by C. C. Hunter
He leans against the wall, as if he plans to stay there and visit with me for a long time. “What grade are you in?”
“Twelfth.” I realize in my haste to leave, I forgot to brush my teeth. With my luck, I’ve got a green marshmallow stuck to my pearly whites. I run my tongue over them.
His smile widens. “So am I.”
Am, not was. He’s speaking in the present tense. Does he not know he’s . . . dead?
The way his blue eyes study me reminds me of how he stared at me almost naked last night. As if he might be envisioning me like that right now.
“We need to . . . set some rules. You can’t just . . .” I’m tongue-tied, nervous, cute-boy kind of nervous. That’s so wrong. Talk about two people being incompatible. “You can’t just pop—”
“What’s that saying about how rules are meant to be broken?” He grins.
I frown, tighten my eyes, and glare at him.
“Just joking,” he says teasingly. “What’s your name?”
“Riley.” I hitch my backpack up higher on my shoulder. “Yours?”
He pauses one second. “Hayden.”
It’s different, sort of like him, so I guess it fits him. “I . . . gotta go.”
He tucks his hands deep into his jean pockets. His shoulders round. The muscles in his arms bulge out just a bit. Yup, it’s definitely cute-boy kind of nervous that I’m feeling.
“Okay,” he says.
Pumpkin hisses behind me.
“Stay away from my cat,” I mumble and motion for him to step away from the door.
He inches to the side but not quite enough. Not that it matters—he’s not flesh and blood. I switch my backpack onto my other shoulder and head out. I’m one foot out the door when I realize what happened. I felt him. Not like a person, but a light touch as if someone brushed a feather across bare skin. And . . . he wasn’t cold. Why wasn’t he . . . ice cold like the others?
I shut and lock the door. Run my hand over my tingling shoulder. Then, with my heart doing double time, I hurry to my car.
I start the car and drive away. Riding shotgun is the question: What makes this boy so different from all the others?
Chapter Three
I fret about Hayden the whole drive. Now, really close to being late, I take the first school parking spot I can find, unbuckle, grab my backpack and get out. I turn and lock the car. One bad thing about an old car: no automatic locks.
As I’m pulling the key out of the door, I hear steps behind me, and then, “Wow.” Followed by, “Is that your car?”
“Yeah,” I mutter and swing around, feet ready to run. But the second I see who’s standing there, my size sevens aren’t so worried about being late.
Jacob and . . . I think the guy who was with him last night . . . stand a few feet from me. Jacob is staring at me. His friend is staring at my Mustang.
“Hi,” I say and pull out a special smile reserved for good-looking guys. Or I should say, good-looking living guys. I didn’t smile at Hayden.
“Is it a four-speed?” Jacob’s friend asks.
“Yes.”
He stares at me as if shocked. “You can drive a manual?”
I nod. It took almost two months and every ounce of patience Dad has for me to master it, but they don’t need to know that.
“Does it have a 289 engine?” The friend moves closer to the car.
“No, just a 200, straight six. But I’m not complaining.”
He stops staring at my car and now is studying me the way a boy studies a girl. “Tell me you know how to work on it, and I’m going to put a ring on your finger.”
A little flattered, but mostly embarrassed, I laugh. Now if it was Jacob saying that . . . ?
The school bell rings.
“Gotta go.” I start walking.
Obviously not worried about being late, they both linger to check out my car some more. Before I push through the school doors, I look back . . . at Jacob, not so much his friend, even though both of them are easy on the eyes.
Not as hot as Hayden.
The instant the thought wiggles through my mind, I reject it and give myself a mental kick in the ass.
I must really be desperate if I’m getting the hots for a dead guy.
• • •
Having flushed most of my Lucky Charms cereal down the garbage disposal this morning, I feel my stomach gnawing on my backbone by lunchtime. I snag a slice of pizza, fries, and a fudge cookie, and try not to count the carbs. Shala, who used to have a bit of a weight problem, was a walking, talking carb meter, and even after all this time, I can still count carbs as fast I can eat them.
It’s a good thing I don’t gain weight easily because I’ve never a met a carb I could resist. From the pictures of my mom, she was naturally thin, too.
I hand the cashier my money. She lifts her face. Her blond hair is in a ponytail, and some of it hangs in front of her face, almost as if she’s trying to hide. She tucks the loose hair behind her ear, her blue eyes meet mine, and she smiles. I remember her kind of doing that yesterday, too. It’s a different kind of smile. As if she recognizes me. Probably has me mixed up with someone else.
“You are extra bright today,” she says.
I look down at my navy shirt and jeans. I don’t understand what she means, but I smile and take my change. As I walk away, I feel her gaze stuck to my back.
She’s an odd duck.
It’s only when I look and see my peers, all sitting in groups, laughing and chatting like friends do, that I remember how much I hate lunch period. Why is it that you’re never as lonely by yourself as you are in a crowd?
I head to a spot at the end of a table with several empty seats. I’m seated and taking a good long sip of my water when someone drops down next to me.
I almost choke on my H2O when I see it’s Kelsey. My first thought is that she’s here to confront me about the letter, which causes my appetite to take a dive. I set my water down and wait for her to start accusing me.
