A Soul's Kiss

by Debra Chapoton

  “I can’t believe she’s dead,” Michael says, shaking his head. Who’s dead? Me? I move around so I can see his facial expression. He looks like he has just eaten a lemon.

  “I’m not dead, Michael,” I say, more to assure myself than him. After all, he can’t hear me.

  He covers his face with his hands and his shoulders shake like he’s sobbing. Oh my gosh, maybe Hannah died. That would be awful and it would be all my fault.

  Michael throws himself on the bed and his face goes blank. Oh my gosh, he must feel terrible. He looks like a zombie just staring at the ceiling. I sit down on the bed and am tempted to stroke his hand or his face. I really, really want to comfort him. I put my head close to his. His eyes close and his body jerks just enough to bump our foreheads.

  “Oh, Michael,” I say.

  And he hears me.

  * * *

  “Jessica, you have a flat tire. Let me fix it for you.”

  “Thanks, Michael. That’s so nice of you.”

  “Or maybe we could drive to the park.”

  I’m next to him in a car I’ve seen him drive. I don’t know how we got from his bedroom to the car. I have a fleeting image of a flat tire, the school parking lot, Michael’s hand reaching out, and then we’re sitting next to one another. I’m moving like a child of sludge and lightning. I’m both heavy and fast, light and slow at the same time. I gasp for air and jerk myself up and away.

  I look down on Michael’s sleeping face. What just happened?

  I stare at him, watch the movement of his eyes flitting back and forth behind closed lids. Dreaming. And he’s dreaming about me.

  I touch his hand. I close my eyes and try to see his dream, but there’s nothing but blackness. What I really want to do is kiss him. When am I going to have a better chance?

  I should just do it. My heart is already racing and I lean over and ever so gently touch my lips to his.

  And I’m in his dream again.

  We’re in an old shed. There’s a mattress on the floor. I try to look around, but my focus keeps returning to a pile of empty bottles, the mattress, and the closed door. I can’t see the ceiling. A dark haziness floats above us. Everything about Michael, though, is clearer than I have ever noticed before. He hates his hair—can’t wait for it to grow all the way out and trim off the bleached ends. He’s wearing contacts, suffers from eye strain, and has lots of headaches.

  “Don’t worry, Jessica, I won’t hurt you. I’d never hurt you. Lie down here,” he says. He’s looking right at me and for an instant I can see my own puzzled face.

  The tingling fear that grips me releases the same haunting prickles I’ve felt when I’ve awakened in the dark from a nightmare. I push at the shed’s door and stumble out into a brightness that stuns me. I remember Rashanda for an instant then the brilliance of the light pulses before fading to a dreary gray that holds nothing but dread. Michael flies by me and I know he’s chasing Rashanda. Is this a memory or a dream?

  I chase him, grab his arm, and turn him toward me. “Michael!” I think hard and fast of what to say. “Sit down and tell me all about it.”

  Suddenly we’re in the last row of the auditorium, alone, but then there’s another row behind us and Hannah is sitting there. Silent.

  “It’s just fun,” Michael says, “and you were next. You should feel honored. It will change you. Like Amy. Like Rashanda. Like me.”

  “What will change me?”

  He leans forward to kiss me. Hannah is watching. I jerk away.

  If silence can clap its hands then that’s what I hear. From seeing his darkening face, so dreamy, to seeing his sleeping self just an inch from my nose startles me. I’m out of his dream and I know that his eyes are rolled back and he’s in a deep, dreamless state. The tingling persists and a hint of terror nips at my memory. I replay his words in my head over and over. I’m afraid of losing their meaning like a forgotten dream.

  The doorknob turns and I jump off the bed. I freeze, catch a hollow reflection of my face in the dresser mirror, and wait. The door opens a foot and Michael’s mother sticks her head in and frowns at her son. She doesn’t look my way. She whispers his name, testing him. Then she shakes her head and closes the door softly.

  Talk about getting into somebody’s head . . . huh. Apparently there are some advantages to being in a coma.

