The Catastrophic History of You And Me

by Jess Rothenberg

  CHAPTER 42

  wake me up inside

  “It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  I stared at the picture so hard I thought my brain might explode, or my eyes would pop out of my head, or maybe both, simultaneously.

  “How can that be me? How can SHE be me? How?”

  How could I—just some regular girl with a regular life—possibly have been two people at the same time? Had I been recycled? Refurbished? Like when Mom and Dad had our family room couch redone? (Or wait, was that reupholstered?)

  God, death is so confusing.

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. “There’s got to be a logical explanation,” I told myself. “There’s got to be a rational explanation.” But then I remembered I was sitting at the highest point of the Golden Gate Bridge and that I’d been dead for almost a full year. Not exactly rational.

  Or maybe I’ve been dead for thirty.

  I placed my hand over my heart, Pledge of Allegiance–style. “Beat,” I ordered it. I hit myself with my hand right square in the chest. “Beat.” A dull, hollow thud echoed back in return. I tried again. “Beat!” And again. “Beat, you stupid thing, BEAT!” But there was no flutter of a pulse; no hint of a spark; no breath or movement at all. Just a sad, quiet nothing.

  I threw my head back and screamed out at the top of my lungs, “Where are you? Why didn’t you tell me?!”

  Patrick didn’t answer. The phone line between our minds was definitely out of service.

  I fell forward onto my elbows and laid my head down on the metal platform. Deep down, I knew the truth. He had told me, or at least tried to tell me. I just hadn’t been listening.

  I hated not being able to reach him. Hated not knowing where he had gone. But I had looked everywhere. I’d been to the absolute edges of my slice of heaven—down every single highway, into every single forest, across every single bridge and up every single mountain I could think of. Where else could he possibly be hiding? Where was the one place he knew I’d never think to look for him?

  I watched the world creak and shift a thousand feet below through tiny orange metal squares. Turned my head to the side—to the northeast—and noticed a lonely island several miles away, nestled just past Sausalito, just down the coast from Tiburon.

  The setting sun had cast an ethereal glow over the bay and, for a moment, the island seemed to light up—a floating flame of red and orange burning over the deep, charcoal-gray water. But in an instant, the sun took a deep breath and sank beneath the waves, and the sky changed from a shimmering gold to a dusky blue. Rain clouds started to move in from the north—places like Oregon and Vancouver—and the island fell into shadow. A silhouette of trees.

  I got to my feet, transfixed.

  What is that place?

  All of a sudden, Larkin’s words drifted back, little whispers riding inside the front pocket of the wind. And in that moment, I knew where I would find him.

  Angel Island. Where the dead go to die.

  There wasn’t time to wonder if I was too late. So I stepped up to the edge of the north tower, raised my arms above my head in perfect swan-dive form, and let go.

  But this time I didn’t fall.

  I flew.

  I zoomed like crazy, straight through the wind and fog and the last remaining specks of daylight, until my feet touched down like cats’ paws on the cold, rocky beach. I shivered a little and tried to get a sense of the place. In the almost-dark, I could make out the shapes of giant madrone trees lining the highest edge of the beach, their black-red bark, peeling like paper.

  I wasn’t sure where I was going or where I would find him, but I decided to stick to the beach for now, at least until I got a better sense of the island. The woods really didn’t look all that friendly. “Yep,” I told myself. “Definitely sticking to the beach.”

  Especially in the dark.

  But as I began to make my way along the shore, the moon hidden behind a curtain of fog, I couldn’t help noticing how crowded the island was with debris. Boulders and driftwood and tree trunks were scattered in every direction, and getting around them without tripping became more and more difficult, as if a tornado had ripped the whole place apart.

  The sound of my shoes crunching on rocks and sand was also starting to freak me out. Fear began to sneak into my mind as every single sound seemed to echo fifty times louder than it actually was. I suddenly got the sense that this little quest of mine might have been a very, very bad idea.

  My right foot caught something then—a branch, I think—and I nearly went flying face-first into the sand, but caught myself on my knees. That’s when I noticed something strange. The sand smelled . . . weird. Metallic almost. I scooped up a small handful and ran the coarse damp granules through my fingers.

  “What is that?” Then I recognized the odor and threw the sand down as fast as I could, cringing.

  Blood. The sand smells like blood.

  A wave washed up then, soaking my hands and knees and shoes. The smell intensified.

  “Oh my god.” I scrambled to my feet, watching ribbons of crimson streak through the sand as the water receded. “It’s—it’s in the water. It’s everywhere.” A sense of dread shot through my arms and legs, locking them in place. I wanted off of this island.

  Now.

  I tried to turn around, but tripped over a huge piece of driftwood and went flying backward. I heard a soft groan echo in the darkness, and in that moment all I knew was that it hadn’t come from me.

  I froze, feeling so dizzy and sick with fear I couldn’t breathe.

  “Wh-wh-who’s there?” I forced out after a second of sheer terror. Slowly—and as quietly as possible—I got to my feet, dusting blood-caked sand from my hands.

  Nobody answered.

  Maybe it was my imagination?

