When Julia woke up she found me sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around my knees, crying. She quietly put a hand on my shoulder and spoke softly and slowly, which must have taken great effort on her part.

"Vivian, what's wrong?"

"Molly, I keep seeing Molly," I said in a meek and trembling voice.

"In your dreams?" Julia asked cautiously. Her eyes were wide with concern. It didn't matter if she thought I was a freak or not, I just couldn't hold it in. Pretending to be a normal girl was so much work and right then I felt so shattered and broken. The pieces of 'me', they just didn't add up to a whole rational being at that moment. So I let my secrets spill out, filling the quiet space that hung in the air.

"No, when I'm awake. I see her, or at least, I see an image of her. I first saw her a little over a week ago just after we moved here. She gave me a necklace."

I pulled the necklace with the little gold coin on it from underneath my shirt and held it up for Julia to see. She tentatively touched the coin with her pointer finger, a look of disbelief stretched across her face.

I prepared myself for the worst; a scream, a confrontation, an awkward silence . . .

"Oh! My! God!" Julia spit each word out one by one, slowly and deliberately. She rocked back on her heels shaking her head and I was shocked to see a smile making its way across her face.

"Are you kidding me? Like a ghost? Like a real, honest to goodness, ghost? Viv, this is increadable!"

Alright, I have to admit, this was not a reaction I was expecting. I wasn't even quite sure how to react, so I just sat there in stunned silence gaping at her.

"I mean, seriously? The ghost of your dead twin sister is following you around? This is like some crazy day time television talk show shit, Viv! I've never met anyone that saw a real-life ghost before!"

She was much too excited about this.

"Yea, it's fantastic," I muttered, rolling my eyes.

Julia stopped cold, the smile quickly fading from her lips. Her demeanor went from giddy excitement to solemn regret in a blink of an eye.

"I'm an idiot! Oh Vivian, I'm so sorry! Of course this must be awful for you, simply awful!" she exclaimed. Her hand was back on my shoulder and the look of concern had returned.

She believed me. I could see it in her eyes. Without hesitation she believed every word I was saying. She didn't think I was a freak or a liar or a crazy person. I let out a huge sigh, until then I hadn't been aware that I was holding my breath.

"There's more," I said. "There's a lot more."

"Alright, tell me everything girl. But first, pancakes!" Julia jumped up and pulled me to my feet. "Everything seems a lot less scary over pancakes, trust me."

I laughed despite still being in somewhat of a state of shock. By the time we spent half an hour goofing off in the kitchen creating something that at least mildly resembled blueberry pancakes, I felt much more like myself again. Having a true friend to confide in really did make a difference. When we sat down to eat I started my story from the beginning.

"The earliest memory I have is being five years old, sitting in my family's living room, watching cartoons. My sister Molly was sitting next to me but she wasn't watching the TV. She was picking at her clothes which she wasn't comfortable in for some reason and complaining about everything. I mean, that girl could do some complaining! She never seemed happy with anything around our house. Anyway, I was getting mad at her because she wouldn't stop talking and I couldn't hear the TV. I kept telling her to shut up and she kept right on complaining. Just as I was about to get really mad, the room got cold, fast. We looked up and saw a man standing in our living room. He looked confused like he wasn't sure where he was or how he got there. The scariest part was that I could see right through him! I screamed and Molly screamed. Our mother came rushing in the room to see what we were screaming at but she didn't see the man. I tried to tell her that he was there but she kept saying no one was there. After this happened a few times I stopped telling her, she never believed me and eventually I realized she really couldn't see what we were seeing anyway."

Julia chewed on a piece of bacon while she hung on my every word. I went on to tell her that this man appeared to us like this over and over again for the next year until finally one day he spoke to us.

"He was sitting on the edge of my bed while Molly and I played Barbie dolls. I was always Barbie and she was always Ken or sometimes Skipper - we had dyed their hair black with a sharpie marker so that when ever we played with them they left smudges of ink on our hands."

I laughed at the memory. It felt good to talk about Molly, especially memories that didn't involve her death.

"Suddenly, the ghost started to speak. He said he finally figured it out, that he was dead I mean. Molly told him he was a 'stupid-head' because we had known that all along. We were six years old by then and thought we knew everything. He told us that he had been 'walking in the dark' for a long time but then one day had followed a speck of light that led him to us. He was happy that he wasn't alone anymore and said the darkness was frightening but didn't want to talk about it. His name was Rusty and he's been a part of my life ever since."

Julia's glass of orange juice slammed against the table with a loud clank. She grabbed a napkin to wipe up some juice that had spilled out onto the table.

"Are you kidding me? So this one ghost has been haunting you for the last, what, eleven years? That's amazing!"

"That's not the half of it! Several more ghosts came and went over the years but there are three that never seem to go away. Rusty is one of them, the first one. The others are Katrina and Miranda."

I shuddered at the thought of Katrina, she was bad news.

"Miranda is a cute, although terribly sad, little girl. Katrina is a loopy bitch; slutty, mean and manipulative. She died wearing some lingerie a stripper would be proud of, if that tells you anything about her."

Julia giggled, intrigued by my growing list of tagalongs. We spent two hours going over all the details of my haunted life so far.

"And all of this didn't drive you or Molly completely mad?" Julia was shocked.

"Well, only I could hear them talking. That was annoying, let me tell you. I had to repeat everything they said so Molly would know what was going on."

"Wait, what do you mean only you could hear them?"

I became slightly nervous. This could have been the bit of information that pushed Julia over the edge and made the difference between her continuing to believe me or not.

"When they talk to me, it's not out loud, not like you and I are talking right now. When they want to say something I can hear them in my head. It feels awful; like someone else taking control of my brain and so loudly!"

Julia considered this for a moment. It surely didn't sound any less reasonable that anything else she had readily believed so she accepted it without question. My fears subsided once again and I continued to share my memories with her once again.

When the conversation stated to come to an end I made a last minute decision to share my deepest regret with Julia. She was now the best friend I had ever had and the only person that had ever believed what I was saying about the ghosts. I felt she deserved to know more about me.

"I feel responsible for Molly's suicide," I said quietly, looking down at my hands folded in my lap. Tears started to well up in my eyes immediately at just the thought of it.

"Whatever for, Viv? It sounds like you two were very close," Julia offered.

I shook my head. It took a few moments before I could compose myself enough to continue.

"We were, at times. We also fought a lot. I know all sisters do, it's just, I started to pull away from her the last few years. The more the ghosts talked to me the less I shared with Molly. They became like my family. We never really felt a tight family bond with our parents, neither of us did. It always felt like were on the outside looking in at a married couple we knew little about. Molly and I disagreed on so much. She liked to dwell on the past and she was very critical and sharp witted which I used to think was strength but I guess it wasn't. Anyway, over time I just let her slid away while I continued on with my life as best I could. I became obsessed with trying to be perceived as normal and she wanted to hang back outside of the crowds. She wanted nothing to do with our parents, and nothing to do with the other kids at school. I had to separate myself from her. "

Now I was really crying. I knew it was my fault that Molly was dead. What I thought was indifference on her part was clearly depression, which I ignored. Julia tried to comfort me, but I really just needed to cry and cry some more. I had always known, deep down inside, that I was to blame. This was the first time I had ever said it out loud.