But she doesn’t even look at me, just starts forking at her salad.
After a few awkward seconds, I throw in the towel and say, “Hi.”
“Hi,” comes the one-word echo.
She’s mentally immersed in her food tray, and not me, so I pick up my pizza and take a bite. It’s cardboard with tomato sauce, but the cheese makes it edible.
“Word is you’re cool as shit,” she says, still studying her salad.
I swallow. “What?”
“Your car. Jacob and Dex were talking about it in math.”
Dex must be the other boy.
“I’m not cool as shit,” I say. But I remember that almost the same thing happened at the last school. My car makes a big impression on some people. But then they find out my dad is a mortician, and my cool status bites the dust.
Does he have to touch ’em? Does he hug you when he comes home from work? What does he do with the blood he drains from their bodies? Does he smell like dead people?
Verbal jabs have been tossed at me for as long as I can remember. I’ve basically come to the conclusion that there are some careers that should require sterilization. And mortician is one of them. The only other person who got teased more than me in school about their father’s career was Marla Butts.
Her father was a proctologist. The man could have at least changed his name.
“You lived here long?” I ask, a little curious as to why she doesn’t seem to have friends.
“A year.” She forks a cherry tomato, holds it up and stares at it. “Where did you move from?”
“Dallas.” I pop a fry into my mouth. It’s cold, but salty and greasy.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
Say what? I study her eyeballing her fork. “Sorry for what?” I don’t think she’s looked at me since she sat down, and it feels weird talking to someone who seems more emotionally invested in a cherry tomato than our conversation.
“Dallas,” she says.
“You don’t like Dallas?
”
She pushes the tomato off her fork and stabs a piece of lettuce. “No, it’s great. I lived right outside of Dallas for eight years. I’m sorry for you having to move here. This is a sad, screwed-up, boring town.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just shrug. Not that she sees it. Her attention is now on a cucumber she’s chasing around her bowl.
“Why did you move here?” she asks.
I flinch at the question
“My father’s job.”
Please don’t let her ask what he does. I’m not ready for that. And knowing my dad works at the funeral home where Bessie is might connect me to the letter.
“What brought you here?” I toss out, hoping to distract her from the career question.
“My mother got tired of her latest live-in boyfriend beating the shit out of her.”
I don’t know what to say to that either. But I force out a “Sorry.”
“I’m not. Not that she left him. Just sorry that my grandmother lived in this half-ass town.”
So, Bessie was her grandmother? I pick up the pizza and as I do I see her bracelet. It reads, Black Lives Matter.
“Do your parents like it here?” She’s still not looking at me.
“My dad seems to.” I hesitate and, sensing she’s about to ask, go ahead and say it. “My mom passed away when I was young.”
“That sucks.” She pauses and then asks, “Does your dad give a shit about you? Word is mine never did.”
It’s strange to be talking about personal stuff with someone I don’t even know. Yet, for a reason I don’t understand, I’m compelled to answer.
“Yeah, he does.” For all of my problems with my dad, I know he cares about me. And if what I believe is true, it’s himself that he doesn’t care enough about. For some reason, I feel the need to look up. My gaze goes straight to the cashier, who is staring at me. What’s with her?
“My grandmother just died.”
Kelsey’s confession yanks my attention back to her. Is that sadness I hear in her tone, see in her eyes? Then I realize she’s looking at me for the first time.
“Sorry.” I mean it. I liked Bessie. And while I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone—I don’t remember losing Mom—I know what it’s like to not have someone. To miss them. To feel as if there’s an empty spot in your life.
She continues to stare at me. It suddenly feels like too much. I take a bite of my pizza.
“Or did you already know she died?”
I jerk my gaze back to her. She knows. Damn it! She knows. I swallow the half-chewed bite of pizza. A big lump rolls down my throat. “Why . . . why would I know that?”
“Because everyone is talking about it. She died of a heart attack at the grocery store.”
“I’m sorry about that. But . . . I didn’t know. I don’t talk to anyone.” Except the dead. I swear I feel the half-chewed glob of pizza hit my mostly-empty stomach.
She continues to look at me, and for some reason I don’t believe her. Not about how Bessie died. That makes sense. The first time she came to me, she was holding a can of English peas. What I don’t believe is Kelsey’s reason she thinks I know about Bessie’s death.
Or maybe I’m just being paranoid.
The bell rings. She tosses her napkin onto her lunch tray.
I do the same. “I’ll see you in history,” I say.
“No, you won’t,” she answers and looks at me again. “I have a funeral to attend.” She stands up, her eyes stay on me. “I’ll say hi to your dad.”
I swallow empty air. “How do you know . . . ?”
She just smiles, then turns and walks away.
• • •
Pumpkin greets me in the entryway when I get home. Which normally means the house is ghost-free. I kind of hope it stays that way. I’ve got too much rolling around in my mind.
I’m clueless as to how Kelsey knows who my dad is. Well, there’s my last name, but face it, Smith is about the most common name there is. I just hope she doesn’t suspect my involvement with the letter.
