checked her phone. 7:28, her lock screen informed her. With one last look in Odyssey's direction, she turned and headed the other way.

As she stood at the crosswalk nearest her school, Lily thought that there must be some reason why she and Odyssey kept running into one another.

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Odyssey didn't know why she'd turned around. She ran because she knew that girl, that was the girl who'd seen her cry. She didn't look at the other girl's face but she saw her shoes and her coat and it was definitely the same girl. But Odyssey had run the same direction she'd come from, and she didn't know why she'd done that. Now she had to turn around and follow the girl again. She hoped they didn't go to the same school because then she might meet the girl in the hall at some point and that would be awkward and Odyssey didn't like awkward. She knew because there was a boy she liked once and she tried to talk to him but he didn't hear her so he asked her to say it again and that was awkward and Odyssey had hated it so she turned and ran. There was also a kid that she tried to make friends with once and that didn't go well either. It had been awkward then too and Odyssey didn't want to be awkward again by trying to make another friend. Hmm, Odyssey ran from people a lot.

That made sense to her. People are terrible.

Odyssey was a little bit late to school that day but nobody ever noticed her anyway so nobody cared. She slipped into her math class and sat at the very back and prepared not to understand any of it because she was really bad at math.

That's when everything started to end.

Odyssey had never been kicked out of a class before, she had been kicked off the gym floor and out of the library but that was always by other students. Today her teacher told her about her failing grade (which she already knew about) and her low attendance rate (which she also already knew about) and told her she couldn't come back to class. The same thing happened in history, and her science teacher liked her but he said if she missed one more class he'd have to kick her out too. There wasn't an empty table in the lunch room that day and the last time she tried to sit with people they noticed her and told her how stupid she was, so she didn't eat that day, she just sat in the bathroom for thirty minutes. She didn't cry but she felt like she was going to and then she realized that she didn't care about any of it anymore.

In English at the end of the day they all paired off into teams of three and nobody would let her in on their team until one group couldn't find a third person and had to take her. But they didn't even acknowledge her for the entire session and she felt like she must be a ghost. She knew she should be upset that they were ignoring her and she knew she should speak up so they would have to listen to her but she'd tried that once and everyone just talked over her.

But then she realized that she liked being a ghost.

She thought about that and she wondered for how long she'd been a ghost and she realized it had been a very long time.

She thought about the last time she wasn't a ghost and that was when everyone hated her and she knew she didn't want to go back to that.

She thought about how many thoughts she had and how a real ghost must not have that many thoughts.

She wasn't a ghost to her dad but she was something much worse, her mom was a ghost with her sometimes and she didn't think she liked anyone other than her mom, and over and over she thought how nice it would be to really really be a ghost and not feel anything.

People could ignore her, people could walk by her, and people could act like she didn't exist. And it would be right.

There was a bridge near Odyssey's house.

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Lily was on her way home, the same way she usually went, when she remembered how much it had rained a few days ago. The East River would be especially swollen, she thought. If she went to the Brooklyn Bridge, she'd be able to experience it for herself. Lily had always liked the sound of rushing water, and the stone of a bridge beneath her feet and hands as she leaned on the railing made her feel secure. Like the water so far below her was the turmoil of the world, and the bridge was her safe path and protection from it.

Maybe that was a bit too poetic. She liked it, though.

Lily really didn't want to go home without visiting the Bridge, and though she knew there would be more rainy days, she knew she needed to go today. She was already in the middle of a text to her mom when she thought about how strange that was, but she dismissed it as her own impatience and hit send. A few minutes later her mom replied that she could go, but not for too long. Lily thought maybe she should take the subway this time.

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Odyssey had walked right out of English and right out of the school. The hall monitor tried to stop her and ask if she had a pass, but she just started running. He couldn't catch her and she ran out the front door and down the street until she thought she'd probably lost him. She walked quickly and she wasn't sure if she'd ever had a simple goal that she was so invested in and it felt good to have that one big thought and all the other small ones in the back. She was going to be a ghost soon, and she could watch everyone and no one else could watch her and no one could hit her and most of all she wouldn't think so much.

