“It’s too much, too fast,” I choke. My head begins pounding as my old and new pasts fight for their place in my mind. I feel like my gray matter is going to squeeze out of my nose any second now. And then, as quickly as it came on, the pain stops.
I can hear Madeline talking to me. “RJ, are you okay?”
Everyone in the coffeehouse is watching me but no one offers to help. They seem as dumbfound as I feel. “Yeah,” I say, sitting up. “It was just … wow … that sucked.”
She picks up my cup. “Drink this. Maybe it will help.”
I lift it to my lips and take a tentative sip. To my surprise and delight, the sweet and bitter taste chases away the last few spots of pain. I gulp down a few more sips before looking at her. “I thought people couldn’t lie here.”
She looks at me in confusion. “I didn’t lie.”
“You said I didn’t steal the money for the fundraiser we threw to help your parents out. But I’m pretty sure I did. It may not have been my idea, but I didn’t stop it.” I groan when I remember the pending court date I have in December. “Too bad the whole you-can’t-lie-in-the-Afterlife isn’t admissible for my defense on Earth.”
Madeline looks like she wants to say something but instead sits back and takes a long taste of her drink. “Do you remember us being friends now?”
This makes me smile. “I do. It happened not long after I started hanging out with Trevor, I mean Daniel.” I sit up and grin at her. “Wait a minute. The two of you dated. You must be the girl Grams mentioned. The one Daniel’s heart belongs to,” I tease.
Love radiates from her entire being and the outpouring of energy makes my skin tingle from the intensity. “Sorry,” she says, looking at me shyly as she struggles to reign in her emotion. “I only do that when I think of him.”
Madeline reminds me of Sandy and I gently tap the ring. It’s the way they aren’t afraid to show how much they love. I search my brain for even a moment of that feeling but come up with nothing. I hate to admit it, but even with the possibility of getting to go back to my life, I’m jealous of two dead girls.
“Hey, Madeline,” Shayna calls. “It’s time. You guys better take off.”
“Thanks,” Madeline tells the barista before turning to me. “You ready to finish this?” I follow after her and plop my cup into the trash can. Madeline holds the door open and gestures for me to walk through. I glance at her to smile thanks and when I look up, I realize we’re walking into Felicity’s living room. This is the last place I want to be, especially with Madeline. This is where I gave her a reason to hate me forever.
My stomach lurches when I see myself. I look sad and pathetic and I know there are about a million places I would rather be than here.
“Hey, RJ,” Felicity says. “I need the debit card. There are a couple vendors who still need to be paid before we figure the final tally.”
“Which ones?” I ask, thumbing through a stack of receipts. “I thought I’d taken care of everything already.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Felicity cuts me off with a wave of her hand, like she’s swatting a gnat. “It’s not a big deal. I can take care of it this evening and get the card back to you in the morning.”
“Okay,” I say. I watch myself reach into my bag and fumble with my wallet. I fish out the card and start to hand it over.
That’s when I feel the familiar tug of the silver cord. This is gonna be bad. I just don’t know for whom.
Chapter 20
Instead of fighting the pull, I give over to it completely and this time touchdown really isn’t that bad. I see the debit card in my hand and I know what I have to do to.
“You know what?” I say, releasing my dormant queen bee just a little. “You’ve done so much with planning everything, why don’t you just text me the businesses and I’ll take care of it for you? That way you don’t have to go out again.” I give her my biggest smile, which gets a look of surprise from Felicity. I guess she hasn’t seen this side of me in a while. I’m probably going to hear about it when I get back to the Afterlife, but for now, it feels nice to use my power for good.
A heartbeat later, Felicity is giving me a smile of her own and this one is dripping with annoyance and a warning. “No,” she says. If you ask me, her voice is a little sharp and tight, and I’m not the only one who notices. A couple of people at the table are looking back and forth between the two of us. “I have a study session later. It’s on my way.”
Since when does Felicity have study sessions? The girl breezes through high school on her pouty lips and a file of tests left over from her sister’s high school days. “It’s no problem,” I assure her. “This way, I’ll have all the documents I need and I can hand it over to the school bookkeeper in the morning.”
The room is silent. Now everyone’s eyes are darting between Felicity and me. No one stands up to the queen. It’s the first unwritten, deny-if-someone-ever-calls-you-on-it rule of popularity. “Give me the card,” she hisses.
I look at her, my gaze steady as I say, “No.”
I didn’t think the room could get any quieter. I was wrong.
“What did you say?” Felicity asks. She’s practically foaming at the mouth.
I push my chair back and stand up, squaring off my shoulders. “I said, no.”
I expect her to sprint around the table like a barracuda. But she surprises me and stands still, except for her face. Under the surface, her muscles twitch and contort as she tries to remain cool and calm. “Give me the card, RJ, or I swear, I’ll tell everyone.”
And there it is. The warning that should force me back into my seat after handing her what she wants. But I’m not going to take it. Not when I’ve come so close to getting my life back. “Tell them what?” I dare her. “That my mom is having an affair? Call me crazy, but I’d be shocked if you haven’t already told everyone in this room.” A quick glance around the table confirms my suspicion. They’re all looking anywhere but at me.
