"Hey, little bro. How was school?" Max asks, picking up the small boy. I watched, immediately knowing I was going to be ignored. The little boy couldn't see me. His eyes proved it since he looked in my direction but his gaze went through me.

"It was good. I made a friend! But then he took my chips during lunch. So I pushed him off a slide!" the little boy exclaimed, making various faces such as pouting, then a confident grin. I rolled my eyes and got up. Max glanced over at me, then looked at his little brother.

"Finn, you know you can't do that. You should have just told him that you didn't appreciate him taking your food."

"But he didn't even ask. So I didn't ask for him to move."

Max rolls his eyes and nuzzles Finn. They seemed really close and I grew jealous. My realization that Max had a loving family really made me angry since I never experienced that, not that I know of. He was happy with a little brother and he felt sadness for his father. I walked past them and out the door. I was just gonna leave.

"Max? Do you have an imaginary friend?" I heard the small boy ask.

"Well, yeah. He just left the room," Max said and I stopped walking. I looked back and saw Max in the doorway, watching me. The little boy stared and smiled.

"Hi, Max's friend. I'm Finn! I'm his little brother. I'm 10 years old!" Finn held up 10 fingers and smiled more.

"Uh... You... can't see me though..." I say, confused.

"He said 'Hi, Finn. I'm Isaac,'" Max says, grinning at me. I glare at the human, annoyed with his little trick.

"Eye sack?" Finn asks, tilting his head and looking at Max. Max starts dying of laughter and I wish he actually would. He was being really annoying and I wished he would stop this crap. He made me believe that Finn could see me, then makes fun of my name. I hate this guy now.

"No. Like, eye and zic," Max says.

"Isaac... I like that name. It sounds really cool! My name is really Finnian but I don't like it. But my papa gave it to me so it's okay."

I watched the little boy smile but his light green eyes became somewhat dull and sad. I could read people's emotions easily and it was pretty sad to see a small boy like this. He pretended to be okay when in reality, he probably missed his father.

"You miss your papa, huh..." I say, feeling sympathy for the small boy. I felt like that once, when I waited by my own grave for my parents. "It's okay. Parents are stupid anyway. They give birth to you and don't take care of you like they were told to. They're irresponsible... and they lie when they say they love you... Once you're dead, they forget you even exist."

Max frowned and held Finn close, sighing. He put his brother down and sent him into his room to do his homework. Then, he came over to me and pushed me into the living room.

"They don't lie. Maybe your parents were like that, but not mine. I don't want you to say anything like that around me or my family again," he says, his eyes serious and angry. I looked away, frowning.

"My opinion still stands. It angers me that you just bow down to your parents when they don't actually seem all that great," I said.

"Max, who are you talking to?" a female voice calls out from another room. Max sighs.

"I"m on the phone, Mom," he says, taking out his phone so it looked legit.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah. Everything's fine."

A woman appeared in the doorway, looking over at Max and she smiled. She was completely different from the other two humans in the house and I got really confused. She had dark brown hair that was put in a side braid. She had dull brown eyes unlike the lively green eyes I've seen and I kept thinking that this woman had no relation to the humans I've met in this house. This couldn't be their mother, could she? He put his phone away, sighing.

"Sorry, Mom. One of my friends is just getting on my nerves. He keeps complaining about how parents lie and they don't matter," Max says and I decided to just mess with the human. I stood in front of him and crossed my arms. I wasn't translucent to him so he couldn't see his mother when I floated in the way. He stared at my eyes so he could appear like he was staring at his mother. I grinned since he looked pretty uncomfortable to me.

"Well, everyone has their own opinions. I would just ignore him," she says.

"Easier said than done..." he mutters and I chuckled. I leaned closer to Max so our noses were touching and he stepped back and looked away. "He's always ignoring what I have to say."

"Well, maybe take a break from talking to him. I think you've been working too hard. You should get some rest, sweetheart."

I followed Max everywhere he looked and he was getting pretty upset with me.

"I'd go to my room but Finn is there doing his homework."

"You can go to the backyard. Today is a nice day to lay on the hammock."

Max nods, hugging his mother. I really didn't understand how a mother and her son got along so well. It wasn't like anything would matter once they both die. Their bond would just break after one of them dies. They wouldn't visit the dead one's grave. My parents didn't at least. As I watched them separate, Max's mother smiles and whispers something to Max which made him smile. Max nodded and left the room, going out the back door and toward the hammock. I followed and began laughing.

"Wow, that was pretty impressive, Max. You were able to stay calm and keep a poker face on while talking to your mom. Teach me your fabulous tricks~" I said, watching as the human laid on the hammock.

"You're an ass... I hate you, Isaac. I thought you needed help but you're heartless," Max says.

"Yep. I have no heart. I have no organs at all, actually. You know, being dead and..."

"Alright... I walked into that one. But you know what I mean. You don't care about anyone."

"Uh, you just figured that out?"