She was walking for a long time, because to get to the bridge she had to go farther than she would go to her house. She saw it in the distance while she was on her normal road and she just turned and walked toward it. Sometimes she was in the middle of the road and almost got run over a couple of times, and she thought that would have been a boring way to become a ghost so she was glad it didn't happen. Horns were honking and people were yelling and she didn't care and it felt good. Her dad was never going to hit her, her mom was never going to cry over her again—maybe she should ask her mom if she wants to become a ghost too—no, Mom would stop her. The people at school wouldn't call her weird anymore and her teachers wouldn't kick her out anymore and no one would tell her she needed to go to a weird people school again because ghosts don't care if you're weird.

She thought about that part some more. Do ghosts have ghost friends, or do they all live on different levels, maybe with sheets of something between them so they can't get to one another? That was when she had her first doubt. Did she really want to be all alone? Would being a ghost be good if there were no other ghosts to spend time with?

She would figure that out soon.

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Lily wondered briefly why she picked the Brooklyn Bridge. Probably because it was so old and beautiful. It had survived all the change in the city but didn't change with it. It was something of a special bridge. There were wide sidewalks that she could walk on without constantly being crushed by other people, and—well. Lily liked arches.

The subway didn't smell good, and so many of the people looked dead inside. Lily thought that was sad. And a bit awkward.

It was a good opportunity to watch people, though, so Lily pulled out her notebook. She wrote down all the words she could understand of a nearby German conversation, and the ones that she didn't know but might be able to figure out she wrote as well. A boy that was maybe three years older than Lily was sitting across from her, with a service dog under his seat. The dog would look up at his owner, look around at his surroundings, look back at his owner, and then rest his head on his paws as his eyes continued to flit about. The kid, Lily understood, was blind, and Lily recalled a friend she'd had in seventh grade who was blind. Callie had moved to a special needs institute, but she said she liked it there. The kid in the subway was college age, and Lily wondered what he liked to do.

Callie played a beautiful guitar that she had decorated all over with raised stickers. She said she could find the right frets and strings without them, but she liked to memorize the sticker patterns so she could play even better. She said it made her feel like she knew the guitar itself, and not just the music she was playing. All of Callie's songs, the ones that she wrote, made Lily think about the different people she had met. How special and valuable they all were, whether Lily knew them or not. Someone knew all of them.

Lily felt a sudden urgency that she couldn't explain to herself, and she closed her notebook and watched the stops go by.

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Odyssey wondered briefly why she picked the Brooklyn Bridge. It was big and pretty and probably busy and she didn't really want anyone to try and stop her. She didn't think anyone would because no one cares about her, but still someone might see her and try to pull her away from the edge. Maybe if she jumped fast enough no one could get her.

Odyssey knew it had to be the Brooklyn Bridge if she was going to do it, though. Something was telling her that and she didn't know why.

But suddenly she was there and the bridge was right in front of her and so was the water. Odyssey didn't smile, and she didn't cry either. She didn't really feel anything right now. But it was a long bridge so she started walking, because there was no way she was jumping from anywhere but the very middle. People's cars were rushing by on her right, going the other way, as she stepped onto the bridge's wooden sidewalk and suddenly she felt something inside her swell up and she thought it must have been her life. This was it. She didn't know if she was relieved or terrified. She still didn't feel anything so she couldn't have said.

There was something she liked about ending in such a pretty place. The bridge was under her and over her and all around her and she almost felt safe, and when she finally got to the middle she stopped and didn't go to the railing. There weren't many people on the bridge that day. Odyssey looked up at the arch on the other side of the bridge, and for a moment she wished she was under that arch because it was strong and it was beautiful. She thought maybe there was nothing wrong with enjoying her last minutes of being a human, but when she looked away she decided that she should die first and then let that be the first thing she stood (do ghosts stand?) under once she was a ghost. She could stay there as long as she wanted then.

