The Ghost In My Bedroom - By Heather Jones Page 0,1

being when I can honestly say that the feeling is mutual."

"Huh?"

"You are my best friend too Lucy."

"Oh. Good." I went off to play with my toys and left him contemplating his sorry existence.

Ryan definitely had his influence on me too. My mother would get mad when I took her scissors to my dolls clothes and punked them up, adding excessive amounts of safety pins and coloring their hair in bright colors with my markers. My mother hated it, but Ryan seemed to like it, and I liked it when he was happy. He even talked me into dying my dirty blond hair flaming red using cherry gelatin. When it permanently stained my hair, she took me to the hairdresser and had them cut it all off to teach me a lesson. After that, I was more careful about the things I did for Ryan's enjoyment.

But eventually it happened. I turned into an obnoxious pre-teen. I was into boy bands, talking on the phone to boys, talking on the phone to my friends about boys, and just absolutely boy crazy. Ryan came to absolutely detest being in the same room with me as I would play my boy band music constantly, and so for a while I hardly saw him. He attempted to see if my sister Natalie would be as friendly towards a ghost as I had been, and tried to get her to see him for a long time. I think she did once, late at night as she was coming from our bathroom. Instead of going back to her room, she begged me to let her get into my bed, and I only did because she sounded so scared to be alone. I asked Ryan about it the next day.

"Did Natalie see you last night?"

"I think she did. Why do you care anyway, don't you have some friends to go talk to? You never have time for me anymore, and I'm so bored, I thought I might try making a new friend."

"I don't think she wants to be your friend. I think she is terrified that our house is haunted."

"But your house is haunted, Lu."

"She didn't know that and she was happier not knowing. I don't think you should bother her anymore."

"Whatever," he said and shuffled off. It was a few years after that when I outgrew the boy bands, I became irritated with my friends who hadn't outgrown talking on the phone and just stopped answering. I started wearing black all the time, which my mother again wondered about, but decided she had bigger problems to deal with as my older sister was still sleeping inexplicably with the lights on in her room.

It was when I was in high school that Ryan started talking to me again. My parents weren't thrilled with the local public high school so they bussed me off to a private school with uniforms and everything. None of my grade school friends went there and it took me a long time to meet anyone new. But one day after school as I was heading for the bus stop, a girl with brilliant blue hair was sucking on a cigarette with a familiar song blaring in her headphones. I tapped the girl on the shoulder and she turned and blew smoke in my face.

"What?" she demanded lifting up a headphone.

"Uh, hi. Can you tell me what you're listening to?"

"It's 'Just Like Heaven', you know, The Cure?" She rolled her eyes at me and went back to being an outcast loiterer.

I heard Ryan sing this song so many times but I never actually heard it for real. It was magnificent. As I headed out to the bus stop I decided I would have to pick up the CD next time I was at a music store. I found the song on Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, I smiled at the big red lips on the cover and headed to the register. I barely had enough babysitting money to pay for it. When I got home, Ryan was in my room. As usual he got up to leave as I entered but I asked him to hold on, I had a surprise for him. I hid the CD as I fumbled with the packaging, finally I got it in the CD player and forwarded to "Just Like Heaven", as I didn't know the other songs. I waited with anticipation watching his face expecting a happy reaction. Instead, his face grew very serious and he looked