Ghost of a Chance (2 page)

“Whatever,” I say, deciding it's time to get back to the topic at hand. “Basically what you're telling me is that now that Julie Dunham is dead, she knows you were telling the truth about the ghosts?”

My mom nods.

“But then why is she so upset about me being with Brandon? Shouldn't she realize now that you weren't just making excuses? Shouldn't she want me and Brandon to be together forever to make up for her totally overreacting and not believing you?”

My mom looks up sharply from her tea. “You don't really think you're going to be with Brandon Dunham forever, do you?”

I'm about to ask her what's so wrong with Brandon Dunham when I realize she's just doing the normal mom thing and being all worried that I'm going to get carried away about a boy when I'm only in seventh grade.

All her parental concern is annoying. She doesn't have a
right
to be worried about me. If I'm going to get ridiculously attached to some boy, it's my own choice. My own decision. And she lost her right to say anything about those decisions when she left twelve years ago.

“I don't know,” I say, just to be smart. I sit back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest. “Maybe I will marry him.”

She gives me a sad smile, like she knows what I'm doing. Then she shakes her head. “Kendall,” she says, “Julie Dunham isn't going to stop bothering you unless you and Brandon break up.”

“But
why
?” I ask again.

“Because she knows the ghosts will always come first.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that she knows Brandon will never be the first priority in your life. So she doesn't want the two of you to be together.”

“Of course Brandon is going to be the first priority in my life,” I say. I look around for Julie, almost hoping she's lurking in some corner somewhere so that she can hear this declaration. But she's nowhere to be found. The one time I actually want her here, she doesn't show up.

Whatever. She probably wouldn't believe me anyway. I mean, basically everything I've done these past few weeks has proven that I don't put Brandon before the ghosts.

But still. That doesn't mean I'm never going to. And Julie could have at least told me that was why she was getting so worked up. We could have talked about it. Like two rational adults.

“No.” My mom shakes her head. “Kendall, she knows he's not the first priority. And that he never will be.”

“How?”

“Because of what I did to her.”

“Oh.” It all clicks into place. Mrs. Dunham knows my mom wasn't there for her because of the ghosts, and now she's trying to protect Brandon from being with me so that he doesn't get hurt when I chose some ghost over him. But why should Mrs. Dunham judge me on the things my
mom
has done? And why does everyone have to be so up in my business? Seriously, it's like, focus on yourself.

“So what am I supposed to do?” I'm dangerously close to whining.

My mom shakes her head. “I can't answer that for you, Kendall.”

“You
can't
answer that for me? Or
won't
?”

She shakes her head. “You need to figure this out yourself. ”

Okay, now I'm completely infuriated. I mean, think about it. First my mom takes off when I'm a baby. Then, when I show up at her house twelve years later looking for a little help, she won't give me any. Not to mention the fact that she obviously knew there was at least a
chance
I was going to be able to see ghosts and she left anyway! She never thought, oh, I don't know,
Maybe Kendall's going to be a little bit freaked out about this whole seeing-dead-people thing, so maybe I should think about someone other than myself for once and stick around so I can explain it to her.

Talk about being selfish.

If she'd just done the right thing and stayed with me, I wouldn't be in this situation. If I'd known what was going on, I might have been able to calm Mrs. Dunham's fears before it got to this point. At the very least, my mom could have saved me from thinking I'm a complete and total crazy person every time a ghost showed up.

The anger that has been simmering my whole life, just waiting for someone to turn up the heat, boils up inside me.

I open my mouth to give my mom a piece of my mind, but then I realize I don't have the energy for some big scene. And then I start to wonder why I'm even here in the first place. My mom
left
me. When I was a
baby
. How can I expect a person who would do something like that to be any help whatsoever?

So after another moment of silence, I get up from the table and walk outside.

I halfway hope/expect my mom to stop me, but she doesn't.

The cab is sitting at the curb, right where I left it.

I climb inside.

“How'd it go?” the cabbie asks.

“No comment.”

He nods, like he's used to driving people places where things don't go exactly as planned. “Back to the bus station?”

“Yes, please.”

*  *  *

I fall asleep on the bus ride home. When I wake up, there's a crick in my neck, and my skin is all indented where my arm was pressing against the seat. Also, I'm pretty sure I was snoring.

The only thing that could make this ride worse would be if I missed my stop. Which, thankfully, I don't. (No thanks to the bus driver, who has, like, the softest voice ever. I really think bus drivers should be required to have loud, screaming voices. Otherwise, how are people going to wake up from their naps when it's time for them to get off ?)

When I get outside the station, I find my bike in the bike rack, right where I left it a few hours ago. The cold air bites my cheeks, and I rub my hands together, then reach into my pocket and slip on my gloves.

I'm not looking forward to the ride home. It's going to be cold and long, and I'm sure that when I get there, my dad is going to ask me a million questions about where I've been and what I've been up to. And what am I going to say? There's no way I can tell him I went to see my mom. I left him a note this morning saying I was going to Ellie's, so hopefully he'll believe I was with her the whole time.

I'm so sick of all the lying that I don't know what to do with myself.

I ride home slowly, taking my time as I wind through the streets. I know the faster I ride, the warmer I'll get and the quicker I'll get home and out of the cold, but my legs have no energy. I should be refreshed from the nap I took on the bus, but I'm not. I'm lethargic and woozy. It's like my emotional energy is so low, it's starting to interfere with my physical energy.

When I finally get to my house, there's a note in the kitchen right next to the one I left my dad this morning. He's out doing some furniture shopping with his girlfriend, Cindy, at the outlets.