So Odyssey walked to the railing and looked down. That was when she had her second doubt.

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Lily hurried off the subway and up the stairs to the street. Maybe she thought that the water would subside too much before she got there, or maybe she thought that the bridge would be too busy if she waited much longer. Maybe she just wanted to get there and get home, so that she could get her homework done and sit in the Nest. She couldn't really tell herself why she was in such a hurry, but she didn't try to slow down.

She couldn't tell herself why she wanted to be in the middle of the bridge, either, but she chalked that down to wanting the best view of the water.

Now all that was left to explain was that bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

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As soon as Odyssey looked down at the water she felt something.

It was a lot farther down than she had expected. She thought maybe she was scared of it and the water was churning like she hadn't seen it churn before and she saw her hands shake against the stone railing. The water looked cold and the fall looked breathtaking and she wondered if this was what she really wanted.

But then she'd just been kicked out of most of her classes and walked out of one and gotten in trouble in the hall and her dad would kill her anyway when she got home so she thought this was probably her only good option.

But she kept standing there and staring at the water.

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Lily was running by the time she neared the center of the bridge. Almost no one was walking with her on the sidewalk. The dread in her stomach kept building, and that in and of itself was beginning to scare her. What was she doing here? She understood now that she wasn't here to sightsee.

She could hear the water thundering hundreds of feet below her, and it was just as beautiful as always but more terrifying than she had ever found it to be. What was she doing here?

A sudden, out-of-place thought entered her head; she wondered what it would be like to fall all those feet to the water. She shook it away fearfully as she continued to hurry along.

What was she doing here?

That's when she saw Odyssey standing at the railing, leaning uncertainly over the void. Lily froze. Odyssey lifted her head, turned, and glimpsed Lily in the middle of the sidewalk. Odyssey's eyes widened as Lily felt hers do the same. Then Odyssey whirled back to the rail and scraped the toes of her shoes against it, losing her grip as she tried to climb over.

Everything clicked into place.

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It was that girl. She was standing on the bridge and Odyssey had to jump now.

Why couldn't she get over this railing?

The girl was running and Odyssey couldn't make it over and she'd never seen anyone running that fast and the girl was yelling at her and Odyssey might've been yelling too and—

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"Let me jump!"

Odyssey screamed and twisted, yanking her wrist out of Lily's grasp only for Lily to grab her again and wrestle her back. "Let me jump!" Odyssey kept screaming, trying to drag Lily back toward the bridge railing and get her to let go. She kicked and struggled, one moment trying to pull away and the next moment grabbing Lily's arm to throw her off. She succeeded twice, thrusting Lily back in the direction of the road, but Lily only grabbed her again.
"No! No, you don't want this, Odyssey, come back!"
A moment later Odyssey just stopped. She stood with her head down, hardly even panting for air, and tugged herself gently out of Lily's grip. Lily was still reaching out, her hand hovering just over Odyssey's shoulder.

"Let me jump." Odyssey's voice was quiet this time, and the lack of emotion was almost more terrifying than the raging from before. Lily stood just as still, watching as Odyssey stared down at the water beneath them.
"No."

Odyssey looked up slowly, making eye contact for the first time since Lily knocked her books out of her hands walking home from school. This time, Odyssey didn't turn away.
"I don't know you," she whispered.

A moment later Odyssey was on the ground, kneeling as low as she could and crying as if no one was there. She cried saltwater into her hair and onto the sidewalk at her feet, and Lily kneeled just the same as she did. She found herself crying as well. At that moment, with all their differences, they were mirror images of each other.

They cried for a long time. Neither of them said anything, and neither of them tried to figure out what was going on.

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Odyssey didn't have any thoughts.

No thoughts. She didn't know you could do that without dying.

Her head was hurting. Sometimes it hurt when she cried. But there was nothing going on inside of it, and for once the world seemed quiet. She looked up at the arch again. It was pretty.

