by Jen Nadol
Lucas shrugged. “Ultimately, yes.”
“And what I’d eat for breakfast today? Or which shoes I’d wear? You know, I wish they’d clue me in, ’cause some mornings I really struggle …”
Lucas frowned. “Bigger picture, Cassandra. Life and death.”
“I’m just kidding, Lucas. Nan liked those myths, used to tell me the stories,” I said. “She gave me a book about them for my sixteenth birthday, just a little …” I’d been about to say “before she died,” catching myself just in time. I still hadn’t told Lucas my real age, couldn’t imagine doing it now. “Just a little book,” I finished. “Very old. A family heirloom. It had belonged to my mother. Of course, it was in Greek, so it was kind of hard to read.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s back in Ashville somewhere. She got me other ones too. In English. She was into that stuff. Part of the heritage or whatever. Not my kind of stories.”
“You know, they weren’t just stories, Cass. This was a religion. It’s like calling the Bible a story.”
I shrugged. “That’s not really my kind of story either.”
The only time we didn’t hash out the readings was before classes Lucas was to teach. He didn’t want a preview of the things that might be thrown at him, preferring the harder road of having to think on his feet. I admired that, but never challenged him in class anyway. I don’t think I could have had a public argument without turning absolutely magenta, sure that everyone would see the way I felt about him.
We were halfway through summer session, a week past the July 4 break. Halfway through my time with Drea too, though I no longer counted the days. Not with an eye toward their conclusion, at least. Lucas and I had been together just over a month, though it felt like much longer. He was already pushing me to take a class or two for credit in fall and apply as a full-time student for next year. I had gotten the paperwork and was thinking about looking into it, maybe trying for my GED or something, asking Drea if I could stay. Crazy ideas, really. Mostly I tried not to think about the future. We have time, I thought, I’ll just enjoy today and figure out the rest later.
chapter 19
I could feel his weight beside me, warm and comforting, before I opened my eyes. The honking outside meant it was rush hour in Bering, past eight, time to get up. I rolled over to face Lucas. It was one of my favorite things, to catch him in that moment just before waking when his face was between the slackness of sleep and its daytime consciousness.
But there was something wrong with that face. I rubbed my eyes, praying it was a trick of the light, always overbright in his south-facing, whitewashed rooms.
The mark on Lucas didn’t go away.
I sat up, grabbing my head in both hands. There was no reason for it to be his time. Couldn’t be.
“Cass?” Lucas rolled onto his back, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “Timesit?”
I couldn’t answer. What would I say? Eight twelve seemed too mundane. Less than twenty-four hours before you die too dramatic.
“C’sandra?” Lucas propped himself on his elbows, squinting at me. “You okay?”
I nodded. What to do? What to do? A million thoughts raced through my head—get him to a hospital—or should it be on a plane to California? No, a hospital was no good. For God’s sake, he was eighteen; he wasn’t going to have a heart attack. It was going to be an accident. I thought about all the things that could happen: plane crashes, car wrecks, Wile E. Coyote anvil to the head. I realized that there was no sun streaming through his blinds and hopped off the bed to pull them aside. Raining. I remembered Mr. McKenzie, the squealing tires, the awful crunch. Right.
“Let’s stay in today,” I said.
He smiled, sat up, and rubbed his eyes again. “I’d love to, Cassandra. But I’ve got to get to this TA work session.”
“Skip it.”
He shook his head. “No can do. It’s mandatory and there’re only ten of us. I would definitely be missed.”
“Tell them you’re sick. I’ll call in to the coffee shop and we’ll stay here together.”
He looked at me closer. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” But you’re not. I had to convince him to stay. It was the only chance. What could possibly happen here? Immediately, a list of things popped into my mind: gas explosion, roof collapse, building fire. Still, it was safer than the outside world. But how to keep him in? If I told him the truth, he’d think I was crazy. Or he might run out the door, to the airport. Wasn’t that his right, though? To choose how to spend his last day?
