Ghosts at Lunch
1668 Words
*Chapter 2: Ghosts at Lunch*
The bell rang and the hall flooded with noise.
Maya kept her head down and moved with the current. Beanie low, backpack heavy. Two months back at Westbrook and it still felt like she was visiting someone else’s life.
People said hi. Too loud. Too careful.
“Hey Maya! You look great!”
“You feeling okay?”
“Want me to carry that for you?”
She mumbled thanks and kept walking.
She didn’t look great. Her hair was half an inch of fuzz, barely covering the scar behind her ear from the port they’d put in for chemo. Her eyebrows hadn’t grown back yet, so she’d gotten good at drawing them on in two seconds with a brown eyeliner she kept in her pencil case. Her eyelashes were coming back too, but slow.
And “okay” was a word she hadn’t used since October.
“Okay” meant normal. Normal was gone.
The cafeteria smelled like burnt pizza and old fries. Same as always. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Nothing had changed. That was the part that pissed her off the most.
Her old table was still in the back corner.
Liam was there. Alone.
He used to save her a seat. Used to steal her fries when she wasn’t looking and get smacked for it. Used to make stupid jokes about Mr. Delgado’s toupee until she snorted soda through her nose. Now he stared at his phone like it owed him money, shoulders hunched, hoodie pulled up even though it was May.
He looked up when she passed.
For half a second, it was junior year again. Before the party. Before Sarah. Before everything broke.
Before she knew what it felt like to see someone you trusted look at you like you were a mistake.
Maya kept walking.
She sat with Aisha instead. New girl. Transferred in January. She’d met her in the chemo support group at St. Luke’s. Aisha had leukemia, was in remission now, and had zero patience for pity or bullshit.
“Took you long enough,” Aisha said, sliding a bag of chips over. “I was about to eat your fries.”
“Those are mine,” Maya said. It came out sharper than she meant.
Aisha grinned. “Good. You’re back.”
Across the room, Liam was still watching.
Maya felt it like a weight on her chest, heavy and familiar.
She hated that he could still do that.
“You gonna stare all day or eat?” Aisha asked, nudging her.
Maya forced herself to look down at her lunch. Turkey sandwich, half-squished. Apple with brown spots. She hadn’t packed it. Her mom had.
“Staring,” Maya said.
“Wow. Mature.”
Aisha was the only person who could say stuff like that and not make Maya want to punch a wall. Maybe because Aisha got it. She’d spent 8 months in the hospital too. She knew what it was like to have your life paused and then hit play while everyone else was already at the end credits.
“So,” Aisha said, lowering her voice. “What’s the plan?”
“What plan?”
“The Liam plan. You gonna keep pretending he’s a ghost, or are you gonna say something?”
Maya tore her sandwich in half. “He doesn’t get to talk to me. Not after what he did.”
“That’s fair,” Aisha said. “But you’re spending a lot of energy being mad at a guy who sits alone every day.”
“He made his choice.”
“And you made yours,” Aisha said simply. “Now you’re both stuck.”
Maya didn’t answer. Because that was the worst part. She _was_ stuck. Stuck on junior year. Stuck on the sound of her own voice saying ‘it’s over’ and meaning it. Stuck on the way it felt to go through cancer without the one person she’d called every night since freshman year.
Across the room, Liam’s phone buzzed. He didn’t pick it up. Just flipped it over and stared at the table.
Maya looked away first.
---
***_
_March. Junior year. 11:47 PM._[Flashback]
Her phone lit up.
A picture from Sarah’s Snapchat story.
Liam’s arm around Sarah’s shoulders. Both of them laughing. Both of them drunk.
Caption: _Party was wild lol_
Maya didn’t scream. She didn’t cry.
She sat on her bathroom floor and stared at the tile until her mom knocked and asked if she was okay.
“I’m fine,” she said.
She wasn’t.
The next day she told him it was over in the parking lot before first period.
He cried. She didn’t.
She found out later that was the day her bloodwork came back weird.
Coincidence. Probably.
But her brain liked to connect the dots anyway.
---
“Earth to Maya.”
Aisha snapped her fingers in front of Maya’s face.
“You good?”
“Fine.”
