Better Left Unsaid

“Sky! Wait up!”

I keep going, looking straight ahead. Little pitter-patter of tiny footsteps follow rapidly behind me.

As I return home, she’s still there. The extra. She places her bookbag next to mine that I had tossed by the door. I grab a snack from the fridge. She’s standing behind me looking expectantly. I almost reach for another yogurt bowl for her. Almost. I know better.

I take out my homework and start going over my math at the kitchen table. She sits right next to me, and I can feel her eyes boring into my skin, begging me to look at her.

My appetite is long gone. I push the yogurt away from me. Right away, I hear the extra peeling back the lid and hungrily slurping down the yogurt. I put in my earbuds and drown out the sound with noise.

There’s a gnawing sense of guilt within me. I know the loneliness and isolation that comes with this. How cruel this is to do this to a child. Even an extra.

My mother frowns over at me when she comes home from work, but doesn’t say anything, and instead gets started on getting dinner ready.

I put away my books and set the table for three people. As I ate dinner with my parents, she shuffled behind us. I swallow the lump in my throat. This is what has to be done.

I hear my mother crying softly in bed. It’s at least reassuring that I’m not the only one bothered by this.

She follows me to school the next day.

Everyone I passed knew to ignore the little girl tailing behind me. I sigh a breath of relief when we go in separate ways for class and she opts to join the younger grades.

There’s a new student class today. Weird stuff happens in our town, but aside from a few…extras, people didn’t move here.

“What’s your name again?”

“Andrea?”

“Why are you here?”

Andrea is thrown by the question. “Why…”

“People never just move here.”

“My dad inherited a house here from a distant relative. What’s going on? Why’s everyone treating me like I’ve killed their puppy?”

New people are dangerous. They could cause so much unwitting destruction. It happened before when my mother was just a little girl, when most of her family perished.

At Andrea’s waiting expression, I only shrug.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Andrea looks back disbelievingly and hurt. I shrug again. I can’t dwell on hurt feelings. I know what’s at stake.

I turn to leave.

“Hey,” Andrea calls softly. “I think your sister wants to walk home with you.”

I whirl around. Sure enough, she’s trailing behind me. Fear grips me hard. I couldn’t tell Andrea. What could I say to make her understand? Make her realize the gravity of the situation.

I grasp Andrea by the shoulders.

“Hey! Let go of me!”

I tighten my grip even more. “You can’t ever acknowledge an extra.”

“An extra? What? Even if you don’t like your little sister-”

“I don’t and never have had a sister.” I let go of Andrea. Not even pausing to see her reaction, I turn on my heel and run, my heart pounding in my chest.

My house is empty as usual. I sit on the couch, waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Did I break a rule? Did Andrea? I didn’t truly acknowledge the extra, did I?

If I did, I wasn’t ready for the consequences. I didn’t want lose my family. I didn’t want to lose anyone in my strange, cursed town.

The sun’s going down and my family still hasn’t returned yet.

I grip my knees and I wait longer, reassuring myself again and again that everything is going to be okay.

Then the door unlocks. I jump up from the space on the couch. My mother comes in and tosses her keys on the table by the door. Relief upon relief floods through my veins and I throw myself at her, holding back tears.

She wraps her arms around me. “I’m sorry. I got held up at work. What’s the matter?”

I rub my eyes. “Nothing. I…I was just worried.”

My mother looks around, her eyes wandering, searching. Then I realize the extra never came back with me. My shoulders sag in relief, but when I look back at my mother, she looks sad. Disappointed even.

My dad came back and I couldn’t dwell on it further.

Nothing happened the whole night. Maybe the rule wasn’t as stringent as I thought. And I went the whole night, and the morning as got to school without seeing the extra.

Andrea sat in the seat behind me just as Mr. Maurice began class.

“She really isn’t your sister, is she?” Andrea whispers.

“We’re not supposed to talk about this,” I whisper back.

“She said it was okay.”

I spin around in my desk. “What?”

“Yeah. Stayed at my house last night. She’s really lonely.”

Before I could say anything, there was a flurry of gasps. I look up front. Mr. Maurice clutches his chest, before falling to the floor, dead. Screams follow among my classmates as they crowd around our teacher.

Andrea gets up to follow them. I grab her hand. “She’s not my sister. She’s my mother’s. She died when my mom was little.”

“What?”

“Except she never left. This happens sometimes in our town. That people die but never leave. They’re extra people, and if you acknowledge them, the universe tries to correct itself by taking someone else away.”

It’ll keep happening. Tomorrow, Mr. Maurice will be up and walking around, and we all have to pretend he doesn't exist. His wife and kids will have to morn him, bury his body, but still see him everywhere. But they can never talk to him or even acknowledge his presence. Because if they do, another person dies. And another. And another.