I tried again. “Come on. Let’s do something spontaneous. Carpe diem. We’ll order breakfast, maybe read … I don’t know, sonnets aloud to each other or …”
He held up a hand. “I’d love to, honey, but today’s not a good day. Let’s carpe diem tomorrow, when I don’t have a meeting.”
Lucas pushed aside the down comforter and stood, stretching his smooth and muscular body. “I’m going to hop in the shower.” And off he went.
I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to figure out what to do. I couldn’t let Lucas go. The thought of losing him was a buzzing pressure swelling my brain, making it hard to hear or see. It couldn’t be his day. I wouldn’t let it. But I knew his tone: he was committed to that stupid meeting. I thought of telling him I was sick or calling in a bomb threat, but in the end, I couldn’t be sure any of them would really keep him here.
When he came out of the shower, still steamy, with a towel wrapped around his waist and another rubbing his hair, I was waiting.
He stopped short when he saw me.
“Lucas, I have to tell you something. Something you’re going to think is crazy.”
He stared at me, worry creasing the space between his brows.
I took a deep breath. “There’s this thing, kind of a sixth sense that I have.” I had never said it aloud to anyone but Nan, and hearing the words in my head, just before they came out, they sounded nuts. “I can tell when someone is about to die.”
No reaction.
I rushed on, needing to get it out before it was too late, before he cut me off or I started to cry. “It’s something I see—a light, like a glow—around them. It’s been there as far back as I can remember. When I see it, they die that day. I can’t tell how it’s going to happen, or exactly when, just that, as far as I know, it’s before the day ends.”
Still nothing.
I whispered the next part. “I see it on you. Right now.”
He didn’t speak, didn’t move, and neither did I. Outside, life went on, horns honked, doors slammed, but here nothing, both of us paralyzed. Me by the magnitude of what I’d told him, and Lucas by … I’m not sure what. The complete unbelievability of it maybe.
“You’re kidding, right?” He knew I wasn’t.
I shook my head.
“You really believe this? That you can see … death?”
I nodded and said softly, “I can.” And then I started crying. It was so God-awful important to me that Lucas believe and not leave me, and I could tell I wasn’t getting through to him. That, at best, he thought I was hysterical and at worse, psycho, someone he should have known better than to get involved with in the first place. I couldn’t win.
He came to me, put his hands on my shoulders. “Cassie.”
I couldn’t look at him. I looked down, but even his feet were surrounded by the damned light. I closed my eyes, the tears squeezing through somehow, running unchecked down my cheeks. He wiped them.
“I don’t know what to think of this, but if it’s that important to you, I’ll stay.”
My entire body flooded with relief. I looked up, hoping the light would be gone, that—decision made—it would evaporate. It didn’t.
“You don’t …” I didn’t want to say it, but felt like I had to. “You don’t want to go to LA, do you?”
Lucas looked confused for a minute, then almost smiled, but his grin quickly disappeared. “No, Cass. I want to stay here, with you.”
I nodded
. That was good enough for now.
We dressed and sat on the sofa, trying to read, the space between us huge. I kept looking at him, nervous every time he moved to go to the bathroom or get a drink or turn down the music. Every action seemed fraught with danger.
Ten o’clock passed, then eleven, twelve. I made lunch. Soup. Nothing with lumps or bones. Afterward, Lucas stretched and bent, eyeing the door.
“How long do we have to keep this up, Cassandra? How ’bout I run to the store for some provisions?”
I shook my head and reluctantly he returned to the sofa.
Around three thirty, Lucas went to the bathroom. I counted the minutes he was in there, another wave of relief when I heard the knob turn.
I stared at him, blinking twice, sure I was wrong. “What did you do in there?” I demanded.
He looked startled. “I answered the call of nature, Cassandra. You want details?”
“Maybe.”
