Rivalry by Jack Badelaire

Once upon a time, I thought ghosts were cool. Back in junior high, I must have watched Ghostbusters twenty times, and I devoured every book of ghost stories I could get my hands on: M.R. James, Sheridan LeFanu, William Hope Hodgson, Lovecraft, Poe, and many others. I was the “creepy kid” in school, the kid who made all the girls roll their eyes and cause all the teachers to sigh every time I raised my hand. There might have been some letters to my parents - and a few pointless sessions with a child psychologist - but I’m pleading the fifth.
    In the fall of ‘91, Doug came to my school. If I was the creepy kid, Doug was the sad kid, the hollow-eyed waif who never said anything, who ate his lunch alone at the corner of some far table in the cafeteria, who walked around hunched over by a bookbag too big for his body and never looked up from the ground. A lot of rumors flew around within the first few weeks of Doug’s arrival; some said he was abused at home, others said his family belonged to a cult. Either way, if I was a weirdo, Doug was a pariah, and the one thing you quickly learned in the trenches of junior high was that, if you’re a low man on the social ladder, the last thing you want to do is associate with the guy dangling from the bottom rung by his fingertips. I avoided Doug like the plague.
    All of that changed one afternoon when I found Doug sitting across from me at the lunch table. Normally I wouldn’t have let that happen, but I guess Doug was late to lunch and my usual Doug-avoidance exercises went by the wayside. He arrived after me, and to my dismay, Doug wound up intruding on my social space at the table. Not wanting to engage him in any form of observable interaction, I just refused to make eye contact and went on eating my sandwich.
    At first, Doug seemed to get the hint, but then I saw him eyeballing the books sitting next to my cafeteria tray. Sitting on top of my math and geography textbooks, I had an anthology of ghost stories with a lurid, almost comical illustration on the cover. Doug looked at the book, then stared at me until I felt compelled to make eye contact.
    “ Ghosts really aren’t that neat,” he said.
    “ What are you talking about? They’re awesome,” I replied.
    Doug looked down at his tray. “People might think so, but if they’ve ever seen a real ghost before, they wouldn’t feel that way.”
    If they’ve ever seen a real ghost .
    I stopped mid-chew. “Have you seen a real ghost?” I asked.
    Doug just looked down at his tray and stirred some macaroni around with a fork.
    “ Dude, seriously. Have you seen a real ghost?” I asked again.
    Doug just shrugged. If anything, his slouch grew even more pronounced.
    I got annoyed. “Doug, man, come on. What is that supposed to mean? Tell me if you’ve seen a ghost.”
    Doug muttered something I didn’t quite make out over the cacophony of the cafeteria.
    “ What?”
    He finally looked up at me, a little peeved. “I said I live with a ghost, all right?”
    I think if Doug had told me he was actually a talking dog, I wouldn’t have been more awestruck. My expression must’ve said it all, because Doug picked up his tray and got up from the table.
    “ I’m going to find someplace else to sit,” he said.
    I held out my hand imploringly. “No no no no! Wait, don’t go! You’ve got to tell me about this!”
    Doug walked away and sat at the opposite corner of the room. For the next couple of weeks, every time I saw him in the hall or came near him in the classroom, Doug either went the other way or refused to acknowledge me. This revelation had completely reversed our roles; now I was the guy Doug was trying to avoid, not the other way around.
    Little by little though, I wore him down. No man is an island, and this saying is no truer than in junior high. Young minds crave social stimuli, and Doug had been starved of friendship for so long that eventually he began acknowledging me. I played it safe at first, not