Wish

by Alexandra Bullen

  Skater/Drummer Boy reached his long, wiry arms up overhead. His soft blue undershirt hiked an inch or so above a crackled leather belt, just enough to expose a section of his waist, the sharp line of muscle cutting down across one hip. Olivia felt the back of her neck getting hot, and she worried that she was actually sweating.

  “So?” Bowie had reappeared at Olivia’s side and was stripping off her sweater, revealing a tiny black tube top, felted in clingy mohair fuzz. “What’d you think?”

  “Do you know where the bathroom is?” Olivia asked. She felt vaguely dizzy, a deafening rhythm in her heart and her head, an anxious flutter at the base of her throat. She needed to run some cold water over her wrists.

  Bowie pointed to where a short line was snaking back around a cast-aside armoire full of expensive-looking figurines and black-and-white photos in frames. Olivia took off through the crowd. As soon as she cleared a cluster of kids knocking back shots by the fireplace, she froze abruptly in place. There he was, waiting at the back of the line, propped up against a thick-framed map of the world.

  It was too late to turn around. She took a deep breath and planted herself beside him. He wasn’t nearly as tall up close, and, sneaking glances of his profile, she spotted a neat little row of tiny round scars, barely hidden underneath a thin layer of stubble at his jaw. Olivia’s heart thumped, and she clenched her hands behind her back.

  “Is this the line for the bathroom?” she asked, and instantly regretted it.

  No, this is just the way we stand, all lined up in a row for no reason. Welcome to California!

  He turned abruptly toward her, shaggy hair falling over his sea green eyes and sticking to the slope of his nose. “Yup.” He nodded with a smile, pushing back at the hair that had fallen, as if to get a better look. His teeth were big and adorably crooked.

  “Cool,” she said. Cool. She glanced at the floor for a trapdoor to fall through, hoping for at least a small fight to break out somewhere across the room. Anything to stop the uncontrollable fountain of lameness that was pouring out of her mouth.

  “I keep seeing you,” he said. “In the courtyard, right? At school?”

  And…now she was a stalker. She hadn’t been in school one week, and already she’d turned into the overdressed girl who stared too long and tried too hard.

  Olivia swallowed and nodded, racking her brain for something officially not-psychotic to say back.

  “I’m Soren,” he went on, extending a hand. “What’s your name?”

  “Olivia,” she answered, taking his hand. It was warm and sweaty and strong. “I’m new.”

  “Yeah, I caught that,” Soren joked, and then, through another heart-wringing grin, he whispered, “Welcome to Hippie High.”

  Olivia squeezed her damp fingers tighter together and harnessed enough courage to steal a glance back up at him. Which was about when she realized that he was looking at her. And not in a way that made her feel crazy, or like maybe she had arugula wedged between her teeth. Really looking at her. Like for one reason or another she’d caught his eye, and he couldn’t figure out how to look away. Like maybe he’d run out of things to say, not because he wasn’t interested. But maybe because he was nervous, too?

  The bathroom door swung open and Graham stepped out, clapping Soren on the back as he passed.

  “I should…” Soren pointed at the bathroom and Olivia nodded vigorously.

  “Right, so,” she said, gesturing for him to go ahead. “Good luck!”

  He smiled, a sweet, lopsided little grin, and closed the door between them.

  Olivia nestled herself against the wall on the other side of the bathroom door. It wasn’t until the band was back onstage a few minutes later that she realized it had sounded like she’d wished him good luck with the toilet.

  Graham was already gripping the mic and hushing the noisy crowd as Soren snuck out of the bathroom and headed back for the stage.

  “So, since this year’s party fell right on the equinox, we thought we’d do a little countdown to spring,” he explained, wrapping his guitar strap over his chest and plucking out a few notes. “Can I get some help up here, Eve?”

  From across the room, the miniature girl with purple fingernails Olivia had first seen sitting on Graham’s lap in the courtyard appeared and bounded up to join the band. She was dressed in a candy red skirt with a hedgehog embroidered on one side, leggings, and an oversize black sweatshirt that had been cut at the collar. Her feet were bare and dirty from working outside.