“Listen,” he said, rubbing his brow. “I’m trying to be a good sport, but I’ve about had it. This is …”
“Lucas,” I said, afraid to even speak the words, afraid to believe. “It’s gone.”
“Huh?”
“The light, the mark. It’s gone. It was there when you went into the bathroom. Now it’s not. What did you do in there?”
“Nothing, Cassandra. I went in. I peed. I came out. That’s it.”
“Nothing else?” I demanded, though I couldn’t imagine what else there might be. Had he rescued himself from a burst bladder? Taken a life-saving dose of pills? Ridiculous.
“Nothing else,” he assured me.
We stayed in the rest of the day, cautiously treading around each other. I held my breath, watching Lucas constantly for any sign of its reappearance. It felt like the weight had been lifted but hovered just above my shoulders, ready to slam back down if I exhaled. We went to bed early that night, me, exhausted by the vigil, and Lucas, sadly, tired of me. I felt the absence of his arm around me, his weight firmly situated on the other side of the mattress. But I had saved him, I thought, in awe of my own ability. The rest could be repaired.
chapter 20
The mark stayed gone, though the few minutes of sleep I got that night were run through with nightmarish visions of it, screeching car brakes, and Lucas’s wary looks. On top of that, I had Drea to worry about.
“Don’t you think you’ve been out a lot?” she’d said on my voice mail. “Where’s your friend’s apartment? I can pick you up.” I didn’t call back. Of all times to play parent, she chooses now? I don’t think so.
As the dark slowly crept to day—black to navy to cornflower blue—I lay on Lucas’s bed, careful not to wake him. Near seven his eyes fluttered, opening to find me staring at him. He didn’t say anything.
“Good morning,” I whispered.
“Good morning.”
“It’s still gone,” I assured him.
He just stared at me, and I knew the wary looks were here to stay.
“You don’t believe me.”
Lucas rolled to his back and ran a hand through his hair, exhaling. “Cassie.” His voice was that of an adult reasoning with a child. “C’mon. How could I?”
“It’s the truth, Lucas.”
He nodded, still not looking at me. “I believe that you believe it.”
“You think I’m crazy.” He shut his eyes. “Do I seem like the crazy type?”
No answer.
“Say something, Lucas.” There was a little panic in my voice. I couldn’t keep it out, though it was the last way I wanted to have this conversation. He needed to believe, because the alternative … well, I couldn’t handle the alternative.
“What do you want me to say, Cassie?”
“I’ll prove it to you.”
He propped himself on one arm, facing me skeptically. “How?”
“The same way I proved it to myself. We’ll find someone with the mark and follow them.”
“Cassie, that’s … We don’t have to do that.”
“Yes. We do. Listen, Lucas, I know how it sounds, but I’m not crazy. Even if you don’t believe, humor me. One more time.”
“Let me get this straight.” He sat up, keeping a careful distance. “You want to wander the streets until you see someone with this … this light around them and then we’ll follow them until they die.”
I pictured Mr. McKenzie and my stomach did a slow roll. I’d never wanted to see something like that again, couldn’t imagine why I’d have to. I clenched my teeth and nodded. “That’s right.”
He thought about it and shrugged. “Okay, Cassandra. Let’s go.”
I shook my head. “Not in Bering. It could be weeks before I see another here. We need to go somewhere bigger, with more people.”
“So you want to skip class and go to the city—to Wichita—today?”
I thought about how it had looked when I’d flown in: a bunch of office buildings, even a skyscraper or two around a big domed building, like a flying saucer. I nodded. “That should do it.”
Lucas had called Professor McMillan, claiming a persistent stomach bug. “I’m sure I’ll be back on my feet tomorrow,” he’d told him, frowning at me as he spoke. We were mostly silent on the two-hour drive. The empty cornfields rushing by should have been hypnotic, but my brain was on overdrive. I was convinced Lucas had been meant to have an accident, something outside the safety of the apartment. But, if so, why hadn’t the mark left when he said he’d stay? Had he not really meant it? Or had some other more definite milestone passed, like the actual moment of his fated death? Was there something else Lucas decided to do or not do, maybe not even realizing it? It made me wonder about the hundreds of decisions that make up a day. How did my choice of muffin or hairstyle change my day and all the days after? What would be the result of our taking this trip to Wichita rather than going to work and school as we were supposed to?