  And disadvantages. I look in the mirror again and see the blood stain spreading on my clothes from my waist to my knees.

  Rashanda

  Friday

  Maybe I just needed more sleep. Maybe seeing Jessica standing at the curtain was a crazy hallucination. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me.

  Or else seeing Jessica was the second sign.

  I apologized to her parents and got out of there. I found a waiting room that no one was using and thought about stretching out across the seats to take a catnap, but I didn’t even sit down. That little voice in my head was whispering ‘everything is going to work out’ but it didn’t sound like my grandma this time. Maybe it was God.

  I stood at the window and looked out at the parking lot. People were coming or going, arriving in a hurry or leaving slowly. I saw Michael trail two adults, his folks no doubt, to a car parked across two lines. I couldn’t be angry at Michael for the accident. I knew he wasn’t driving the car, but my heart was a mix of emotions I couldn’t sort out.

  The family reached the car and doors were opened. I saw a figure, a transparent Jessica, run up and slip into the car ahead of Michael. Didn’t one of them see her? No, she must have been completely invisible to them. That was the third sign and at that moment I had it all figured out.

  Jessica’s car was still in the parking lot and I still had the key in my pocket. If I could get to it before the Hoffmans left I could follow them to their house and find Jessica. Maybe I was going crazy, but I wanted to believe she was not in that ICU bed with all those tubes hooked up to her. Not the real Jessica, not my best friend.

  I had one of those heart skips when I reached her car and feared that I was going to find a flat tire, but it looked fine to me. I hadn’t locked the car and there was a can of Fix-a-Flat on the passenger’s seat. Tyler, maybe? Cool.

  I drove past the Hoffmans’ house when they pulled into their driveway. I could see four heads in the car.

  I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t hallucinating.

  I parked down the street and waited fifteen minutes trying to decide what to do next. Finally I went to the front door and knocked.

  “Yes?” Mrs. Hoffman looked like she hadn’t slept either. She had that same exhausted look that Jessica’s mom had. At least she got to bring her son home.

  “Um, I’m Rashanda Berry and my best friend, Jessica, was in the accident with Michael. Uh, how is he doing?”

  “Fine, fine. Would you like to see him? Come in, come in,” she said. Her nervous repetitions were echoed with two sweeping hand gestures to usher me in. I could hardly refuse. I wondered what Michael would think of seeing me here. “He’s in his room,” she whispered as she closed the door, “I’ll check and see if he’s awake.”

  She was gone a minute, enough time for me to get a nice impression of the Hoffmans from their house. Upper class, warm, family oriented. Tidy, controlled.

  “I’m sorry, Jessica,” she started.

  “Rashanda.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Rashanda. That’s right; Jessica is the one who was so badly hurt. Well, Rashanda, he’s sound asleep now. Maybe if you could stop by tomorrow?”

  I glanced up the stairs and wondered where the heck Jessica disappeared to. “Sure,” I said. “You don’t have to tell him I was here. I’ll text him.”

  I left, but I kept looking back at the house, checking the windows, wondering: Where? Where are you, Jessica?

  I sat in my car and stared for five more minutes. The front door didn’t open, but suddenly Jessica was rushing out of it barefoot and heading for the street. I honked the horn and pulled up.

  She was covered in blood. />
  “Jessica! What happened?” She looked at me like she was seeing a ghost. “Get in the car. I’ll take you back to the hospital.”

  She moved like she wasn’t hurt at all.

  “I’m so glad you can see me.”

  “And hear you,” I said. I grinned. I wanted to laugh, too, but that seemed wrong. Jessica was a bloody mess, but she climbed into the car in a split second and buckled herself in.

  “Do you see this blood?” she asked.

  “Yes, what happened?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t like this before. Do you know what’s wrong with me?”

  It was too surreal having this conversation with someone who shouldn’t even be alive, maybe wasn’t, but I tried to focus on my driving to get her to the ICU as fast as possible.

  I turned onto the main road before I answered her, looked over, and nearly ran off the road. Jessica wasn’t there. The seat belt was buckled but hung limp.

