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Four Ghosts (iii) | short stories

(iii): The Girl They Made Me kiss

She used to be popular. That’s what no one ever talks about. Before all of it — before the rumors, before the sneers and stares — she had friends who waited for her at the gates, who copied her math homework, who braided her hair at lunch and told her she looked pretty when she wore pink lip gloss. She wore that lip gloss a lot. Not because she needed to. Just because she liked how it made her feel like someone shiny, someone held.

She liked small, sweet things. Bubble letters on her notebooks. A dangling flower charm on her phone. Glitter on her eyelids. She used to talk too much during silent reading. Used to laugh too loud at jokes that weren’t funny. Used to wave at teachers in the hallway like she didn’t care who saw. She was like that — kind. Unbothered. The kind of girl you assumed would always be okay.

Until she wasn’t.

It happened at a sleepover. That’s what I heard, anyway. One of those birthday things, seven or eight girls crammed into a basement with popcorn and face masks and stolen wine bottles. There was a game— maybe truth or dare, maybe something worse. Someone asked, “If you had to kiss a girl here, who would it be?” Someone else laughed. Someone else pointed.

And she did it. Maybe for fun. Maybe because she wanted to. Maybe because she thought it was allowed.

She kissed the birthday girl. Light. Quick. A nothing kind of kiss. A blink. A breath. Something that should’ve faded by morning.

But someone told. Or someone recorded. Or maybe the birthday girl got scared after.

By the next week, the story had changed enough to become something else entirely. Some said she forced it. Some said she bragged about it. Some said she’d been in love with her for years. I don’t know what was true. I only know what people repeated. And what people repeat becomes fact, no matter how much you want to unhear it.

The girls turned on her first. The same ones who used to link pinkies with her at recess. The same ones who posted birthday collages and called her their soul sister.

They stopped answering her texts. Whispered behind her in class. Giggled loud enough for her to hear and never said what about.

Then the boys caught on. And once it became funny, it was over.

They called her words I still won’t repeat. Drew things on her locker. Left pads soaked in red marker on her chair. In hallways, they took turns bumping shoulders with her only to say, “Don’t touch me. I’m not your type.”

Someone filled her gym bag with shaving cream once. Another time, they stuck a note to her back that said EAT ME and she didn’t notice until seventh period. She just peeled it off quietly, folded it twice, and put it in her pocket like it meant nothing. But I saw her hands shake.

I never said anything.

Not to them. Not to her.

But I still talked to her in private. Not often, not like before. But sometimes I’d text her at night, when everything felt a little softer. She’d reply with hearts. With “I miss you” and “Remember when we had matching pajamas?"

Sometimes I said sorry.

And she’d always say, “I get it.” And I think she did.

She never begged me to say something. Never blamed me for staying quiet. She knew I was scared. She always knew. But she never let it get in the way of loving me anyway.

And still— I saw it. All of it. I saw the looks. The shoulder bumps in the hallway. The way people snickered when she answered a question in class. I saw her gym clothes go missing. Her locker graffitied. The girls who whispered behind her, loud enough to be heard but soft enough to deny. And I said nothing. I watched it happen, day after day, the way you watch a storm roll in from a window and tell yourself it won’t hit you. I wasn’t cruel. I wasn’t kind. I was just there, and for some reason, that felt worse.

I told myself it would pass. That if I didn’t step in, maybe it wouldn’t get worse. That maybe I was keeping her safe by staying invisible too. But invisibility doesn’t save anyone. It just makes ghosts out of girls who deserved better.

The last day wasn’t planned. It never is. There was no dramatic foreshadowing, no warning in the announcements, no heavy music swelling under the surface. It wasn’t some symbolic end-of-year crescendo. Just another Wednesday.

It happened sometime after third period. The air was too warm, sticky in that way that made your clothes cling to the wrong places. People were restless. Laughing louder. Pushing harder. Everything felt cracked open, like something was going to spill whether anyone wanted it to or not.

I don’t know how they got her out there. Maybe they asked her to come. Maybe someone sent a message pretending to be someone else. Maybe she knew and still went anyway, just to prove something. Or maybe she didn’t resist. Maybe she was too tired.

There were at least a dozen of them. Maybe more. Some standing on benches. Others circling close, the way vultures do when the blood has already dried. I remember the girls’ faces — smeared mascara, manic glee, eyes gleaming like they’d been waiting for this. They were louder than the boys. Screeching. Laughing. Roaring. Not laughing like it was funny—laughing like they were hungry. The boys followed. Grabbed. Shoved. Obeyed. Their laughter was different. Dumber. Meaner.

They ripped her shirt. Pulled her to her knees. One of them spit in her hair. Someone took her phone and hurled it across the pavement like a stone. Another grabbed her ponytail and yanked so hard I saw her whole body snap backward, spine arching like a bridge about to break.

And all I could think about was her twirling in my bedroom when we were nine, the hem of her dress spinning like a flower coming undone. She had glitter lip gloss then too and a sticker on her cheek that said ‘dream girl.’ I remember because I took a photo and she made me promise never to show anyone. I never did. I still have it.

Her voice— I don’t remember if she screamed. Or if the sound just got swallowed.

No one stopped it. Not the teachers. Not the kids watching from upstairs. Not the girl filming it on Snapchat. And not me. Not until I did.

