I walk into the room, hoping no one has noticed me. I close the door almost silently. Almost. A cry comes from the living room. My mom, begging me to come and talk to her. I glance at the clock in the hall. 10:25. Late. Again. Oh well.

I wince at the pain on my lower left arm. Skulker got me pretty bad. I can feel a mix of blood and ectoplasm writhing down my arm. I look down and wipe away the worst. Ouch. That wasn't a good idea. I take down my jacket that hangs in the hall and put it on. I wipe the rest of the blood on the inside of my pocket. I'll have to wash it later. Along with probably five ghost attacks, dinner, homework, and a few more ghost attacks.

I step into the living room and am taken by surprise at the congregation inside. Mom, Dad, and… Mr. Lancer? Jazz isn't here. She's spending a night at her friend's house. I kind of wish there was a calming voice in the room.

I slump down into the nearest chair. I don't meet their eyes. I can't see all that disappointment. "What is it?" I ask, in a low, tired voice.

"Mr. Fenton." To my surprise it's Lancer who begins the attack. I'm so tired. Look at them, punishing the kid who has saved their lives countless times. I laugh, morosely. I imagine their startled faces. Just one more reason to send the guy to the loony bin. "Mr Fenton," Lancer starts again. "We need to discuss your truancy, and your inability to complete your homework, and the fact that you have violated several school rules. What have you got to say about it?"

What have I got to say about it? I've got a great deal to say about it. My life is unbearably complicated. I don't even let Sam and Tucker know this. I save the town and get nothing but scorn and ridicule. I fall asleep in class because I was up fighting ghosts the night before. If they would just lift up my shirt they would see the scars from thousands of attacks. And then I am expected to do my homework and do well in school. And when I get home from a trying day all I get are my parents threatening to rip me apart 'molecule by molecule.'

I laugh again. They can't know any of this, or can they? Is my secret so important anymore? I have nearly no life outside of ghost fighting, and that was all my secret protected. I'm giggling now, uncontrollably. I can see my parents shifting in their seats. They are the parents of a delinquent.

My mom can't stand it anymore. She gets up and grabs my arm. "Danny, please. Tell me what's wrong."

I stare up at her, grinning. I've been fighting back the truth for so long. It feels good to let it out. "You hate me," I say, smiling. She lets go of me and backs away.

"Danny… Danny I would never…"

"You want to kill me. You want to dissect me. You want to rip me apart."

"Danny, what are you talking about?" she cries. Then she notices the small stream of red that is peeking out of my sleeve.

Not wasting a second she reaches forward and grabs my shirt sleeve and yanks it up. I wince. She looks at the gory wound, interlaced with red and green. It looks a bit like Christmas, but way more gross. Instantly, Mom goes into nurse mode and runs from the room. She returns with the first-aid kit and bandages the bloody mess.

"What's happening, Danny?" she says as she ties a knot. "Are you in a gang?" she asks as she snips off the excess.

I shake my head. "Mom, the only friends I have are Sam and Tucker."

She smiles at my normal Danny humor.

She stands back up. Dad and Mr. Lancer are now standing around me as well.

"You really want to know?" I ask, tears pricking at my eyes. "I mean, you might not want me in the house anymore."

This time, Dad speaks, with alarming reason. "Danny, whatever you've done… whatever we've done, we'll always love you."

I take a breath. I stare down at my bandaged wound and then back up at them. "Okay." My heart beats fast. This is it. Three years have led up to this moment. "I'm Phantom."

Up until that point, I had never really understood what a 'deafening silence' meant. How could silence be deafening? I understand now. As I stare up at three startled and extremely disbelieving faces I realize – you could cut that silence with a knife.

Mom is the first to speak. "Danny, whatever it is that you're going through, there is no need to lie to us."

My forehead creases slightly, almost imperceptibly. She doesn't believe me. None of them believe me. I am suddenly, inconceivably angry with them. I feel as though my eyes are bulging out of my sockets. They don't believe me. I'm so angry. I'm so angry. I'm so angry. I'm so angry. I'm –

I'm crying.

In fact I'm sobbing. I reach up a hand and wipe away as many of the tears as I can. I'm not angry with any of them. They only want the best for me, right? They just – don't – know. And suddenly I'm blurting out my life story. Through the sobs and the gibberish and the improbability of it all it must sound like nonsense – the ravings of a madman. But it's all true, from the moment I pressed that godforsaken button to now, when my blood and ectoplasm is starting to seep through the expertly wrapped bandage.

My tirade quiets down to just gentle whispers. I know they still don't believe me, at least not completely. I'll have to show them. I know that. But I don't want to, not if I don't have to. It will just cement in their minds and in mine a fact of my life: I am not completely human.

Lancer opens his mouth and draws a quick breath. He seems about to say something, but then his mouth closes again and he is silent. He bites his lip.

My mother isn't looking at me. At first my anger flares up again, but then I realize what she's looking at. She's looking at the wall. Specifically, she's looking at a picture taken at a time when I was less than three feet tall and she had no gray hairs and we were all much, much happier.

My dad licks his lips. For all his usual bombast, he's being unusually quiet. "Danny," he says. It seems that wasn't the word he wanted to begin with because he draws another breath and says, more to himself than to me, "It makes sense."

My mom whips around to look at him. "No," she says. This isn't the 'no' my mom says when she loses a game of Old Maid or is telling me to get my hand out of the cookie jar. This is the 'no' she says when she sees a natural disaster on TV, or if she is telling a mugger to back off, or if someone is trying to argue with her that ghosts could actually be good.

It is the 'No' that completely destroys my world. And my silence.

"Please. I'm not evil. I'm not – I'm not – Mom, I'm so tired." My last sentence is reduced to begging. "I was fighting a ghost. The robot one. I – I – " My voice breaks. "I didn't see him. He – he cut me. It's – It's bleeding again." I hold out my arm to reinforce the statement.

My mother does not rush for the first aid kid like she did before. She drops her eyes down to the wound. "It's green." Her voice is emotionless.

"It's also red."

Her eyes meet mine. And suddenly I'm not the only person in the room crying.

So, what do you think? This was initially just going to be a one-shot, but I think it might have a few chapters left in it. Let me know! And thank you for reading!