  “Who’s ready for some sun?”

  The crowd roared. Soren leaned forward over his drums, peering out into the crowd and squinting. He was clearly looking for someone, his neck craning sideways and swiveling around the room. Until he was looking directly at Olivia. His mouth was open and he gave her a little beckoning wave, one hand now shielding his eyes from the halogen-lamp spotlight that hung from a crossbeam in the ceiling.

  The little veins in Olivia’s neck pulsed and fuzzy black spots appeared in the corner of her eyes. Could this really be happening?

  The other band members, a beefy kid with long, blond dreadlocks playing the bass, and a balding guy at the keyboards who looked at least thirty, were each joined by girls from the crowd, and Soren was still smiling. And waving. At her.

  Olivia inhaled, fueling the Jell-O-like wobble in her belly, and took a step forward. Just then, rustling footsteps approached from behind her, a cascade of silky, jet-black hair whipping her in the face as a blurry figure hustled by.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” the girl called out as she ran up onto the stage, hopping next to Soren. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her tight to his side.

  Calla. The glowing earth goddess Miles had pointed out at lunch. And, if possible, she looked even more naturally beautiful than she had before, in dark, faded jeans, a ribbed white tank top, and chocolate brown flip-flops, her glossy, tanned skin glistening in the spotlight, her almond eyes dark and mysterious.

  “Five…four…three…”

  Graham was counting, people were yelling, the world was spinning…

  Olivia’s face felt like it was about to explode. All around her, people were hugging and clapping, so she clapped, too. Until she realized that the band had started to play and she was still clapping, and now she was the new girl in the fancy dress, clapping to herself in the corner.

  The bathroom was empty when she peeked behind the door, and so she locked herself inside, wondering if she’d survive a jump from the window.

  And wondering if she cared.

  “No throw up.”

  Olivia was slumped in the back of the cab she’d flagged at the end of Graham’s block, her head bobbing against the cool, foggy glass. The bearded driver squinted at her through the rearview mirror, carefully evaluating her puke potential.

  “I just have seats reupholstered. Very expensive.” He wagged a finger. “You throw up, you pay.”

  Olivia nodded and immediately felt dizzy from the effort. She let her head fall back against the seat and folded her arms over her face.

  It had started as a bit of a slosh in her belly. And then the room had started to spin. She couldn’t remember exactly what she’d had to drink, after the first glass of wine at the office party, half of a beer, and the shots of something fruity she’d been offered on her way back from the bathroom, after…

  Olivia cringed, a sudden flash of Soren’s lopsided smile onstage blurring in her mind’s eye. Then Calla falling into his lap as Graham counted backward from ten, her hands around Soren’s neck, leaning in for a midnight kiss.

  A hollow feeling grew in the pit of her stomach, and Olivia fumbled for the window, opening it a crack. The crisp night air filtered in, drying the damp sweat on her forehead. As much as she’d hated it while she was there, she missed Willis, her old school and friends, the lame parties, the drunken jocks, the girls who were superficial and fake, fine, but at least they knew who she was.

  Mostly, she missed Violet.

>   Olivia squeezed back hot tears too late, and a few escaped, falling heavily onto her dress.

  This isn’t how it was supposed to be, she thought. Violet would never have let this happen. I want my sister. I want my sister. I want my sister.

  “I just wish I had my sister back,” she whispered out loud, her hands over her eyes, pressing the tears against her wet cheeks.

  It happened so fast that later on she’d wonder if she was hallucinating. But as soon as she’d opened her eyes, a strong, sturdy breeze whipped through the cracked window, carrying with it what looked, at first, like a lightning bug.

  It swirled around the back of the cab, frantic and confused. Olivia quickly figured it was trying to get out, and reached across the seat to open the window. But instead of immediately flying through, the neon insect slowed the flapping of its wings, settling gently on Olivia’s knee before taking flight and disappearing back into the night sky.

