ghost girls in the new worlds.

as i may have mentioned before, i went to the same school for jr. high and high school.

in jr. high, i had three very close friends. they had been my friends in elementary school and we stayed close in the entirely different world that was seventh grade. two of them, jennifer and ewelina, decided to go to a different high school, while elizabeth and i decided to stay at the one we were already at.

fine.

so freshman year started and i honestly can't remember almost anything about it, but this one thing i can remember so clearly: in the hallways teeming with students, i would hallucinate.

i would think i saw jennifer and ewelina in every tall or short blond girl. i would look at the back of a girl's head and be so sure just for a split second that that girl was my girl, my friend.

and she never was, and in my realistic, calm mind, i knew that they weren't at my school, couldn't be.

but that didn't matter,

i hallway-hallucinated on and off for the whole first semester.

and i'm thinking of this because here i am at a new school, with new people, and visions of old people.

yesterday i saw a girl with corey's face. and upon closer review, i could see that, her face wasn't all that similar to corey's but just for a second, i was so sure. the eyes and nose and mouth were so close.

also yesterday,

i saw elizabeth.

not actually elizabeth,

but for just a moment

that girl was elizabeth.

she was just finishing rounding a corner,

and her shoulders were slumped

and her head was tilted

and her arms were swinging in that limp lanky way

and her stride had just the right bounce and width to it.

and i felt my heart and body recognize that girl as elizabeth,

the same way i would feel when i saw her at school, walking down the hall or around a corner, with that same stride.

i breathed in sharply and exhaled with a "whoa."

i tried to give a disconnected explanation to the girl i was walking with.

i don't know if the hallucinations are a signal for some latent homesickness or something and i don't know how i feel about them.