As I move in and toss my backpack on the sofa, my gaze goes to my dad’s bedroom door. I recall my earlier determination to figure out if he’s drinking. I don’t have a clue what I’ll do if he is.
Crap. I’m jam-packed with cluelessness.
I stand there staring at the door, again feeling it would be an intrusion into his life. But don’t I need to know? I’m about to take a step closer when my phone dings with a text.
I pull it out, thinking it might be Shala. In that second, I consider confiding in her about my dad’s problem. We used to talk about everything. Well, not about the ghosts, but everything else.
I kind of need a voice of reason. I need a friend.
Then I look at the phone. It’s not Shala. It’s Dad.
You home from school safe?
I type Just got home.
How did the car drive?
Like a dream.
He texts Don’t cook dinner. We’ll order pizza. Stew was good. Thanks.
He sounds so normal. So okay that I turn away from the door and go give Pumpkin his after-school treat. Then I grab some Rice Krispies Treats for myself. Twenty-five mouth-watering carbs. Yum.
Stomach happy, I grab my backpack and head upstairs. I barely have any homework, but I might as well get it out of the way.
Half an hour later, I’m finished with homework and lying back on my bed watching the ceiling fan spin. I let out a deep breath and think about Kelsey at her grandmother’s funeral. I’m sad for her.
She didn’t come off as grief stricken but I’m pretty sure I caught a touch of it in her voice. It hurts to lose people.
I roll over and look at the framed photo beside my bed. It’s one I found in the box with Mom’s things. A picture of two pairs of feet, one adult and one child, both with wet-looking painted toenails. When I first saw it, I swear I remembered that day. Remembered Mom painting my toenails. Remembered how she smelled like sunshine, like love.
Crazy how you can miss someone you barely remember. But I do. I miss her so badly it hurts sometimes.
Exhaling, I pop up, run to the bathroom, find my nail polish and a towel, and head back to my bed.
I clip my toenails, place my feet on the towel on the bed, and paint them a mellow pink. I look back at the photograph, at Mom’s polka-dotted toe design, and I reach for the second nail polish and start adding polka dots to my toes. That’s when I feel the temperature drop. My mind goes to Hayden. A slight nervous flutter happens in my gut and I look up.
It’s not Hayden, but the blond-haired woman. Pumpkin leaps off the side of my bed and goes to hide in my closet.
She’s staring at my toes. I finish dabbing dots onto my big toe, then put the nail polish back on my bedside table.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer.
I’m always unsure how to get them talking. But until they do, I don’t know if they just need to be told it’s okay to pass on, if they have something to get off their chest, or if there’s something more. Considering I seem to have two ghosts at the moment, I’m hoping both are easy to handle.
“I’m Riley.”
“I know.” Her words are a mere whisper that seems to hang in the air.
“Do you know what happened?” I ask, wanting to confirm she knows she’s . . . dead.
She looks at me, her expression now one of desperation. “Bessie said you helped her. I need you to do something for me.”
“If I can,” I say, careful not to make promises.
“Find my ring. I want my baby sister to have it.”
“Where is it?” I say and hear Pumpkin hiss. Poor cat.
“It’s in the woods.”
“What woods?”
“Just find it.” She gets tears in her eyes and I see something more than just desperate tears. Fear. She’s afraid. She shakes her head back and forth. “It was so wrong.”
“What was wrong?” I ask.
“I can’t . . . I just . . . You have to find it.” She’s wringing her hands. I can see them trembling.
“I can’t find it unless I know where it is.” I speak in a calm voice. “Do you know where it is?”
“I know.” She paces my room once before she looks back at me. “It’s at . . . Lake Canyon State Park.”
“Isn’t that in Brian County?” I ask.
She nods.
I bite down on my lip. “That’s a little far away.” Dad would freak if he knew I’d driven that far. “I don’t know if I can--”
“You have to do it!” Anger brightens her eyes. “Haven’t you ever lost anything that’s precious? Something that can’t be replaced? Something that meant the world to you?”
She fades, but the sound of her crying echoes in my head, like a song that won’t let go.
My next breath brings an overwhelming sadness, accompanied by fear, exploding fear that crowds my chest. It comes on so fast, so cold and so harsh, my chest hurts. The fear accelerates. Panic I don’t understand claws at my insides.
Gasping, I put my hand on my chest. This has happened before. Sometimes I seem to take on their emotions, but this time is stronger. I can’t handle this. I . . . can’t breathe. I feel as if someone has their hand over my mouth. I reach for my face, but there’s no hand. I keep gasping, but there’s no air to be found.
I feel myself being sucked into some dark place. Black spots like fireworks pop off in my vision. Shit! Now am I the one who’s going to die?
Chapter Four
Just before complete darkness consumes me, the vice grip on my lungs releases.
I draw in a gulp of air. My heart thu-thumps against my breastbone. I breathe in, then out, hoping to exhale the heavy emotions. As unexplainable as the fear started, it fades. The flutter of my pulse at the base of my neck slows down. The raw terror that consumed me floats away like steam from a hot coffee cup. But the sadness . . . it stays. It echoes inside me, becoming one with my own sorrows.
Hugging my knees, still shaking and cold, I remember her question. Haven’t you ever lost anything that’s precious?