  The bug had only been still for a second, but it had been long enough for Olivia to realize it wasn’t a lightning bug at all. It was just as tiny, and just as bright, but its wings were wide and broad and swirled with silver and gold.

  It was a butterfly.

  7

  Olivia woke in the middle of the night with what felt like battery acid coating her mouth, gripped by a sudden, mind-numbing thirst.

  Water.

  She squinted one eye open, gathering up the strength to lift her heavy head from the pillow, and reached across to her bedside table. She fumbled for a glass of stale tap water and gulped it down, oblivious to the tiny particles of dust that had settled on the surface. Hauling herself onto her elbows, she gripped her head in her hands to lessen the intense pounding, which seemed to be reverberating all the way down to the ligaments in her ankles. Slowly, she opened her eyes, allowing them to drift to the floor, where a shadowy heap of dark material lay next to the foot of her bed.

  The dress.

  Olivia groaned out loud, the events of the night before rushing back like the incoming tide. Like it wasn’t bad enough she’d made a complete jerk of herself, wearing a ball gown to a toga party and stalking Soren by the bathroom, but she was hallucinating now, too? A fluorescent butterfly?

  “Am I losing my mind?” she whispered out loud.

  “Basically, but what else is new.” A crisp, mocking voice came from somewhere nearby.

  Olivia whipped her head around, looking back toward the hulking headboard, then out through the gently blowing curtains.

  “Hello?” she called quietly out into the darkness, feeling ridiculous.

  Nothing.

  “Awesome,” she muttered. “Now I’m hearing voices.”

  “Oh, would you calm down?” the laughing voice ridiculed. “You may be crazy, but you’re not schizophrenic.”

  Olivia’s heart jumped, landing somewhere up around the middle of her throat. She threw the covers back and hurriedly tiptoed to the door, pulling it open and craning her neck to see up and down the hall. It was empty and silent. She shivered and hugged her elbows, closing herself back inside.

  Nobody.

  Her nose twitched and tickled. What was that smell?

  A thin stream of cigarette smoke swirled from behind her. Olivia looked down and followed the curling, smoky trail past her bed, past the window, all the way to the small, crooked door at the back of her room. The door was open just a crack and spilling a shaft of cool blue light onto the floor.

  Olivia put her hand to the knob and took a deep, steadying breath before pulling the door open and peering inside. There, lounging on the windowsill, smoking a cigarette and backlit by the eerie glow of a full moon, was her sister.

  “Violet?” Olivia whispered into the darkness, stepping through the door and slowly making her way across the room. She felt as if she were gliding, her feet floating inches above the crooked floorboards. It was as if the rest of the world disappeared and all she could see was her sister, her milky-skinned, freckle-faced, beautiful sister, waiting for her across the room.

  “You forgot my name already?” Violet laughed, hopping down from the sill and opening her arms wide on either side, an invitation.

  Olivia stood frozen in the middle of the room, arms heavy as cement by her sides.

  Violet took another step forward and waved one hand in front of her sister’s blank face.

  “Hello?” Violet prompted, her pale blue eyes sparkling as she shook her sister gently by the elbows. “Can a girl get a hug, please?”

  Olivia swallowed the lump that was throbbing in her throat. “What…but…” she stammered. “I…I don’t understand.”

  Violet huffed an impatient sigh and shook Olivia’s elbows, pulling her sister in to her chest. “It’s a simple concept, O,” she joked, squeezing her sister tight. “I hug you. You hug me. See?”

  Olivia’s eyes burned and she felt herself slowly melting into her sister’s arms, burying her face in the waves of Violet’s perfect, loose curls.

  Sea salt and strawberry-kiwi shampoo.

  “It’s you,” Olivia whispered into the side of Violet’s neck. “It’s really you?”

  “Last time I checked, there were only two of us,” Violet laughed, pushing Olivia away and separating entangled strands of their matching cinnamon red locks.

  “But, what…” Olivia started, shaking her head. “I mean, you’re…”

  Violet took a long, exaggerated drag from her cigarette before ashing it outside.