  The moon slipped out through the fog, casting an eerie spotlight on the shoreline. I got a better look at the driftwood littering the beach. Except it wasn’t driftwood.

  It was bodies.

  Hundreds and hundreds of them, strewn across the sand—their limbs curled and twisted like broken tree trunks; their ribs and shoulder blades completely visible through paper-thin skin; their hollowed-out, sunken-in cheekbones all pale and glistening like snow in the moonlight. I gasped and began to shake violently as I took the scene in. This was worse than anything I had ever seen in any history book. All around me, stretched out for miles, was a sea of faces. A sea of broken, miserable souls—naked, bleeding, monstrous, and disintegrating into dust before my eyes.

  Or sand.

  I frantically began to brush the sand from my dress and arms and face. But the more I tried to get it off me, the more it seemed to stick to my skin. In my shoes, in my hair, underneath my fingernails, in my mouth. I coughed and spat again and again, trying to scrape it off my tongue, but all I could taste was grit and rust. All I could feel was the dampness seeping into my pores, turning my hands red.

  “Where are you?!” I cried. “Patrick, please answer me!”

  That’s when the voices began.

  “I’m innocent . . . I swear on my life I didn’t do it.”

  “You have to forgive me. Please won’t somebody forgive me?”

  “Mom? Mommy, is that you?”

  “You lied to me. You looked in my face and you lied to me . . .”

  They were all talking and yelling over each other—their voices too loud and incoherent and oblivious for me to understand half of what they were saying. I began to walk among them, searching for some glimpse of his eyes or smile. My shoes continued to crunch and snap as I walked, but this time I knew I wasn’t stepping on seashells.

  “Patrick?” I called out desperately. “Are you there?”

  “Watch it,” somebody said when my feet came a little too close.

  “Sorry!” I jumped out of the way, but ended up stepping on somebody else.

  “Hey!”

  “I’m so sorry, excuse me, I didn’t mean—”


  I kept searching their faces. Hoping for even the smallest glimmer of recognition.

  “They all look the same.” I began to panic, rolling the still ones over to check for a seventeen-year-old boy. “They all look exactly the same!”

  “But we’re not,” I heard a girl’s voice murmur softly.

  I jerked my head up and scanned the beach. “Hello?” I called out. “Who’s there?” I moved toward the sound, passing soul after soul until I got to a figure with a long, wispy black braid. I kneeled down and rolled the body over as best I could.

  And when her lonely eyes met mine, I broke down in tears.

  Larkin.

  “Brie.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

  “What are you doing here?” I kneeled down and did my best to cradle her head in my lap. “What happened?”

  She gazed up at me without blinking, and for a moment I thought I must have imagined the sound of her voice. But then her lips quivered again, and I heard her try to speak.

  “I couldn’t be alone again. There was nothing left for me in the city.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, breaking down. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

  “Really?” she said. “You mean it?”

  I brushed the sand from her face, and saw just what kind of shape she was in. This was only a shadow of the girl who’d leaped from skyscrapers. The girl who had helped me take care of me, and who’d shown me that I was stronger than I thought. But now there was almost nothing left of Larkin Ramsey. She was turning to dust before my eyes.

  “You’re going to be okay,” I tried to assure her. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

  “Brie,” she whispered. “I started the fire that night in my house. Did you know that?”

  I stared back, confused. “Don’t blame yourself, Larkin. Everyone knows it was the candle. Everyone knows it was an accident. A terrible, terrible accident. That’s all.”

  She shook her head. “It was me, not an accident. I did it on purpose. I wanted to die.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Please don’t say that.”

  “It’s true.” Larkin smiled sadly. “I’ve always been alone. I’ve always felt alone. So I decided to do something about it.” She let out a small laugh. “Then of course it turns out it’s even lonelier on the other side.” Her voice turned bitter. “Except now it doesn’t last a lifetime, it lasts forever.” She reached out and put her hand on mine. “Sucks to be me, huh?”

  “But your memorial service,” I said, recalling that night in the auditorium, a few years before my own. “There were so many people—so many people who cared about you.”

  “They didn’t care about me,” she said. “I was there. I saw how guilty their faces were. Most of the people at that memorial had barely even bothered to get to know me.”

  Her words struck me hard. I remembered noticing the very same thing at my own memorial; how I hadn’t really known many of the kids who had shown up to pay their respects. And how odd it had seemed.

  Just like Jacob, Larkin made me realize that no matter how much you think you know a person—no matter how pretty they are, or how together they act, or how popular they seem, you can never know what their lives are really like.

  Not unless you ask them.

  And not unless you’re listening.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me what happened to you?”

  Her body had become so translucent, she was starting to blend in with the sand. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I guess sometimes remembering hurts too much.”

  “Larkin, I—”

  “That’s why I went back,” she said, clutching my arm harder than before. “That’s why I decided to trade my soul to go back and try to fix things. But it was a trap, Brie. I tried to make different choices, I swear to god, but it didn’t change anything. People still didn’t see me. They still acted like I was invisible.” She broke down, sobbing.

  “It’s okay,” I said softly, trying my best to comfort her. “I’m here.”

