The next day I make it to school on time and am early enough to have breakfast in the cafeteria. Zachariah stares at me as I shrink into a single seat in the corner, but he doesn't say anything.

He keeps that up for the rest of the day. I should be happy that today he's leaving me alone, but I find myself scanning the room for him whenever he walks away from my side. I shouldn't. But I do.

On the walk back to my aunt's house, he follows behind me by ten paces. Before I can walk inside, he finally speaks.

"You didn't notice anything today, did you?"

What the heck is he talking about?

"I think you could have friends if you wanted them. People stare at you, and I hear them wonder if they should talk to you."

He must not be as smart as I thought he was. Everyone only does that because they feel sorry for me or think I'm crazy.

"I heard some say you turned down their offer to go to prom and senior night."

Yeah, because they probably just wanted to humiliate me. The end of the school year couldn't come quickly enough. Four weeks shouldn't take this long.

"Guess I shouldn't be so surprised that you ignore me. You do it to everyone. Like you're in a hurry to stay here with your aunt and her pervert boyfriend."

I glare back at him.

"Don't follow me around anymore, and don't talk to me anymore either."

He shrugs. "I didn't ask to be attached to a stuck-up princess. You made that decision for me."

I turn away and run through the front door and into my room. How could he not understand that I thought I was saving him? I'd do anything to switch places with him, at least I wouldn't get in anyone's way anymore.

I tuck myself into my bed and two minutes later, Zachariah appears. Since he appeared suddenly, I know he tried to run away again. Now that he's here, I try to will my eyes into drying up.

My door opens. It's Scott, here only to add to my already crappy day. I wish I could have convinced my aunt to keep the lock on my door.

He shuts the door behind him and comes over to the bed. My face should be hidden behind my covers, and it should look like I'm asleep. Maybe that would have been enough to keep him away a few months ago when I was seventeen, but not anymore, not since the accident.

"Why do you live like this?" Zachariah says, still next to me.

Scott is under the covers now, pulling at my clothes.

"I heard you talking to yourself outside, your aunt is not going to like that," he says.

"You got a second chance, live it," Zachariah says. His cold breath touches my forehead. He mutters something I can't make out.

"Fucking do something already!" he yells in my ear, and I feel my bangs whip across my forehead.

"I don't know what to do!" I yell towards him. The tears are back.

Scott pauses for a moment and says, "I'll do all the work, you just lie still."

Zachariah reaches over and grabs my hand. He actually grabs it. It's cold, as if he's been left outside in a snowstorm, but it's real. I can feel every digit and even the faint quick beating of a heart. He looks surprised and then his face hardens.

He twists my hand and covers it with his. He pulls me over to the edge of the bed and lifts my hand towards my desk. I'm still too surprised to fight back his ice-cold grip, so when he forces the scissors into my hand and closes my fingers around them, I don't resist.

"You can be strong. You don't have to let things happen to you, not while you still have a life to live," Zachariah says as he moves my hand toward Scott's chest.

I'm in shock and it appears Scott is too. He jumps up from my bed.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Get out!" I scream through tears. "Leave, now!"

"Oh you are going to regret that," he says as he comes forward.

Just then my door flies open. It's my aunt, finally here to catch him in the act. To see what I've been going through since she brought him home.

I hope that the situation is obvious. My heart is beating so furiously that I feel dizzy. I don't want to have to explain this.

"What is going on here?"

I guess I have to.

"Tell her everything," Zachariah says as he steps away from me.

"He-"

Scott cuts me off. "I heard her talking to herself outside and when I came up here to check on her she tried to stab me," he says quickly.

"That's not true," I say back.

"Scott, go downstairs."

He gives me one last look before leaving. My aunt rubs her temples with her thumbs.

"Alora, I think you better pack your things and go stay with a friend for a while."

Zachariah isn't touching me anymore, but I feel cold.

"Why should I have to go anywhere? He's the one who comes in here and..." I swallow my fear. "He touches me, Auntie and it's getting worse. I just want it to stop."

"Is that what the voice is telling you? Calm down, Alora. You haven't been yourself since the accident. You should surround yourself with friends right now. I'm too busy at the moment, but you can come back after the school year ends. That way I can spend more time with you and we can go to those counseling appointments together, okay?"

