In 27 Days

by Alison Gervais

  Taylor’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “What’s up with you? You didn’t even ride the bus this morning.”

  “Err . . . yeah. I woke up late and had to take a cab. I missed first period.”

  I was such a pitiful liar. I was surprised Taylor hadn’t called me out on it.

  “Uh-huh.” Taylor grabbed a salad and followed me as I made for the cash register. “Because you wake up late so often.”

  “Look, it was an accident,” I said. “I promise, everything is okay. I’m fine.”

  It would be a relief to blurt out the truth to Taylor and tell her everything that just occurred, but there was no way on earth she’d ever believe me. Nobody would ever believe a story as crazy as mine. I wasn’t even sure I believed it entirely myself. I needed to see Archer with my own eyes, see for myself that he was alive and breathing, before I could consider this my newly altered reality.

  Taylor stared me down for another moment with a perplexed look before she finally relented, giving a heavy sigh. “Fine.”

  She then launched into a story about her current beau, a football player named Noah Parker, as I handed some change to the lady at the cash register and went to scope out a table to sit at. Everything was back to normal for Taylor. Too bad I couldn’t say the same.

  Lunch passed in a blur spent tuning out Taylor and the rest of the girls as I scarfed down my french fries. I discreetly tried to examine every person who strolled by the table, and those sitting around me, hoping I would be lucky enough to catch sight of a pair of hazel eyes or dark hair belonging to Archer. No such luck.

  As soon as lunch ended, I dashed off to my locker to swap books for my next class. Continuing on like everything was normal and nothing completely life altering had just happened was the last thing I wanted to do, but my best chance at finding even a small glimpse of Archer was by staying at school. So I made it through the day, and by that I really meant I managed to behave normally enough for people not to notice that there was something seriously wrong with me.

  I walked unsteadily from my seventh-period class toward my locker so I could grab my things and head home. I had a date with my bed, a couple of Tylenol to deal with the sharp throbbing above my left eye, and a cup of tea. I hoped that after a nice long sleep, I would be able to think more clearly and come up with a plan to find Archer. Assuming this wasn’t all a dream, of course. I’d never realized before just how fine the line between dream and reality was. It really wasn’t all that difficult to confuse the two if you weren’t in your right mind—which, clearly, I wasn’t.

  I dumped all of my things into my bag when I reached my locker, and turned to make for the bus when I smacked right into someone and went tumbling to the floor.

  “Oomph!”

  “My bad.”

  Letting out a huff of air, I brushed my hair out of my eyes and looked up at the person I’d accidentally walked into. I was staring up at Archer Morales.

  “You!” I gasped, scrambling upright. “What are you doing here?”

  Archer Morales raised an eyebrow, a confused look crossing his face. “The answer to that would be because I go to school here. What are you doing here, Hadley?”

  It was as if my brain had suddenly gone into overdrive, and I couldn’t come up with any words or actions that wouldn’t make it seem as if I were completely insane. The expression on Archer’s face as he stared down at me clearly said it was already too late for that.

  He gave me a small, polite nod and set off down the hallway at a brisk pace. Only thirty seconds of interaction and already he was walking off? Definitely not a good sign.

  “Hey, wait a second!” I practically had to sprint to keep up with him. “How do you know my name?”

  I didn’t think I’d left that much of an impression on him, let alone enough to remember me from one class two years ago.

  Archer stopped at the head of the staircase and turned back to stare at me. “You’re Hadley Jamison, daughter of that hotshot lawyer and his businesswoman wife. We had English together freshman year. You turned the color of a lobster whenever I looked at you.”

  Good to see he remembers that, I thought with an eye roll. Just great. “Well, I guess I just— Hang on, where are you going?”

  I stumbled my way down the stairs after Archer as he kept walking with lengthy strides. I may have had little experience with boys, but I wasn’t stupid; it was obvious Archer was trying to put as much distance between us as possible. Unfortunately for him, leaving him alone wasn’t an option for me.

  “Away from you,” he finally called over his shoulder.

  That definitely confirmed my suspicions. “That’s not— I mean, I just . . .”

  It was impossible for me to formulate a coherent thought. My feet seemed to be moving faster than my brain was, and it wasn’t proving helpful in making a good first impression with Archer.

  “I mean, I meant to say, how are you doing?” I said, fumbling for words. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Because girls like you so often talk to guys like me,” Archer said with a snort that might have been a laugh.

  I caught the door before it could swing shut in my face as he strolled outside. “What do you mean, girls like me?”

  “Rich girls who don’t know a thing about anything,” he deadpanned—something he was obviously used to saying, if not thinking.

  I would have laughed if that comment hadn’t stung so much.

  “Hey! You don’t even know me!” I shouted after him.

  “Don’t need to,” he called back. He slipped into a crowd of people milling about on the sidewalk and disappeared from sight within a few seconds.

  I watched him go, a feeling of utter defeat washing over me. That had not gone well.

  Because I was desperate and I seemed to be only marginally hanging on to what sanity I had left, I took the train across town to the church where Archer’s funeral had been held in the hopes of finding at least one small trace of Death to prove that this wasn’t all just one very frightening dream.