  “Jessica!”

  “What?”

  And just like that, she was back. “You just disappeared for a second. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. This is weird.”

  “You were pretty badly injured. Head trauma, something about your spleen, too.”

  “My spleen?” Jessica looked at all the blood in her lap. It didn’t appear to be leaking onto the seat or getting worse. “Maybe that’s what this is all about.”

  I caught the look on her face as I stopped for the traffic light. Jessica was scared. So was I.

  The light turned green and I pushed the accelerator, watched the traffic, and lost Jessica again.

  She was still with me . . . somewhere. I couldn’t concentrate on two things at once, at least not this mind-boggling. I kept talking in case she could still hear me. I told her everything. As soon as I parked in the emergency room parking lot, I closed my eyes and thought hard about her. I heard her seat buckle unclasp and I popped open my eyes to see her hand reaching for mine. She squeezed me and I swear I could feel it.

  “Come on, let’s get you some help.”

  She stayed on my heels, but I lost my concentration again as I hurried past the nurses’ station.

  “Knock, knock, it’s Rashanda,” I said as I peeked around the curtain. Jessica’s mom and dad weren’t there. Jessica’s skin looked extra pale.

  “I look worse,” I heard her say. Jessica stood looking down at herself.

  We were alone in the cubicle. The machines were quietly beeping—too quietly. Someone had turned them down, but maybe they were warning of her blood loss. I opened the curtain all the way so she’d be exposed to every nurse and doctor who passed by. No one was around. What was this? Lunch time?

  “Hey! Can we have some help over here?” I stepped around the corner and waved down the first person I saw wearing scrubs.

  * * *

  There was a lot of hustle and bustle and searching for Jessica’s parents. I was sent to the waiting room by the only nurse who noticed me standing half in and half out of the ICU room.

  I sat down in the corner, put my head in my hands, and tried to make sense of things. It was like a religious experience because my thoughts got all calm and warm. I prayed for Jessica’s doctors, that they would fix her in time.

  Tyler

  Friday

  By noon I’d had enough of school and texted my mom. I told her I was sick and asked her to call the attendance office and get me excused for the rest of the day. She did. She probably thought I was upset about Keith.

  I didn’t go home though. I started walking south without thinking about it. I was headed to the hospital.

  I passed the frozen custard shop where last Friday I almost got up enough nerve to go in and talk to Jessica and Rashanda. Crap. I wish I had Keith’s confidence with girls.

  It took fifteen minutes to walk to the hospital. I should have gone straight to the information desk to see if they had moved Keith, but I went to where I last saw him. His cubicle was empty. I looked around and wondered what happened to everybody. The place was deserted. The info board at the nurses’ station didn’t have Keith’s or Hannah’s or Michael’s names, but Jessica Mitchell was still on the list with a special notation and two doctors’ names. I glanced toward the corresponding cubicle number but the curtain was open and the bed was gone. Wheeled to a private room? I asked a nurse’s aide and she told me that she’d just been taken into surgery.

  Crap. Double crap.

  I went down the hall toward the main entrance and passed the windows of a waiting room. Rashanda was there, camped across two chairs and trying to sleep. I opened the door quietly and snuck in. I was undecided whether to say something or just wait. I took the chair to my left and planted my elbows on my knees. I rested my head on my knuckles and stared at the floor.

  Someone came in even more quietly than I had. Barefoot. I could see her bare legs up to her knees where the bottom of a light green hospital gown started. I kept my head in my hands but lifted my eyes and followed her steps as she crossed the room and headed towards Rashanda.

  Too strange.

  From the back this patient had hair like Jessica’s. I closed my eyes and thought of the last time I saw Jessica. She was walking out of the school with my stepbrother and her hair looked exactly the same as this girl’s. A shot of adrenaline blasted my eyes open with an insane hope. Jessica?

  She stopped at Rashanda and bent over her until their foreheads touched. A beeper went off on the coffee pot to my left and I jumped, swung my head toward it. I expected both girls to react to the sound, too. I looked back and there was only Rashanda. I almost came out of my chair I was so startled.