I don’t remember deciding to move. I just remember moving. Legs heavy. Mouth dry. My heart clawing up my throat like it wanted to get out before the rest of me. I screamed something—anything. Maybe her name. Maybe Stop. It didn’t matter. The noise paused. Heads turned.

And then— They turned on me.

Someone said, “Since you’re so close, why don’t you prove it?” A girl’s voice followed. High-pitched. Icy. Like playground cruelty grown up but not grown out. “Yeah. Come on. Kiss her. Show us you’re not a coward.”

And I remembered how we used to kiss each other on the cheek just to practice for when it would matter. She always giggled after and said, ‘That one didn’t count.’ I think she just liked being kissed. Liked the playfulness of it. The harmlessness.

Hands grabbed me before I could run. Someone clutched my wrist too tightly. Fingernails dug into my skin. Another girl shoved her forward. Her knees scraped the pavement. She was gasping. Red-faced. Her bra strap hanging off her shoulder like it had given up too.

I was on my knees. So was she.

We were inches apart. Close enough that I could smell her shampoo through the dirt. Close enough to see the little rhinestone sticker still clinging to her nail. She always matched her nails to the season. Snowflakes in winter. Cherries in spring. Once, we tried painting them with Sharpies and ended up staining our fingers purple for a week. We laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe.

Now she couldn’t even look at me.

And I remember thinking — I would. I would kiss her. Not because I was brave. Not because I wanted to. But because maybe it would end.

Just one kiss. One performance. One sacrifice. And maybe they’d get bored. Maybe they’d finally let her go.

And she finally looked at me.

Her eyes weren’t begging. They weren’t scared. They were tired. And in them, I saw something break. Not in a loud way. Not like glass. More like a paper tearing in the middle. Slow. Irreparable.

There was a pause. The kind that stretches too long. That buzzes in the air like a live wire. And then, she moved first.

She hit someone. Elbowed a girl in the jaw hard enough to make her stumble. Screamed—finally screamed. Scratched at a boy’s cheek so fast his head jerked sideways. The shriek he let out was shrill and perfect.

Someone shouted. Then another. Hands flying. Nails. Shoves. Spit.

A bottle smashed near my feet. Someone kicked a bench. Another slipped on the gravel and screamed again — this time in fear. A boy grabbed my arm. I bit him.

And in the middle of it all, I remembered her sleepover birthday in fourth grade. The one where we built a fort out of bedsheets and she let me wear her softest pajamas. She painted a heart on my hand in teal nail polish and said, ‘If you ever get lost, just look for the one who matches you.’

Now I was lost. And I wasn’t sure we matched anymore.

It all blurred after that. Noise. Heat. Breathing. Blood, maybe. I think I was crying. I don’t remember the tears—just the way my vision pulsed. The sound of my heartbeat like a drum inside my mouth.

And then came a voice. Sharp. Old. Real.

“HEY!”

And just like that, everything froze.

It was Mr. Yoon. The janitor. Old. Hunched. His spine curved like a comma. Always sweeping behind people like he wasn’t really there. But in that moment— He was holding the broom like a sword. And for some reason, that was enough.

They scattered. Fast. Cowards always do.

I don’t remember what happened after. Not clearly. Just the silence. The way she knelt there, shaking, her shirt torn and her lip bleeding. The way I reached for her hand and didn’t know if I was allowed to hold it.

That night, she called me.

Not to ask if I was okay. Not to talk about what happened. Her voice was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that only exists on the other side of something awful. I could hear the soft click of her nails against the phone. The faint hum of a TV in the background. Someone was washing dishes in the distance. Everything sounded normal, like the world hadn’t cracked in half six hours earlier.

“I’m leaving,” she said, like she’d been practicing it. “My mom’s pulling me out. We’re going to stay with my aunt for a while. Somewhere quieter.”

She didn’t say the word safe. She didn’t have to.

I didn’t say anything. Not at first. I just sat there with the phone to my ear and my mouth pressed shut, like if I opened it, everything I’d been holding back would fall out in pieces. I wanted to say I was sorry. I wanted to say I should’ve done something sooner. I wanted to say I loved her. I didn’t say any of that.

Instead, I whispered, “I would’ve kissed you, you know.”

And I remembered her in my kitchen, balancing on a stool with cookie dough all over her hands, yelling, ‘This is love, right?!’ because I had given her the last scoop. She looked so proud. So sure of what love meant back then.

Now she just exhaled. Soft. Long. Like she’d been holding her breath for years.

“I know,” she said.

Then quieter, not bitter—just sad, “But you would’ve only done it to save me. I didn’t want that.”

Her words sat between us like a memory we both wished was someone else’s.

And I think that was the moment I realized she had never needed rescuing. Not really. She needed someone who wasn’t afraid to stand beside her, not just kneel next to her when it was already too late. She wanted to be chosen. Wanted to be wanted out loud.

But I had stayed quiet. Not cruel. Not complicit. Just quiet. And in that silence, I had buried her too.

We didn’t say goodbye. Not because we forgot. Because we couldn’t.

We just stayed on the line for a little longer. Listening to each other breathe. Two ghosts on either end of a wire. Trying not to let go.

And when she finally hung up, I didn’t cry.

I just sat there in the dark, with the phone pressed against my chest, and everything else I should’ve said curling up in my mouth like teeth too sharp to swallow. And in the quiet that followed, I could still hear her voice— not saying my name, just humming that stupid song we used to dance to in my room, back when love was still easy and the world hadn’t learned how to ruin girls like her.