So while I was worried about
him
worrying about
me
, he was out having fun with Cindy. They were probably picking out furniture for some new house they're planning on moving into without me. Maybe even a crib for a dumb baby they're going to end up having, and it won't see ghosts because it won't have my mom's screwed-up genes, and they'll love it so much that they'll totally forget about me.

I'm being dramatic and going into a complete shame spiral, and I don't even care.

All I want to do right now is feel sorry for myself.

So I decide to really wallow.

First I run upstairs and change into my favorite pajamas—pink-and-maroon-plaid pants and a matching shirt. Then I slide on a pair of soft and cozy lime-green socks. I pull my hair back into a simple ponytail, because honestly, what's the point of doing my hair? It's not like I have anyone to see or anywhere to go.

When I'm all dressed, I head back downstairs and pour myself a big glass of milk, then pull a package of cookie dough out of the refrigerator. I know it's totally cliché to be gorging myself on disgusting food, but I don't care. I plop the whole roll of dough into a bowl and then bring it
upstairs, where I turn on my computer and start streaming a cheesy romantic comedy.

I watch and eat, the whole time realizing how completely unrealistic the movie is. I mean, really, who thinks it's a good idea to send these kinds of messages to young girls? That some guy who's super-good-looking and popular is going to fall in love with them even though they're “normal”? It's all a big joke of a lie.

Still. These Hollywood types might be onto something, because I'm kind of into this movie. The popular guy is really hot. He looks like a young Channing Tatum. And he's not even that much of a jerk. He's just, you know,
misunderstood
.

Soon I'm at the part of the movie where the “nerdy” girl is about to get a makeover from her friends, causing the hero to realize the girl was beautiful this whole time, she just needed to take her glasses off and learn how to use some eye shadow.

I kind of hate myself for liking this movie, if you want to know the truth. How can taking your glasses off make you beautiful? Glasses are super-cute and trendy. I've even thought about getting some of those fake Kate Spade ones. Although they're really expensive, and I'd probably break them because I'm always—

DING-DONG.

The sound of the doorbell ringing causes me to drop
my cookie dough spoon. I look down at the almost-empty bowl. Wow. I didn't realize how much I'd eaten. The label says it has sixteen servings. Yikes.

The doorbell rings again. Probably a door-to-door salesman. Solicitors aren't supposed to be allowed in this town, but sometimes they don't listen. Like this one cable company that's always coming around, trying to get people to switch their service. My dad has called the police on them, like, five times, but no one ever does anything.

I turn the volume on the computer up a couple of notches to drown out the doorbell. A blob of cookie dough falls onto the keyboard. I pick it up and pop it into my mouth. It's official—I've hit a completely new level of disgustingness.

After another minute the doorbell rings again, followed by the sound of someone pounding on the door.

I glance out the window to see if I can spot a truck with the name of a company on it. I'm in just the right mood to call the town and lodge a complaint.

But there's no truck in the driveway.

I crane my neck so I can look down the street and see if there's a truck parked down the block. Sometimes these scoundrels try to get creative and hide their vehicle so people think they're Girl Scouts or something.

There's no truck down the block.

But there
is
a purple bike parked in my side yard.

A purple bike I would know anywhere.

A purple bike that belongs to my best friend, Ellie.

My hearts leaps into my throat.

Ellie's here!

Ellie rode her bike all the way over here, which only means one thing. She wants to make up!

Oh. Right. In addition to all my other problems, I forgot to mention that Ellie and I are in a fight. See, I was helping this ghost named Lyra, and I needed to get close to her brother, Micah. But obviously I couldn't tell Ellie the reason I needed to spend time with Micah. So when she caught me hanging out with him at the bowling alley, she was mad because I'd lied to her about where I was. Also she thought I must have a crush on Micah, which is totes ridiculous because hello, I like Brandon.

I throw a sweatshirt on over my pajama top and fly down the stairs.

She's still pounding on the door. Wow. She must really want to make up.

I fling it open mid-pound.

Ellie stares at me.

“Hi!” I say brightly.

She looks me up and down. “You're in your pajamas.”

“Yeah.” I shake out my ponytail and smooth my hair back. “I was watching a movie.”

She blinks. “It's only four o'clock.”

“I wanted to be comfy. You want to come in? I have extra pajamas and socks. We could watch movies together. I'm eating cookie dough.”

“I know,” she says. “You have some on your cheek.”

“Oh.” I reach up and brush it off. It falls onto the porch with a plop.

Then I notice there's a big cardboard box sitting behind Ellie on the porch. She picks it up and holds it out to me.

“Here.”

I take it. Wow. This thing is heavy. “Wow,” I say, “this is heavy. You rode this over here all by yourself ?”

“Yup.”

“Okay.” I'm having trouble seeing her over the top of the box. “Do you want to come in and open it with me?”

“
Open
it with you?” she asks, sounding kind of aghast.

“Yeah. It's a present, right?” What else would it be? Although I'm kind of embarrassed that she brought me a make-up gift. I didn't get her anything, and I'm the one who should be apologizing. Maybe I can bring her shopping so she can pick out her own present. Or maybe I'll make her a scrapbook or something.

Ooh, or one of those coupon books that you can trade in for, like, an hour of BFF time or something. I used to think those were kind of lame, but if I make the coupons worth something really good, it could definitely work.

“No, it's not a present,” Ellie says. Then she reaches out
and yanks the box right out of my hands and drops it onto the porch. Wow. It sounds like something might have broken in there.

“Then what is it?” I ask.

But I get my answer soon enough, because Ellie's down on her knees now, pulling things out of the box. My red sweater. A picture of us together at the beach. An orange sundress we each bought so we could dress like twins. A copy of an essay we wrote about bullying that got published in the school newspaper. My old iPod that I left at her house, the one that has this awesome playlist on it that we use to have crazy dance parties.