The surprise of calling her bluff only lasts a minute before Felicity is on the offense. “Now it’s just a matter of time before the whole school finds out. But I think I’ll start with a call to your dad. I’m sure he would love to hear about the extra activities your mom’s been indulging in.”
“That’s not my problem,” I say with a shrug. “She’s the one who has to answer for her actions, not me.” And with that one statement, this has become a battle between two queens. One who’s fighting to hold on to what she has and one who has nothing to lose. If I don’t change things now, Felicity will finish school and become a trophy wife to some loser ex-jock and I’ll be in limbo for who knows how long. I just hope I don’t live to regret challenging her. I don’t want my dad to find out about my mom from Felicity, but I can’t allow her to have any power over me anymore.
“Listen, Felicity, just let it go. Let me go. You don’t like me. I don’t like you. Your power to make me miserable is gone. Let’s just call this a parting of ways and move on. Life is too short to spend in a passive aggressive cage match with each other.”
She lets out a cackle that sounds like the call of the starving baboons they show on Animal Planet. “I should have left you in squalor with your low life friends. But I felt sorry for you. You went from ruling this school to barely being noticed.”
“Do you really believe I think you took pity on me?” I scoff. “My friends, my real friends, are not losers. In fact, the only loser I see is you. You had to blackmail me in order to have someone willing to do your dirty work. But you know what?” I ask, watching her face turn fifty shades of red.
“What?” she seethes.
“I’m better than that. I realize now that I don’t need fear to get people to do what I want.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” she spits back. “No one fears me. Everyone here loves me.”
I cross my arms over my chest and lean back slightly. “Really?”
“Yes,” she says, and I honestly think she believes what she’s saying.
/> But the memories of my new past are well implanted in my mind and while I’m not proud of them, they’re mine and nothing is going to take them from me again. Not if I can help it. “Then why did you tell me to put tequila bottles in Penny’s car after she was nominated for homecoming queen?”
“What?” Penny says, snapping out of her bystander trance. “That was you? I got suspended. They kicked me off the court.”
Felicity shakes her head and points at me. “She’s lying.”
“Am I?” I ask, scanning the faces for any sign of doubt. “Or am I finally showing everyone who you really are?”
“You’ve been like this ever since your social meltdown!” Felicity yells, moving around the table. I resist the urge to step back.
“Like what?” I ask, meeting her vicious stare with one of innocent calm.
“You’ve been trying to worm your way back in. And when I take pity on you and accept you back into our circle, you repay me with lies. Can anyone say, jealous much?”
This is exactly what I expect her to say. It’s what I would say if I were in her shoes. One of the most important rules of being on top: use jealousy to explain why anyone would dare stand up to you.
I’m sure she expects me to stoop to her level, but instead of my blood boiling and steam coming out of my ears, I smile. “What do you have that I could possibly be jealous of?”
“That they choose me over you,” she says, pointing to everyone watching us. “The only place you had to go was down and boy, how the mighty have fallen. All the way down to the bottom feeders of the social ladder. That Daniel guy is a freak. Leave it to him to hook up with a girl who’s probably going to die before we graduate.”
The room is silent again but this time it’s from shock that even Felicity would say something so cruel. While no one in the room really knows Madeline, I don’t think anyone has anything bad to say against her.
I push my way around the table until we’re only inches apart. What do you know, it’s not just the bullies who can pull off the in-your-face move. “Let’s get something straight, you narcissistic egomaniac. No one picked you over me. I left. I made the choice. I picked me. So hold on to your fantasies if you need to, but don’t bring Daniel and Madeline into this. They are five times the person you can ever hope to be. They know what’s important. It’s friendship. And in case you didn’t know, that’s about having someone’s back instead of stabbing them in it.”
I gather up all my stuff as quickly as I can and head for the door.
“Wait,” she calls, and for a moment I think maybe, just maybe, she’s going to have a change of heart. But even before she opens her mouth, I know it’s wishful thinking.
“Leave the fundraiser stuff,” she orders.
I turn around slowly, shaking my head. I see Dave standing behind her. Is he supposed to be the muscle? It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing they can do to me now. I’ve come too far to back down. “I don’t think so. In fact, I think I’ll drop these off in Principal Kauffman’s office in the morning. He can make sure every single penny gets to the Quinns in time for Madeline’s next treatment. We wouldn’t want her to miss it because you wanted to frame me for theft or something crazy like that.”
Dave’s head snaps toward Felicity and I’m guessing he’s made some promises to people about the party. She ignores him and instead keeps her eyes on me. “Wow. Now you’re paranoid,” she responds.
Here’s the thing about people who spend their life putting on a fake face for everyone. There comes a moment when that face begins to crumble. I see the moment where Felicity first begins to implode. And I have two choices. I can go in for the kill, or I can be the bigger person. I really want to end her. But I don’t.
“It doesn’t matter what you think about me. It doesn’t even matter what you’ve done.” I can’t believe what I’m about to say to her. “Felicity, I forgive you for everything. Everything you’ve done and everything you intended to do. I forgive you.”
“I don’t need your forgiveness for anything,” she hisses.
