Just a ghost girl

Waiting

The session with Klaus had gone on and on. But eventually, he had freed me and it was agreed that I would come again next week at the same time. It was not really my piece of cake to go to the shrink's office anymore but it was not like I had a choice. And if I was lucky my bait had worked and I would soon see Matteo and be able to tell him everything.  

How should I tell him, I wondered. Should I just look him in the eyes and say: "I remember everything." Would that be enough for him to understand? Or maybe it was confusing? It was not like I remembered everything. I just remembered the most important thing there was to remember, probably. Maybe I should be straight and say: "I remember. I love you."

If it would have been possible I would have turned red on my face but luckily emotions didn't affect the hologram if I didn't want to. It was a kind of nice ability to have especially when I seemed to react strongly to most of the feelings that I had. 

For some reason saying out loud the "I love you" part felt like it was the first time. But we had probably dated some time now already. It shouldn't be this hard to confess my love again. Yet something felt off. Maybe it was the current distance that was between us. Maybe I should try some other way to tell Matteo that I remembered the kiss and his confession and me saying yes. Because if something had happened after those memories it might be very awkward for him. But what should I say?

There was knocking on the door. Matteo? So soon? But I wasn't ready to meet him yet. I didn't know what to say. Should I just blurb everything out or maybe he would just see it in my eyes that I remembered? What should I do? What should I do?

I took e deep breath even though it wasn't necessary for a ghost to breathe. But it helped me to calm down. I reminded myself that this was what I had wanted. To see him and talk to him. And it was Matteo for monkey's sake. This should be natural for us to talk things through. We had been friends forever. This wasn't that hard.

"Come in," I said.

I was very nervous, couldn't remember being this nervous forever. I kept saying to myself that it was Matteo, my Matteo. This should be piece of cake and everything would be fine. There was nothing to worry about. 

"Maybe you would like some company?" Rebecca said when coming through the door, "At least I wouldn't mind hanging out. 

It was kind of deja vu that Rebecca showed up. It had happened last time she had suddenly decided to come to see me. Back then I had also thought that it was Matteo since no one ever came to visit me. No one. Not even my best friend or currently probably my boyfriend, who knew. 

There were so many feelings inside me that I couldn't first handle any of them. There was disappointment, anger, feeling abandoned, loneliness, sadness and many others that I didn't even recognise. All the feelings inside me fought that which one of them would be the strongest. That what I would decide to feel. Fo my surprise I felt like laughing it was just so wrong.

When I had said that I was lonely and needed my friend that had always been there for my something had gone wrong with the translation because they had sent Rebecca. It was so obvious of the way she excused herself in my companion. There must be some old seniles responsible for my mental health if they couldn't understand the difference between a lifetime friend and a random classmate. Or maybe they thought that I needed some chit chat between girls. How annoying.

So what should I do with Rebecca? There she was standing awkwardly smiling in front of me. I could say no or I could say yes. If I said no I would be alone as always and it wouldn't probably help at all meeting with Matteo. Saying yes didn't help meeting with Matteo either but at least for a moment, I would have some company.

Although Rebecca wasn't here because it was her first choice but probably she wasn't forced to come here either. What I could remember about her was that she was quite a nice and quiet girl. And since I hadn't any other friends it wouldn't hurt for me to try having one more. Rebecca and I might come along just fine.

"Sure," I answered, "What would you like to do?"

She looked a little bit stunned. Was it because she had thought me to say no or because she couldn't come up with any activity you could do with a hologram. Not that I had many ideas of what to do that's why I was bored most of the time.

"I'm fine with anything," Rebecca answered.

This was new to me. I had always followed Matteo and he had always had these visions of what to do next and how our day would go on. Of course, he had asked me from time to time what I wanted to do and my answers had mostly been what Rebecca had just said or "what you just said sounds fun".  Most of the time he didn't bother asking because he knew that I would just go whatever he suggested.

There was an option to answer Rebecca that I was also fine with everything but after that sentence, we would probably just stand there staring at floors or ceilings. So it was up to me to decide what to do. Then I just needed to figure out something to do. I looked around in my room. There wasn't much in it but then I saw a chessboard. I couldn't remember owning one maybe it had been brought here when it had been suggested that I start playing chess daily.

"Do you know how to play chess?" I asked.

Rebecca looked in the direction of the chessboard.

"No, I haven't ever played," she said, "But I'm willing to learn."

It really felt odd to hear all my words coming out of Rebecca's mouth. I hadn't even realized how similar we were and we had been classmates for years.

"Well I can teach but you have to move the pieces," I said.

So we assembled the game. Rebecca followed my instructions and then we took a couple of practice games so that she would understand the rules. It was a kind of nice way of spending time. Rebecca was very nice and she even laughed at my stupid jokes. And as far as I could tell she seemed genuine. That she wasn't pretending of having good times.

"Can I ask you something?" Rebecca asked after one game.

"Sure," I answered, "You can ask anything you want but whether I answer depends on the question."

And it also depended if I could remember the answer. It was sometimes hard when you suffered amnesia. Rebecca hesitated maybe because my answer was odd. It was just the way I had always answered if someone had asked permission to ask questions.

"What's your gift?" she asked.

I couldn't understand her question. My gift? Did I have some kind of gift? 

"What do  you mean?" I asked.

She looked surprised at my question and then pointed at my left hand.

"You have the mark of a gifted person in your hand. Is it just a decoration of the hologram or do you really have one?"

 I looked at the mark on my hand. It had always been there and was part of me that I even forgot from time to time that it was there. My mom had called it a birth mark and that had gotten it from my father who also had one on his hand. Since I probably looked confused Rebecca continued:

"You know about the gifted people right? People that can see through walls, lift heavy weights, run faster than lightning..."

It was like the sound of broken glass inside my head when she mentioned running faster than lightning. Suddenly I remembered that Matteo had also a similar kind of mark on the bottom of his left leg. And there was a reason why he was so much faster than I. He had a gift. He could run faster than any human or animal. He had once had a competition with greyhound and he had won. His goal was to be faster than a car and he had trained for that. How had I forgotten that?

"I'm also a gifted one," Rebecca said and showed a mark on her chest. "But my gift isn't anything special. I'm an empath."

I nodded slowly. If she was an empath it meant that she could detect people's feelings. 

"Can you see what I'm feeling?" I asked.

She was surprised by my question but covered it quickly.

"Unfortunately no," she said while shaking her head.

I nodded slowly. It wasn't really a big surprise. I was just a hologram. Holograms didn't have feelings. 

"So what is your gift?" she asked again.