  Crap. It was just a dream. I saw what I wanted to see, I guess. I must have dozed off, too.

  I got a text from my mom asking me how I felt. I confessed that I was at the hospital and about to visit Keith. Before she texted back I felt that weird feeling that I had in first hour when I saw Jessica’s book on her desk. Like she was near somehow. Then Rashanda started snoring and I went to look for Keith’s room.

  Jessica

  Friday

  I spot Rashanda in the waiting room trying to take a cat nap. If I can do one of those Vulcan mind-melds with her before she falls into a deep sleep, then we can communicate again.

  There’s some guy wearing a ball cap sitting off to the side with his head down. I’m extra quiet as I tiptoe in. I don’t want Rashanda to wake up and look like she’s talking to voices in her head if she can see me and he can’t.

  I bend over her and carefully touch foreheads. This time I notice the wisp of gray noise that accompanies my transfer from existing in the air to existing in her head.

  “Hi, Rashanda.”

  “How are you doing, Jessica?” Rashanda is dreaming our encounter. She puts both of her hands on my shoulders, frowns, and gives me a worried look though all of these actions are only in her head.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your spleen? Can they . . . did they fix it?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I just walked out of the operating room and left them to do whatever they have to do.” She drops her hands and I use mine to fake like I was brushing the wrinkles out of the front of the hideous green hospital gown I’m wearing. “Look. No more blood.” That has to be a good sign. “And I feel pretty good.”

  Rashanda isn’t convinced. “Why are we here?”

  “Huh?” I try to look up at the ceiling, but my neck won’t work. I can only look down or to the sides. What Rashanda is imagining now is the same place that I’d seen in Michael’s dream. Stony Park. The Quonset hut. We are standing next to a dirty brown mattress. “You tell me, Rashanda. This is your dream.”

  She says that this isn’t a dream it’s a memory . . . and then there’s a beep and I’m not with her anymore.

  I don’t know how I end up back in the operating room so fast, flung from Rashanda’s mind back here in an instant. I stand next to my physical body, which is on an operating table, and watch the doctor wo
rk on me. My head is immobilized. There’s a tube down my throat, breathing for me. An anesthesiologist monitors its function, but his eyes dart around the room. I wave my hands in front of his face but get no reaction.

  The doctors and nurses in the room speak in crisp, tense phrases behind their masks. They are agitated. The thought flits through my mind that my body could die. I might never wake up. I struggle and fight to concentrate on staying alive. I have no idea how to stay alive and yet I don’t panic. My thinking seems foggy. My body on the table shivers. I shiver. My feet are freezing on the cold floors. I start to quiver and throw my arms around myself and wish I was wearing something a lot more substantial than this flimsy gown.

  A gown that has a red bloodstain starting to grow on the front. Again.

  Tyler

  Friday

  I went up in the elevator two flights and followed the arrows to Keith’s room. Crap. His mom was in there with someone. I waited near the nurses’ station and tried to get up my nerve. I’ve heard my stepdad complain about his ex-wife’s bad temper and I’ve seen her in action at sporting events. She was always a little too loud, like she’d had a few drinks before she showed up.

  “Can I help you?” a nurse asked.

  Whoa, she was young and cute. “Uh,” I knew my mouth was catching flies, “uh, I’m just waiting to see my stepbrother, Keith.”

  “Oh, you can go in. The chaplain is just making his rounds.” She smiled. Cute. But not as cute as Jessica. I nodded my head and moved away from the desk. I didn’t want to go in while his mom was there, but maybe if there was a minister in there the former Mrs. Mullins would tolerate me.

  I stopped as she came out with the chaplain. They were talking in low voices, not looking my way, and were huddled together. The chaplain put his hand on her back and guided her toward the waiting room. As soon as the door shut behind them, I popped into Keith’s room. I didn’t know how much time I’d have and I didn’t want to stay long anyway. All I could think about was Jessica in surgery.