  “That’s how I got this, you know.” She pointed to her tattoo. “That’s how I became a Lost Soul.”

  Wait a minute. Lost Soul? Where have I heard that before?

  Suddenly something occurred to me. The graffiti I’d seen scrolled all over the city, like on the brick near Rabbit Hole. It was the same symbol as the one on Larkin’s arm.

  “The worst part is”—her chin trembled as she spoke—“I was going to do this to you.” She began to shake so hard I could barely hear her. “I was going to try and steal your soul, Brie. I was going to use it to save myself. To start over . . . to live again . . . for real.”

  My head was swimming. “Do you mean . . . do you mean like reincarnation?”

  She nodded slowly. “Lost souls have been sneaking back to earth for thousands of years that way. Bargaining for a new soul’s essence—a possession still connecting them to their old life—to start over as somebody new.” She smiled faintly. “Like a get out of jail free card.”

  Somebody’s essence. A possession still connecting them to their old life.

  I touched my collarbone.

  My necklace.

  “But the bitch of it is,” she went on, “somebody’s gotta give you their soul for it to work. And if they won’t give it to you . . . then you have to take it.” She paused, and I could hear the shame in her voice. “You have to steal it.”

  Steal it?

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I just wanted a second chance so badly. I just wanted to be somebody else.” Her eyes were begging for my forgiveness. “I wanted to be anyone but me.”

  I just didn’t get it. How could such a gorgeous, smart, fun girl have felt so intensely alone for so long? Even worse, how had nobody even noticed?

  My eyes filled with tears. “I wish I had known. I wish I could’ve been there for you. I wish there was something I could have done . . .”

  “But you did. You did do something.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t.”

  “I always wished,” she went on, “more than anything, that I had a sister. And after you found me in the city, I had one. I got my wish. Thank you for that.” She squeezed my hand and tried to smile. Then she reached up and touched my face, her hand barely there. “Will you do one more thing? Please?”

  I nodded. “Anything.”

  “Don’t forget me.” Her eyes glistened and I could see that she was scared. “It’s too easy to forget people here. Don’t forget me, Brie.”

  “Shh,” I said. “Don’t talk like that. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be fine.”

  But even as the words left my mouth I felt her beginning to fall away. I felt her hand relax, slipping out of mine and onto the sand. I watched her eyes flutter once, and finally, go still.

  “Larkin?” my voice echoed out over the beach. “Larkin?” I shook her, but she didn’t move. I leaned down and wrapped her up in my arms, the tears spilling down. “Why? Why does everyone always have to leave?”

  In that moment, I felt something begin to heat up against my neck. I looked down and noticed a soft, blue light.

  My necklace was glowing.

  Lightning flashed in the distance, and the wind began to pick up. The voices around me had gone silent, as if out of respect for the dead. I touched her face, and pressed my lips to her forehead.

  “I won’t forget,” I told her. “I promise.”

  Then I used my finger to scroll out her name in the sand.

  Larkin Ramsey

  Friend and sister

  I picked a small black thistle from the rocks and laid it across her hands. Then I brushed the sand from my face and looked back and forth along the beach. There were so many shattered souls. What had happened to them all?

  Love, I realized. Love happened.

  Any one of them could have been Patrick. I had to find him, but how?
I couldn’t possibly check each face. And even if I did manage it, I couldn’t bear to see him in as horrible a state as Larkin. I wasn’t sure what it would do to me, if I had to say good-bye in a place like this. I looked up to the sky and imagined her flying off in some other galaxy. Shining. Or maybe in that moment she’d be born again as somebody else. Somebody with a whole new life and a whole new beginning.

  Since apparently that’s an option.

  I watched the stars and wondered if she could see me now. I hoped she was happy, wherever she had gone. And I hoped she was free.

  All of a sudden, something moved out of the corner of my eye. I turned and focused in on the west end of the island, where a massive cliff plunged straight into the ocean.

  “Is it you?” I whispered. “Is it really you?”

  You fall, I fall, remember?

  There, standing at the edge of the world, his face lifted to the sky, was Patrick.

  CHAPTER 43

  we belong to the light, we belong to the thunder

  I was running. Running as fast as I could through the rain and the waves and a shoreline packed with the living dead. Everywhere I stepped, writhing bodies tried to grab at my legs, pulling me down to join them. I could feel myself suffocating in their open mouths, invisible arms, and a million forgotten dreams and memories.

  And I knew that if I didn’t run fast enough, pretty soon it would be a million plus one.

  I couldn’t get up enough speed to zoom straight to him, and the air was strange here—sort of heavy and stale, like maybe the same rules didn’t apply. So I ran into the forest, ducking through the coyote underbrush until I came to a road. The pavement was almost completely covered in leaves, and the trees on either side had grown together to form a canopy that blocked out the moon.

  But a road’s better than nothing.

  I pushed myself to my limit, twisting and turning my way up the side of the island’s only mountain. Finally, I came to a clearing that opened out onto an empty overlook, the nighttime Pacific stretching out in a 365-degree panorama.

  And there, standing right in front of me, a boy.