Ghost Girl; Chapter 4

Chapter Four: His Ghost Girl
The first time he notices her at school it is the flash of blue hair that draws his eye to her. She is wearing an oversized black hooded sweatshirt, loose faded blue jeans, glasses with thick black frames and purple earbuds in both ears. Tattered sneakers that looked as if they had been mud wrestling with lawnmower blades complete her outfit. He can't remember seeing her around before and he asks the group he hangs out with who she is that day as they all gather around the lunch table. This is the first time he will hear rumors about the ghost girl. His ghost girl, because as he listens to the rumors he can feel himself growing protective over this girl he has never spoken to and has only just noticed.
"I heard she's a lesbian."
"Oh yeah? Well I heard that she killed some people in the last place she lived in and moved here to get away from the cops."
"I heard that she's a whore. You can buy her for a fiver any night of the week."
"I heard she accused the football team at her last school of raping her. As if anyone would touch her with a ten-foot pole."
"I know, right? She fell from the top of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down."
Laughter follows each comment. His friends start to remind him of hyenas and the laughter is cloying in his ears. He leaves the table and no one notices, to absorbed in trying to out do each other with rumors about the chick that nobody will talk to. He finished lunch on one of the library couches, his back to the librarian's desk so they can't tell he is eating. Five minutes before the class bell rings he is done. He gathers the wrappers of his lunch and gets up to go. He slings his backpack over his shoulder and is turning to go when he sees something that he hadn't noticed before.
His ghost girl is on the floor, huddled in a corner created by two bookshelves. She is trying to make it look like she is interested in the books on either side of her, but he can see the way she is holding her wrist. He can see the way she is using her hair to hide the fact that her left cheek is red, like someone slapped her. her can see that the frames of her glasses have been cracked. He can see the minuscule flinch that moves her when he drops the remnants of his lunch into the trash bin. When he goes over to her and holds out his hand, he can see her trying to make herself smaller. It takes almost half a minute before she takes his hand.
He helps her up and he can see the way she holds herself, like her ribs are bruised or cracked. He holds her hand as he takes her to the infirmary. Neither of them say a word on the walk there, neither of them say a word as he leaves her by the infirmary door.
It will be two and a half more years before he hears her voice.