My mind was busy with unanswerable questions, keeping me from acknowledging the most awesome and awful one—had I really changed fate?
* * *
We got there around twelve. Lunchtime. Perfect.
“Drive toward the buildings,” I told him.
Lucas found parking on the street, squeezing his car into a just-big-enough spot. “We’ve got to feed the meter,” he said. “How long do you want to stay?”
I had already started scanning the people on the street, feeling jittery and distracted. “Whatever you think.”
“I have no idea, Cassandra,” he said shortly. “You tell me. How long will we be here?”
“I don’t know, Lucas. How about two hours? Three?” I figured if I was going to see one, it would happen now, while all the businesspeople were out, getting their lunch and running errands.
He dropped the coins in and waited for me to lead the way. We walked down the wide sidewalks, trying to stay in the shade, little protection from the blazing July heat that seemed worse here, contained by concrete. People walked slower in the Midwest than they had in Pennsylvania, groups of suited men and women meandering to cafés, delis, and restaurants.
Lucas and I followed, crisscrossing streets aimlessly until I found a small park that seemed near the center of things.
“Let’s just sit for a little,” I told him. “This’ll be a good spot to watch.”
We sat. And sat. And sat.
“Mind if I read?” Lucas asked after we’d been there nearly an hour.
I shrugged. What did it matter? He didn’t need to see anything. I had tried a little conversation, but Lucas was not a willing participant and I was too anxious to work at it. People were everywhere, even more than I’d have expected on such a hot day. Men and women shed suit jackets to linger by the benches, talking on cell phones or in groups of twos and threes. There were older people too, with crossword puzzles and crumbs for the city birds. Mothers strolled by, kids played ball. I must have seen hundreds of people in the two and a half hours we were there, all of them perfectly dull. Not a sign of the mark.
“No. Sometimes it’s like this, Lucas. It can be weeks, months, between times that I see it …”
“Uh-huh.”
“Maybe we should go to a hospital. I mean, there’s sure to be someone there …”
“And do what, Cassandra? Wander the halls, poking into all the rooms? What are you going to say you’re doing there, assuming you can even get past security and onto a floor?”
He was right, of course. I remembered the layers of checkpoints from my visits to Nan.
He sighed again and glanced at his watch. “Listen, why don’t we hit the road? It’s a long—”
“Cassie?” another voice interrupted. I looked up, startled. It took me a minute to adjust to the glare of the sun over his right shoulder. I hadn’t seen him approaching, only looking for light, not faces. How he picked me out, I can’t imagine. The unlikeliest of people in the unlikeliest place.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. “Jack Petroski.”
I stood and he bent to give me a hug, our heads bumping awkwardly.
“Ouch!” I rubbed my forehead.
He smiled. “What on earth are you doing here?” He looked great, his tanned face scruffy where I was used to seeing him clean-shaven. It made him seem a little rougher, older.
“I … uh … I’m staying here. Well, not here, but in Kansas. Bering. It’s a town two hours or so north of here. And we …” I had forgotten about Lucas, who was watching us, a little amused, mostly annoyed. “This is Lucas,” I said belatedly. “My boyfriend.”
“Nice to meet you.” Jack offered his hand.
Lucas shook it, but didn’t stand.
“What are you doing here?” I asked quickly. Lucas looked back down at his papers, but I could tell he wasn’t reading.
“Visiting Wichita State. My parents are back on campus with the financial people and I’m meeting up with some of the guys from the baseball program who’re still around. Kind of a tour of the town thing.”
“They have a good team?”
“One of the best. And they really seem to want me.”
