This is going to make me sound crazy and you’ll probably tell me that I should talk to someone about this. I can see ghosts. I really can, when I’m not wearing my glasses, that is. My friend’s mother tells me that I see them with something called my “mind’s eye” and that my body fights too hard for me to see them with real vision. She also told me that I don’t see them all the time because I don’t want to see that, that I might think I do, but I really don’t.

It’s terrifying, seeing things that other people don’t. I can remember the first time I saw a ghost. I had taken a field trip to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC. U could feel something washing over me in waves as I went into the building. I feel clammy, sick to my stomach, and angry all at the same time. I could feel the hatred when we went close to the Nazi uniforms and the feeling of disgust because they faced the pajamas the prisoners used to wear. My throat burned with the feeling of lack of air, almost like I was being choked. I remember reaching for my father’s leather jacket, my shaking hands finding peace in the worn hide. I was fighting against this feeling of being crushed as we made our way through an old rail car. I felt my knee buckling and I could feel tears rushing down my cheeks.

The amount of emotion, the sudden loss of life, these are things that caught my sensitive attention. I wanted to leave. I needed to get out of this area and get away from all of these things so I could get myself together. But in order to get out, there was a bridge we had to walk over.

The bridge was stretched over a river of shoes, ones from babies and ones from full grown adults. I could hear crying, the screams of children has they were separated from their mothers. The sound was so overwhelming. And then suddenly, I heard ringing in my ears and the sound faded out a little. I looked over my shoulder, trying to look for my friends and find some comfort in them.

And that’s when I saw him. He was small, fair skin with sunken in features and dark hair. He was digging through the river of shoes, looking for his own. I felt my throat close up, my feet pushing myself into my father’s back.

“We have to go!” I hissed to him, grabbing for his hand. “Dad, let’s go!”

My father gave me this look, understanding blue eyes meeting terrified brown as he pulled my shaking body through the crowd of people and to the exit. It felt like forever before I was pushed gently into a chair and he was kneeling in front of me.

“Casey…” He whispered, his cool hand coming up to push my sweaty bangs out of my eyes. “Boo, what did you see?”

I gripped the sides of the chair as I tried to yank myself out of the panic attack that the little boy had shoved me into. I never ended up telling my father what I saw in the museum. I was too scared that the little boy would come back and find me.