She didn't think she had ever felt anything more beautiful than her empty head and didn't think she ever would, but then her blank mind gave her one unfamiliar thought that proved her wrong.

I'm okay.

I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay I'm—

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"I'm okay," Odyssey said, calmly, and Lily realized that they had both stopped crying half a minute ago. Odyssey continued to sit with her head down, and Lily just watched her.
Odyssey pushed her hair back out of her face then, and she looked back over her shoulder at the churning water. She pointed, looking a lot like a child pointing at something new. "It's not like that anymore."
"What's not like that anymore?"
Odyssey paused, then looked up at Lily again. She looked clear and almost happy. "I meant my head. I can think now."

"Is it usually hard to think?"
"Kind of. It's hard to think about just one thing."
"Too many thoughts?"
"How did you know?"
"Not sure. I think I've felt like that before too."

Silence for several minutes, maybe two or three, and then Odyssey spoke again.

"I usually put my thoughts in here." Odyssey pulled her journal out at this point, flipping aimlessly through it for a moment. She hesitated, then handed the journal to Lily. "You can read it. I can't stop thinking about stuff until I put it in there. And—sometimes when my dad hits me I can stop thinking about stuff."

Lily looked at Odyssey's face, really looked at it, and began to notice the small bruises and mostly-healed scratches under her skin. There was one little scar just over her left eye. "Your dad hits you?" She asked, trying to sound impassive, and she opened the cover of the journal very carefully.
Odyssey watched as she turned the first page, seeming to wonder whether she should take the journal back and not let Lily see it. She did answer eventually. "He hits my mom more," she said. "But yeah, sometimes. It doesn't hurt that bad." She shrugged and picked some lint off her pants.

"That's not good, Odyssey. Your dad shouldn't hit you."
"I know. It's scary. But I can't do anything. The police couldn't do anything either that one time." She looked up sharply. "Please don't call the cops on my dad."
"I won't," Lily promised, looking down at the scrawling handwriting on the paper. She pulled her own notebook out of her jacket pocket and handed it to Odyssey. "But if you need my help I can give you my phone number."

Odyssey was looking at the notebook Lily had handed her, and she grinned a little as she turned it over in her hands. "It's cute! It's so tiny," she said, and she flipped open the cover. Lily smiled.
"It is kinda cute," she said. "I guess I never thought about that."
"Did you paint the front of it?"
"Yeah, I did. I like to paint."
"I like the way paint smells, but I can't paint a picture."
"That's fine."

Odyssey fell silent for several minutes, reading several pages of Lily's notes. Lily went back to Odyssey's journal. It didn't make much sense for the most part, and Odyssey never indented between thoughts, but sometimes she would write little things that seemed simple but clearly meant a lot to her. It was... it was nice to read. Almost like being right inside someone else's head. Some of what Odyssey thought was dark, and there were a couple of notes about her dad abusing their family, but she wrote all of it with such certainty and finality. Like that was just how it was. Lily thought Odyssey must be a very strong person.

"Your thoughts are pretty," Odyssey said at one point, and Lily looked up. Odyssey still had her eyes lowered, reading Lily's notebook, and she pointed to a particular passage. Lily shifted to see what she was pointing to. People don't make any sense until you know what they do with their lives.
"I've had that thought before," Odyssey said, with a note of wonder in her voice. She looked up at Lily and smiled. "We think the same stuff sometimes!"

Lily grinned, then pointed to something in Odyssey's notebook. I like to spend time with my mom because she makes good pizza and the restaurants don't make it that good. "I've had that one before," she replied.
Odyssey smiled even bigger. "I like you," she said decisively. "I've never had a friend before. Well, not really. Did you say I can have your phone number? Wait!" She cut Lily off before she could reply. "Are you seventeen?"
"Yeah, I am."
"I'm seventeen! Some people say I act like a little kid though. Is that okay?"
"It's fine with me. And yeah, you can have my phone number. Can I write it here?" She pointed to a blank spot in Odyssey's journal.

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Odyssey didn't want to be a ghost anymore.