  “You don’t smoke,” Olivia announced. “I mean, you never used to—”

  “One of the perks.” Violet smiled, waving the flickering butt in front of her face. “Cigarettes can’t kill you if you’re already dead.”

  Olivia slowly walked toward the window. “So, you are…” she stuttered. “I mean, you’re still—”

  “As a doornail, I’m afraid.” Violet nodded and took another exaggerated drag.

  Olivia looked back through the open door toward the shadow of her bed, the rumpled pile of blankets leaning in a heap to one side. She stared long and hard at her sister before shaking her head and marching back across the room.

  Collapsing with a sigh onto the edge of her bed and falling back against the pillows, Olivia pulled the blankets up and over her face. She took a few shallow, labored breaths, her eyes pressed shut.

  It had to be a dream.

  Olivia took one more breath before squeezing handfuls of soft fabric up by her ears, and flinging the comforter back down to her lap.

  “Ta-da!” Violet exclaimed, standing over her on top of the bed. “Still here.”

  Olivia curled her legs up underneath her body and scooted back against the headboard. “Okay,” she spoke, her voice calm and reasonable. “Okay. So, you’re—”

  “Dead,” Violet said flatly, flopping to cross-legs on the bed beside her sister. “Dead, O, you can say it. It won’t make me any deader to say it out loud.”

  “Right,” Olivia said. “Sorry. You’re dead. But also…”

  Violet smiled, the cigarette perched casually at the corner of her lips.

  “You’re here?” Olivia asked quietly.

  Violet took the burning filter from her mouth and flicked it across the room and through the open window.

  “Either that,” she said, placing a gentle hand on Olivia’s trembling knee, “or this is one hell of a hangover.”

  8

  “Of course they wait until I’m dead to do something like this.”

  Violet and Olivia were crouched on the balcony outside of Olivia’s room, knees hugged tightly into their shirts to keep warm in the chilly predawn air. Across the street, Dolores Park was covered in half shadows, the tall row of trees cutting a ragged silhouette against the lifting curtain of night.

  “Like what?” Olivia asked. The pounding in her head had somewhat lessened and had been quickly replaced by a jumble of cloudy memories and frantic questions.

  Starting with: Was it possible that one of her drinks last night had been laced with a hallucinoge
nic drug?

  “Like this!” Violet flung her arms wide, indicating the picturesque city skyline that was just beginning to assert itself from beneath the darkness. From up here, the rows of pastel houses looked like a page from a pop-up book. It was a stunning view, but Olivia couldn’t take her eyes off of her sister.

  “Do you have any idea how lucky you are to live here?” Violet asked, snapping another cigarette free from a pack in her pocket.

  Olivia kept staring at her sister’s profile. Violet. Violet was back. Violet was sitting right beside her. She looked a little paler, maybe, and a little thinner, too—Olivia noticed a trail of blue veins crisscrossing the insides of her sister’s wrists, veins she didn’t remember ever seeing before. But other than that, it was the same old Violet. The same wild, copper-colored hair; the same sparkling, impish eyes.

  She was even wearing the same knee-length jean cutoffs, the ones she’d made from an old pair of Sevens, which fit perfectly up top but had been about two inches two short at the ankles. And the same apple green lace camisole she always wore under dresses in the summer.

  It was exactly the outfit Violet had been wearing the last time Olivia had seen her, on the beach that night…

  “What’s up?” Violet asked, inhaling deeply as she struck a match.

  Olivia shook her head, mute. If she started asking questions, it would mean she was starting to believe. It would mean she’d accepted that this was actually happening.

  “You still don’t believe this is actually happening, do you?”

  Olivia’s eyes shot up to her sister’s face.

  Violet smiled and rocked on her hips, nudging Olivia’s side and shoulder. “Don’t look so horrified!” she shouted. “It’s not like we couldn’t read each other’s minds when I was alive. Why should it be any different now?”

  Olivia chewed at the inside of her lip. Violet, or the ghost of Violet, or the drug-induced apparition Olivia had accidentally conjured that looked a lot like Violet…Whoever she was, she did have a point. “But,” Olivia quietly began, “how?”