Max looks over at me and his eyes were back to normal, full of life and happy energy. I was pretty happy with that at least. He wasn't completely angry at me for all eternity. I could live with this small scolding he gave me... er, not live. You know what I mean. We spent the majority of the afternoon laying on the hammock and just talking about random things.

"What? You hate peanut butter?" Max asks, laughing.

"Yeah. It looks gross. And it can get stuck in your hair and be gross and icky all day," I say.

"Have you ever eaten it?"

"News flash: I'm a ghost who can't eat."

"Then you don't know if you don't like it."

"Oh yeah? Well, I don't like the look of it."

"But you can't hate a food if you haven't tried it."

"Guess I'm doing the impossible."

"Isaac."

"Max."

We made eye contact and stared for way longer than we should have. I got the brilliant idea to lean in closer and he just laughed and shoved my face away. It was quite entertaining to make him react. I wanted to see how far I could go with little jokes like this. 

"So, what do you hate?" I ask, smiling and staring at the human.

"Hmmm... I don't like... the color green," he says and I burst out into laughter.

"Really? That's the best you could do?"

"I'm not joking. Green reminds me of puke. It's also such a mundane color to me."

"Does it bother you that you have green eyes?"

"Yes! Thanks for reminding me, Isaac!"

We laughed for a while and I realized just how fun it was to have a friend. I kinda understood why people found friends and hung out with them. People are all different. It interested me that someone could be like me in some ways too, having a similar humor and not minding when we teased each other. I couldn't understand why he sat here with me, wasting away his life when he could be doing something else. Sure, we were having fun but it wouldn't matter once he died. And who knows when that would be. I hope he doesn't die for a long time. I would lose him. Sometimes, people die and don't become spirits. I don't understand why it happens sometimes but I do know that I don't want to risk it. Max is kinda precious to me now.

"What are you thinking about, Isaac?" Max asks, bringing me back to reality.

"Oh, just, um... Why waste your life away talking to me? You're a human. Shouldn't you be doing what humans do instead of talking to the dead?" I ask, immediately regretting the words that came out. I didn't want him to stop talking to me. For the first time, I didn't feel lonely and I wanted to stay with him for a long time. But what I said had truth to it. He nods and takes a few moments to think about my words carefully and he came to a conclusion.

"I'm doing what humans do. Humans hang out with their friends."

His words shocked me a lot and I had no idea how to respond to them. It was confusing since he had human friends. They should matter more than me, at least in my opinion. I have an eternity to spend on Earth. Who knows how long they'll last on this miserable world.

I looked up at the sky, nodding and staying silent. I could feel his eyes on me for a while until he looked up as well. We stared at the sky for a while, just thinking. Some say there are angels flying around in the sky, angels of the deceased. They say that if you were good, you went to a place called Heaven but I don't buy it. I didn't do anything wrong in my life so why was I here, stuck as a ghost? It didn't make sense to me.

Not much made sense to me, if you didn't get that already. Unfortunately, I have had no one to explain anything to me. And I quickly looked over at Max, wondering if he knew what these stories about angels and devils meant.

"Hey, Max? Do you know about angels in a place called Heaven and devils in a place called Hell?" I ask. Max looked over at me and nods.

"Yeah. What about it?" He says, raising an eyebrow.

"Can you explain it to me? I don't understand it at all. Like, if you lived a good life without any mistakes, you go to Heaven, right?"

"Not exactly. Heaven and Hell are complete opposites. Some people don't believe in places like that but, you know, everyone has their own opinion. My knowledge of it is that if you live a good life and try to be the best person you can be, you become an angel in Heaven. But, if you're the worst person you can be, then you go to Hell, not necessarily as a devil, but you get punished basically. It's a weird concept that no one really knows if it's true except for the dead but a lot of people believe in it."

"Then... where do I fit in all of this? I died, but I'm not in either of those places, at least I hope this isn't one of those places. It sucks..." Max laughed at that and nodded.

"I don't understand it either. But maybe you don't believe in those places or you didn't when you were alive so you became a spirit? I mean, you were 2 and you don't really know what those things are."

"So... how do I get away?"

"I heard that sometimes people become spirits because they have unfinished business on Earth. So you would be here because you still have to complete something that you were unable to complete during your life."

"What? That doesn't make any sense. I was a baby. What does a baby have to do?"

"Maybe it's not what you think. Maybe because you were a baby when you died, you have to complete something so you can move on, like to complete the short life you lived. Like, you have to make a friend or you have to make someone believe in something."

I pout and look at the sky again. Unfinished business? What business did I have to finish? I guess that was the best guess as to why I was ghost, but it still made no sense to me. What did I have to do? I wanted to know so badly but I just wasn't sure what I could do. I guess it had something to do with Max, seeing as how he was the only one who could see and talk to me. It would make sense to stay with him for a while so I can achieve whatever I need to and move on. I wanted to get away from this miserable world. I've been here long enough.