“Liar.” Aisha followed her gaze to the back corner. “You gonna talk to him or keep pretending he doesn’t exist?”
“He doesn’t get to talk to me,” Maya said. “Not after what he did.”
Aisha leaned back, crossing her arms. “And cancer doesn’t get to decide that for you either.”
Maya flinched.
“I didn’t say you had to forgive him,” Aisha continued, voice softer now. “I said you don’t have to carry him around like a rock in your chest forever. That’s heavy, Maya. You’ve got enough going on.”
Maya stared at her hands. Her nails were short, bitten down from chemo anxiety.
“I don’t know how to not be mad,” she admitted quietly.
“Then don’t be,” Aisha said. “Not yet. But stop letting him live rent-free in your head. That’s the only power he has now.”
Maya didn’t answer.
The bell rang for 5th period.
Lunch was over.
Aisha stood up, slung her bag over her shoulder. “Chem next, right? I’ll walk with you. And Maya?”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever you decide about him, decide it for you. Not because you’re scared, and not because you’re angry. Okay?”
Maya nodded.
As they left the cafeteria, she felt Liam’s eyes on her again.
She didn’t look back.
---
The hallway was chaos. Lockers slamming, people shoving, someone yelling about a calc test.
Maya’s notebook slipped out of her arm.
Papers scattered everywhere. Chemistry notes, math homework, a doodle of a cat she’d drawn during bio when she was too tired to focus.
Before she could bend down, Liam was there.
He didn’t say anything. Just started picking up the pages, moving fast but careful, like he was afraid of creasing them.
Maya stood there, frozen.
Her chest felt tight. Not anger. Something worse. Something that felt like missing.
“Thanks,” she said. It came out flat, clipped.
Liam handed her the stack. His fingers brushed hers. Cold. His hands were always cold.
“Maya, I—”
“Don’t,” she said.
She took the notes and walked away without looking back.
Liam stood in the middle of the hallway, empty-handed, as the crowd swallowed him up.
Aisha caught up to her two seconds later.
“You okay?”
Maya nodded. She wasn’t.
“Good,” Aisha said. “You looked like you were gonna cry.”
“I don’t cry,” Maya said.
“Yeah, you do. You just do it in bathrooms.”
Maya almost laughed. Almost.
---
Chem class was on the second floor, room 214.
Mr. Delgado was already writing the day’s problem on the board when they slid into their seats.
Maya sat in her usual spot, third row, by the window.
Liam sat two rows behind her, left side.
He’d always sat there. Even after they broke up.
Maya tried to focus on the board. Balancing equations. Electrons and protons and bonds. Things that made sense if you followed the rules.
It was easier than people.
Ten minutes in, she felt it.
A folded piece of paper landed on her desk.
She didn’t turn around.
She didn’t open it.
She just stared at it like it might bite her.
“Pass it back,” she muttered without looking.
A second later, Aisha reached over and slid it back toward Liam’s desk.
“Rude,” Aisha whispered.
“Necessary,” Maya whispered back.
Mr. Delgado turned around. “Ladies, if you have something to share, share it with the class.”
“No sir,” they said in unison.
Maya kept her eyes on the board.
But she could feel Liam behind her.
He didn’t try again.
---
After class, Maya made it to the bathroom before her hands started shaking.
She locked herself in a stall and pressed her forehead against the cold metal door.
She hated that he still made her feel like this.
Hated that one look from him could undo two months of therapy.
Hated that part of her wanted him to keep talking. To explain. To beg.
Aisha was right.
She wasn’t carrying his mistake.
She was carrying the version of herself that believed she was enough to keep him from running.
And that version was dead.
She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes, and walked out.
Tomorrow was chem again.
Liam would sit two rows behind her.
She wasn’t ready.
But she was tired of running.
Tired of letting the worst thing he’d ever done define the best thing she’d ever had.
She didn’t know what came next.
But she knew she couldn’t keep pretending she didn’t care.
---
As she walked out, her phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
_I know you don’t want to hear from me.
I just wanted to say I’m glad you’re back.
-L*
Maya stared at it for a long time.
Then she deleted it.
But she didn’t block the number.
*[End Chapter 2]
- Writer