“Doesn’t matter. The forgiveness is mine to give.” And with that, I turn on my heel and walk calmly out the door. Keep myself from being implicated in a crime? Check. Be a better person? Check. Get my life back? Let’s hope so.
As the latch catches, I hear Felicity’s heels clacking against the wood floor. I’m almost to the sidewalk when she yanks the front door open. “You’re finished, RJ. I will ruin you. Everyone will know the truth about you.”
At that moment, I snap out of my body and find myself sitting on a bench next to Madeline. “You’re here,” I say, still a little off balance from the body swap.
“Of course I am,” she says brightly. “Where else would I be?”
“But I got the money to you in time, right? Felicity and Dave couldn’t frame me for embezzlement, so I wasn’t locked up for the trial. You should still be alive.”
“RJ, what you did, standing up to Felicity, it was awesome. But it had nothing to do with my death.”
“It had to have made a difference. It just had to,” I cry out, burying my head in my hands.
“It did. It made a difference in my life.”
I look up at her, unable to hide my confusion. “What is that supposed to mean? You’re still here. You’re still dead.”
She nods. “Well, obviously. The treatment didn’t work, but that’s not because of you. It never was. It was my time. No treatment, no begging for mercy, no good deed could change that. But the last few months were incredible. I spent time with my friends and had more romantic dates with my boyfriend than any one person deserves. And I laughed. Because of you.”
“How is it because of me?”
“Just think. What do you remember?”
I close my eyes, trying to clear my mind of all the anger I’ve been holding on to for years. “After I left Felicity’s I went to school and handed over all the books to the principal so a check could be cut to your family.” I open my eyes and look at her. “While I was there, he said that several businesses and individuals had agreed to match what we made. That brought the total to more than enough to help your family out and provide for the treatment.”
She’s smiling and there are tears of happiness in her eyes. “It was much more than enough. After the next round of chemo failed to make a difference, I decided I was done. My parents were able to take time off from work and spend it with me. Not hooked up to monitors, but at our home, surrounded by the people who cared about us. You have no idea what a gift that was for me and for them.”
“I’m glad,” I say, but my tone doesn’t match the words. “But you’re still dead. I didn’t change that. I know you say it was your time, but it’s not fair.” I turn my head, unable to meet the gentleness in her eyes.
Madeline isn’t about to let me ignore her. “Stop feeling sorry for me. This isn’t about what’s fair or not.” She pauses and I think she’s done until she yells, “Look at me!”
I turn quickly toward her. I don’t remember Madeline ever yelling anything. Ever. “What?” I snap back.
“Don’t do this to me. I don’t feel bad that I’m dead. You can’t begin to understand the pain I was in.”
“But you were always happy,” I say, knowing that, of all my lame comebacks, this has got to be the lamest. “I mean, you never let on how bad it got.”
“Because there was nothing I could do about it. I was eight when I was diagnosed. I spent more than half of my life with cancer looming over my head. I went through a bone marrow transplant only to have a relapse two years later. I had two choices. I could fight and make the best of it, or I could curl up and let the disease consume not just my body, but who I was. I chose to fight for as long as I could, so don’t you dare feel sorry for me.”
I stare at her in shock. In all the memories I have of her, none of them even come close to this kind of emotional outburst. “Feel better?” I ask, not sure what else to say.
She runs her fingers through her h
air. “You know, I do. I never got to say any of that when I was alive. I was more concerned about what other people were thinking and putting on a brave front. Thanks.”
“No problem.” We look at each other and then burst into laughter like only two soul friends can.
“Hate to break up the party,” a voice booms from behind us. I don’t have to turn around. I know Death Himself has come for me.
Chapter 21
“Not yet,” Madeline begs. “She’s not ready.”
I turn around slowly to face Death Himself as he responds to Madeline. “I’m sorry, but they are.” He touches her gently on the cheek and I’m drawn in by his unexpected compassion. Too bad it’s not for me.
But when he turns to face me, it’s still there. “Come on, kid.”
Before I can move, Madeline leaps at me, pulling me into a tight hug. “I’m going to miss you,” she whispers. Releasing me, she turns to Death Himself and shakes her finger at him. “You better fight for her.”
He holds up his hands in surrender but there is an underlying chuckle in his voice when he answers, “I’ll do my best.”
“I’m counting on it,” she mutters, giving my hand one last squeeze before whispering, “Tell Daniel I’m okay. He’s trying to be strong for everyone, but he’s hurting so much.”
What is it with girls wanting me to pass along messages? First Sandy wants me to talk her fiancé’s parents into letting him die and now Madeline is asking me to provide comfort for her high school sweetheart. When I hesitate she adds, “Promise me.”
I nod my head quickly. “I will. I promise.” And from somewhere deep inside, I get the urge to hold up my pinkie.
Madeline giggles when she sees me and quickly laces her thin finger with mine. “You remember our pinkie shake.”
“No,” I answer truthfully. “It’s more of a gut thing. I just knew I was supposed to do that.”
She smiles. “When I was sick, after the bone marrow transplant, you would come into my room and tell me about what was happening in school. I’ll never forget how you looked covered from head to toe in a blue hospital gown.”
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