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“How long have you been out here?” I asked.
He shrugged one shoulder and paddled back toward the shore. “Not long.”
“Too crowded in there for you?”
Ghost nodded slowly.
“I know the feeling,” I said. “When there’s so many people in such a small space, I usually want to run away and hide, too, especially when I don’t know everyone. But if you run away, you’ll never get to know people, and they’ll miss out on getting to know you.”
Ghost snorted and stayed where he was, his bulb shifting from blue to green.
I sighed and squatted in the pebbles and rocks lining the lake shore. “I know it’s hard, but it’d mean a lot to me if you’d try, Ghost. I really want them to like you, and I want you to like them. I’m sure if you give them a chance, they’ll love you.”
He squirmed nervously in the water before shaking his head. “They’re afraid of me,” he said in a smattering of recorded voices. “They think I’m dangerous.”
“Well, to be fair, you are dangerous in certain situations. Most people are when pushed. It’s not unique to you.” I gave up squatting because my calves were starting to hurt and stood back up. “Here’s the thing. If you want them to think differently about you, you have to show them you’re different, Ghost. How can you do that if you’re all the way out here?”
He was quiet, dipping further into the water.
“I know you want to keep me all to yourself, but you can’t,” I said firmly. “I’d be miserable without other people around at least some of the time, Ghost. You don’t want me to be miserable, do you?”
“No,” he grumbled sullenly.
I pushed to my feet. “I’m not saying you have to like it. You don’t have to like all of them. Hell, I’m not sure I like all of them all the time. Friends are weird that way. I won’t force you tocome inside if you don’t want to, but…” I shoved my hands in my pockets and looked around before kicking a pebble into the lake. “I guess I just wanted you to know you were missed, and that I wanted you there. If you give them the chance to get to know you, I’m sure they’ll like you too.”
“Safer here,” Ghost insisted. “For everyone.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “But you know what? If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that playing it safe all the time leads to a lonely life full of regrets. You miss out on all the best things in life if you don’t take any risks. Sometimes, being safe isn’t worth it. You’ve got to find a balance, you know? And I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s not. But it’s worth trying, isn’t it? Anything’s better than being alone forever.”
Ghost stayed silent, treading water out in the lake. After a few minutes, he turned away and dove into its depths without a single word.
I let out a frustrated sigh and turned awake from the lake. Maybe I was asking too much of him. After all, he’d spent most of his life in isolation. Suddenly being thrust into a social setting and being expected to function gracefully wasn’t easy. I should know. That’s what’d happened to me after my parents died.
I had spent the first eight years of my life living on the road with them. We drove from place to place in that old RV, meeting with everyone from the president to other monsters to random bikers we met on the road. Everyone was welcome, but no one stayed long, and we didn’t linger either. There was always some new town to visit, some new person to help.
And then Mom and Dad went away, and they didn’t come back. When I heard they died, I didn’t believe it. I was furious for months, convinced people were lying to me. If they were dead, why wasn’t there a funeral? Where were their caskets? Their headstones? Their bodies?
It took me a year to accept it was true, and many more to accept that it was just me and Honor.
Even then, I thought we’d stay on the road forever.
When we settled down in Michigan, everything was weird. I had to go to school. I had to learn the hard way that other kids thought it was weird that I had a mom, a dad, and a pop. They thought I was weird for having long hair and talking to animals, and for saving spiders, and telling them not to crush bees. Things only got worse as I got older and the other kids got laptops and phones. They played sports, which I could never do because that required getting a physical, and a physical meant seeing a doctor. I missed out on field trips because leaving the area was too risky and I had to have a special high-sugar diet that chaperones couldn’t know about.
While everyone else was fretting over who to ask to the homecoming dance, I was being lectured daily not to let anyone get too close, or they might discover my secret.
That I was different.
I was inhuman.
So I was alone.
But I was okay as long as I had Honor to talk to. He understood. He cared, and he’d watch over me, make sure nothing bad happened.
Then he disappeared too and for the first time in my life, I really was alone.
I had missed out on so much life growing up. It wasn’t fair, even if it was for a good and valid reason. Honor had been trying to protect me. I knew that, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. All I had ever wanted was a friend, someone who wouldn’t judge me for being weird or different.
I stopped just outside the house, standing in the pale glow coming through the frosted windows. On the other side of the glass, Robert had his arm slung around Hopper’s shoulders,grinning stupidly while they watched Cupid do pushups with Charlie on his back. Phoenix had Junior on his shoulders while Bud stood nervously to the side, his hands ready to catch the little verrid if he fell. Even Chris and Ollie were in there, leaning in to watch something on Ben’s phone as he talked them through whatever it was.