  The doors of the church were locked and there wasn’t a single person in sight, so after snooping around for a few minutes and feeling utterly stupid, I decided to backtrack to that Starbucks.

  The coffee shop was packed with the late afternoon rush, but I knew the second I leaned up on my tiptoes to peer around the place that Death was not among this mix of people. I would have let out a frustrated scream if doing so wouldn’t have guaranteed my getting kicked out of the store. Instead, I settled for buying a mocha and trudging my way back to the subway.

  It took another hour or so before I finally reached home. I managed to drag myself to my bedroom, where I flopped face down on the bed and immediately fell asleep. I dreamt of nothing, and when I finally woke, it was pitch black outside, I was stiff all over, and I wasn’t too surprised that the date displayed on my phone was still November 11.

  I rolled out of bed and walked into the bathroom, stripped off my clothes, and stood underneath the hot flow of water in the shower for half an hour. The shower did nothing to help me feel relaxed, like it normally would have. I stepped out, and after wrapping myself in a towel felt more tense and anxious than I had before.

  I went to the sink to brush my teeth, and a startled gasp flew past my lips when I caught sight of the black streaks on my arm.

  Bringing my arm up closer to my face, I took note of the crude little numbers etched on the skin of my wrist. 27.

  You have twenty-seven days to stop Archer Morales from committing suicide.

  I scrubbed at the numbers on my wrist with hot water and soap and a washcloth for several minutes, but the numbers were practically tattooed on. I wrenched open the bathroom drawer where I kept my odd assortment of jewelry and rummaged around until I found the rope of Navajo ghost beads my friend Chelsea had brought back for me from one of her trips visiting family in New Mexico. I wrapped the beads around my wrist several times, making an impromptu bracelet that w
as big enough to hide the numbers on my skin. The less I had to look at them, the better. According to legend, the ghost beads warded off bad spirits and nightmares and brought protection to the wearer—something I would probably need for the next twenty-seven days.

  I pulled on my pajamas once I left the bathroom and slipped back underneath the covers on my bed. I didn’t fall asleep until well after midnight, too afraid to close my eyes and face what I might see while dreaming.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Dream Can Be Reality—26 Days Until

  I had been asleep for what felt like five minutes when I flew awake at the sharp, burning pain centered in my wrist. I sunk my teeth into my lip to keep from crying out; it was that painful. I rolled over and turned on the lamp set on my nightstand, tugging at the ghost beads still wrapped around my wrist. The skin on my wrist felt tender as I carefully slid off the bracelet. The number 27 previously etched in black on my wrist had been replaced with the number 26.

  This was how Death was going to remind me of how little time I had to stop Archer from committing suicide?

  “That’s just sick,” I muttered to myself, cradling my arm against my chest.

  I glanced over at my alarm clock as I carefully slid the ghost beads back over my wrist, and saw that it was 2:49 in the morning. It only took a moment to connect the dots. If I lost a day at this time in the morning, that must mean that was the moment Archer killed himself.

  It took a while to fall back asleep after that revelation.

  Rain was pelting down outside when I opened my eyes again. There was a sharp throbbing in my forehead, and I’d managed to become tangled in my blankets sometime during the night. I rolled over and slapped a hand around on the nightstand for my cell phone, shrieking when I saw the time.

  It was a quarter to seven, which meant that I had exactly fifteen minutes to get my act together if I wanted to catch the bus around the corner to school. A small part of me had hoped that yesterday really had been a dream, but the date on my cell phone clearly said it was November 12th.

  “What is this?” I shouted up at the ceiling. The ceiling didn’t answer.

  I rolled out of bed with a groan and quickly pulled on the first articles of clean clothing I could get my hands on. After I shoved all of my school things into my bag, I made for the bathroom to brush my hair, and put on the smallest bit of makeup to look somewhat presentable. I scarfed down a granola bar and tossed back some orange juice, and then I was out the door, in the elevator, and sprinting through the lobby to catch the bus outside as soon as the elevator doors slid open.

  I’d forgotten to grab an umbrella from the hall closet, so I was soaked by the time I thundered up the steps of the bus.

  “Geez.” Taylor let out a low whistle as I collapsed into the seat beside her. “You look like you just crawled your way out of a swamp.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I needed that.”

  When we arrived at school, I dodged my friends, focused on finding Archer. I could figure out what I was going to say to him once I knew where he was—clearly, I did not do so well when it came to making first impressions on the fly. I did not need a repeat of our less-than-friendly conversation yesterday. It was time to get to work and figure out the best way to approach him.

  I didn’t catch sight of Archer all morning, and when the bell rang for lunch hour, I bypassed the cafeteria and went to the library instead. I’d been so exhausted last night that I’d gone to bed without doing any of my homework, and now I had to finish up a short essay on The Great Gatsby before fifth-period English. I took a seat at one of the tables near the back of the library, in the quiet, and got to work explaining why F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel was one of the greatest of the 20th century, all the while thinking about how writing this paper was not nearly as important as what I should be doing—finding Archer.