She wasn't going to listen. She didn't believe me, she was never going to believe me.

"Just grab your things, you're not going to be able to convince her," Zachariah says.

"Okay," I say to both of them.

***

I haven't made any friends in the last hour, so I still have nowhere to go. It's nearly dusk, and my shoulder is getting tired from lugging around my backpack and duffle bag.

"Let's go to my house," Zachariah says.

"I don't want to see your mom, Zachariah," I say. "I can't handle that on top of everything else."

It's no trouble talking to him now, I've got nothing else to lose. And if a van comes to take me to the looney bin, at least I would have someplace to stay. I just wish he could help me carry one of my bags, but he can't seem to touch anything without phasing through it. Anything except for me.

"She works a night shift, so the house will be empty until 9 am tomorrow. I know where the spare key is. Come on. You can't sleep outside."

He's not wrong. I let him lead the way as we exit the block.

Zachariah had lived not too far from my aunt's house. Just a street away actually. It's crazy to think we had only crossed paths going to school on the one day when it didn't end well. Crazier, is how different neighborhoods can be, even only a street apart.

My aunt's house is by no means a mansion or even nice, hell, it isn't even a whole house. But it is part of the new townhouse development that tries to stack as many people on top of each other as possible. On this street where he used to live, there are actual houses. Bungalows that, while small, still have their own lawns and backyards. They're older, with many having chipped paint and rusted chain-link fences. But it's quieter, and there are fewer cars driving down the road.

I follow Zachariah to one that's fence is slightly drooped to one side. The lawn is patchy, filled more with the memory of grass than actual turf. The cracked driveway has a Volkswagen parked on it, giving an orange cat the perfect place to take in the last rays of sunlight.

"Is this it?"

He nods and shuffles his transparent body over the low spot of the fence. He could have walked through it, I wonder if he realizes that.

"I'll make sure she's gone."

Guess I'll wait here then. Next to the house is a vacant lot. There are some mounds of dirt amongst the weeds, and tire tracks crossing over them. I've ridden a bike, but never over ramps, let alone in the dirt. At least it won't look too out of place that a teenager is hanging around, even if I don't have a bike with me.

A few minutes later he waves me over. I toss my bags over the fence and carefully pull myself over the low point. Apparently, Zachariah's mom never invested in security cameras like everyone else, so sneaking through the back door with the key hidden under a flower pot is easy.

Zachariah leads me inside, and after I finish wiping my shoes, I follow. The living room is small, with a very used three-seater leather couch covered with handmade quilts that faces a modestly sized TV. Just off of that is a dining room that can just barely fit a table and four chairs inside of it. A vase of wildflowers sits at its center, simple and fragrant enough to fill the room.

"Over here," Zachariah calls, motioning to a hallway just off the living room. I catch up with him, and he points to the door at the end of the hall. He doesn't phase through it. He waits for me to open it.

I do, and we both see what he left behind.

His room is a mess.

There are textbooks scattered on his bed, comics on the floor, and clothes draped on his desk chair and TV. It smells very much like a teenage boy, slightly better than a locker room, but not by much.

When I look over to him, his bluish hue turns purple on his cheeks.

"Still better than sharing a room with a toddler," I say. I set my bags down. His mom left it just as he did all those weeks ago. And he expected me to be okay with speaking to her? No. Not after the hurt I've caused.

I take a picture of the bed so I can remember how to arrange it in the morning. Zachariah walks over and looks at his desk as I dress down to go to sleep.

"Sorry for being such a jerk to you earlier," he says.

"Don't be. I'm sorry for trying to ignore you."

"It was pretty lonely," he says, looking at his ghostly hands. "I'm sorry for grabbing you too."

I pull the covers up to my chin. I'm not sure if I should absolve him of that too. My situation has gotten a million times more complicated now, but I know what he did was probably for the best. I just don't want to talk about it.

"I didn't know you could touch me," I say instead.

"Me either."

He sits on the floor next to me.

"Today was pretty tough, you should get to sleep."

"I'll try, but no guarantees."

He chuckles. "How about I continue that fairytale from last night? That seemed to work."

I turn to my side.

"So the princess went back to her chambers, regretting the spaghetti she had stuffed herself with out of spite. Her father, the king, was not pleased," his voice is soft, and it takes only a moment before I fall asleep.