I was about 12 and my mom was driving me home. It was still early evening and light fog was starting to develop on the sides of the road. As we were approaching a fairly dense patch on both sides, a boy wearing a plain white t-shirt, turns his head at us and runs across the road. He was far enough away that the headlights never hit him directly but close enough that my mom just started to lightly touch the brake. I notice that he was opaque when he crosses the double yellow and disappears as soon as he crosses the white line. Asked my mom if she saw that calmly and only responded “yes”. Never talked about it again.

Fast forward to my senior year of H.S. I had become close with my English teacher, she rolled her eyes at my inability to understand grammar and told me (and was right) that I would enjoy Shakespeare. Sometime during the end of the year a group of friends were talking about our different teachers and she came up. Everyone already knew of her son who had a seizure disorder who was a little ‘off’ but affable and quick witted in his own way. Then I was told she had another son that was hit by a car on the same road. So I did a little digging and could only find out where and it was exactly where I saw that kid.

 

The subject of her kids came up a few weeks before graduation and her late son was brought up in class. She gave a quick little story of what happened the night he died. You could tell that it pained her, so no one dug any deeper about the events. The bell rang and I went straight to her desk and in a matter of fact tone I asked what he was wearing, she answered with ‘jeans and a new white t-shirt’. The look on my faced must have changed, tears welled up in her eyes and she whispered ‘you are not the only one’. I left the room quickly and never brought it up again.