  Twenty-five minutes passed and I’d just about finished my essay. I leaned back in my seat, stretching and shaking out the cramp in my hand, then almost fell over onto the floor. Archer Morales was sitting in an armchair pushed up into the corner, past the Fiction “Q–S” shelves, beside a small side table with his things on it.

  This was real. This was unbelievably, frighteningly real. Yesterday hadn’t been a dream, and Archer Morales really was alive.

  I gathered up my homework, shoved it back into my bag, and approached Archer without a second thought. He looked up from the book he’d had his head buried in and immediately rolled his eyes. I could have sworn he muttered you again.

  I fought back a blush and spoke while I still had some small amount of dignity left. “I feel as if we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. I wanted to introduce myself properly. I’m Hadley Jamison.”

  He stared at the hand I held out for him to shake as if it were covered in leeches and gave a snort of laughter. “Really unnecessary, Hadley.” The way he said my name made it seem as if it were the punch line to some joke. “I told you yesterday—I already know who you are.”

  “I, well, I just thought it might be nice if we got to know each other,” I said. “You seem like a nice guy, and—”

  “Let me just stop you right there,” Archer said, rising to his feet. I had to tilt my head back to keep our eyes locked, he was that tall. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but if I were you, I’d quit while you’re ahead. I’m not a fan of it.”

  “What?” I was momentarily stunned. “I’m not playing a game. I really just . . . want to be friends, you know?” I inwardly cringed at how ridiculous that had sounded. I wished I could’ve come up with a better line.

  “Well, then, save yourself the trouble,” Archer told me as he dumped his things into his backpack. “I’m not a nice guy. You don’t want to get to know me.”

  I didn’t honestly believe Archer wasn’t a nice guy, and I also didn’t think that was just his personality. His level of standoffish behavior had to be by choice. So why would he continuously push people away? Did he act this way with everyone, or only those who happened to say more than five words to him?

  The bell rang overhead, signaling the end of lunch and the start of fifth period. Archer took that opportunity to make a break for it, walking swiftly through the library.

  “Won’t you please hear me out for just a second, Archer?” I said, rushing after him, catching his arm.

  “You’ve never spoken to me before, Hadley,” Archer said, glaring down at me. I quickly let go of his arm and took a step back. “What changed your mind, huh? Some sort of bet? Is it the cool new thing to be friends with JFK’s social outcast?”

  “No! It’s not!”

  Death told me this wasn’t going to be easy, but I had no idea Archer could be so . . . so rude.

  “Leave me alone,” Archer said bluntly. “I’m getting a little tired of you wasting time I don’t have.”

  Buddy, you have no idea about how little you have, I thought.

  “All I’m asking,” I began, taking a deep breath, “is that we at least have the chance to get to know each other. Maybe even hang out once or twice. I mean, you never know, do you? We could have a lot in common or something.”

  By the inquisitive expression on Archer’s face, it seemed he was actually debating my request. “Why?” he finally asked a moment later.

  “Why, what?”

  “Why do you even care?”

  For half a second, I was about to tell Archer the truth. That I knew somewhere deep down inside of him he felt enough hurt and despair that he would want to end his life, and I wanted to help him because of it. Nobody deserved to go through something like that alone.

  “Because . . . because I . . .” I bit my lip, my stomach churning uncomfortably. “Well, nobody should have to be alone. Everybody needs a friend, don’t they?”

  I realized the mistake I’d made as soon as those words left my mouth. Archer’s expression hardened, his lips thinning into a tight line.

  “Did I say I was alone?” he said, eyebrow raised. “Tell me, Hadley, has it
ever occurred to you that I enjoy being by myself? Has it ever occurred to you that I really just don’t like people?”

  The thought had occurred to me more than once since our interlude yesterday, but I’d sort of been hoping he was just kidding.

  “No, but . . . you’ve got it written all over your face,” I said.

  It was childish, but we embarked on an epic stare down for several moments. The intensity of his glare nearly made my knees start knocking. If he went around like that all the time, I could see why people avoided him like the plague.

  “Honestly, I don’t think you’re as big and tough as people think you are,” I blurted. “You could do with a friend.”

  His eyes narrowed and his surly expression deepened. “Looks like I’ll have to start being more of a jerk from now on. Can’t have people thinking I’m not all that big and tough.”

  I mentally filed that comment away. It was something about Archer I needed to look into further, and it was the perfect place to start figuring him out. Either he was joking—and I highly doubted that—or he really did intentionally push people away from him.

  “Archer, I—”

  “Look, I don’t need your pity,” Archer said flatly. “Save yourself the Good Samaritan act and just leave me alone.”

  He walked away, not once looking back.

  I simply stood there, knowing I was going to be late for class and wondering what I was supposed to do next.

  CHAPTER 6

  Third Time’s the Charm—25 Days Until

  It was a relief to escape from American Government class for lunch. Mr. Monroe’s long-winded lecture on the house of representatives had my head aching, and it was a miracle I hadn’t fallen asleep again. I dropped my things off at my locker and went back to the library. This time I didn’t have homework to finish, but I was hoping Archer would be tucked away in that hidden corner and I could attempt to talk to him again.