HOW CAN I MISS YOU IF YOU WON’T GO AWAY?
He was hateful! I was trying and he was so—
I scrolled through my mental list of nasty phrases and they all seemed to apply.
Arrogant.
Destructive.
Cocky.
Insensitive.
Rude.
Conniving.
Manipulative.
Ugly—I threw that one in just because I felt like it. Finally, convinced I had enough anger in me to hold my ground, I faced him. His jaw was clenched so tight it pulsed, and I felt myself wilting under his gaze. All my bravado melted into puddles at my feet.
My weakness made me hate him more. The fact that he had Julia and I didn’t was unbearable. I rushed past Oliver and out the door.
• • •
I skipped lunch and snuck up to my room. I had one ear tuned toward the door, listening for the delicate dance of Julia’s footsteps. This was the first time I was hoping she wouldn’t show up. If I heard her coming, I might seriously consider hiding under the bed.
I’d expected to feel safe up here, but I couldn’t get out of my own head. I couldn’t block out the vision of Julia sucking face with Trevor or stop remembering Oliver bloodied and broken.
I broke him.
I flipped back and forth between self-loathing and confusion. I winced as a fresh strip of cuticle was torn from my ring finger, a hapless victim of my emotions. I started picking at the next finger while I paced. I couldn’t remember her, but I so wanted my mom right now.
What about Oliver’s mom? She must be devastated. She wasn’t aware that he was safe and happy, here with me. She couldn’t comprehend that he loved the girl who’d taken him away. She might be struggling to believe there even was an afterlife. Did she have moments where she wondered if her baby had been erased?
I flashed back to the look on her face, when she knew without a doubt that Oliver was gone. The raw, visceral noises that poured out of her soul as she ran to him.
I could hear the hum and feel my legs quivering. The lights were going out again. This memory was the last place I ever wanted to return to but it seemed like my intense emotions were the trigger for these unexpected Delves. I threw out my hands in protest but . . .
• • •
I couldn’t watch anymore. I couldn’t move. Horror anchored my feet to the earth. I could hear sirens in the distance, but they were too late.
Too late to save Oliver.
Too late to save me.
Too damn late.
Staring at my feet, I noticed my hand. It had blood on it. Curled between my fingers was a cell phone filled to capacity with the indescribable cries of my mom.
I flipped the phone shut. It slid from my fingers and clattered to my feet. I was alone, wishing for my mother and realizing that I didn’t deserve to have her comfort me.
The little girl in the car seat wailed and I could hear the sirens coming closer in the moments when Oliver’s mom quieted, pressing her lips to his dirt-streaked face. Her silence only lasted as long as it took for her mind to rewrap itself around the trunk of that tree. It was agonizing to watch. Then her head shot up and she blazed with accusation. She burned from the inside out and all her fire was directed at me. She knew what I’d done.
• • •
I woke up sprawled across my bed, with the sun peeking up over the trees. I must have staggered over before falling into that Delve. I didn’t know if my exhaustion was from the heart-wrenching memories or if it was a shut-off valve for having taken in too much information. Either way I’d slept through the night. I was grateful. Sleep had been a reprieve from the problems that were never going to go away.
Looking around, I realized Julia wasn’t here, but she had been. Two more paper cranes lay on my pillow. Now I had three of them.
There was a persistent tap at the door. “Elliot, open up.” The voice was male and authoritative. I must’ve processed the words a little too slowly, because as I glanced up he was coming through the door.
“David?”
What was he doing in my room? I didn’t see a hospitality basket with muffins.
David stood in the middle of my sanctuary and slowly rotated 360 degrees. My fingers reached up and clutched a lock of my hair, trying to find something tangible to hold on to while my space was being invaded.
“So, this is where Mel stashed you.” He sniffed and a plug of phlegm shifted and rattled. “I suppose Freddie had something to do with it too.”
Was I supposed to say something? This guy was utter kryptonite—rendering all my best snarky retorts useless in his presence. My brain rattled around like a squeaky hamster wheel. I closed my mouth for fear of drooling and giving him more ammunition.
“I imagine you’re wondering what I’m doing up here,” he said, as his fat fingers molested the fuzzy blanket tossed over the end of my bed. He plucked one of Julia’s cranes, sending it flying into the limbo space between my bed and the wall. I could feel cold sweat pooling in very unattractive places.
“Mel asked me to check on you since she’s busy spending time with Trevor. You remember Trevor?”
“Trevor and Mel are together?” I choked out the words.
When I looked up, David’s bushy mustache could barely disguise a smirk. The twinkle in his eyes showed how much he enjoyed my distress.
I stared at him but found myself sliding backward toward the headboard of my bed, bracing myself for his next verbal attack. I didn’t have to wait long.
“You seem confused, Miss Turner. Did you expect her to come and corection. ̶
12
still
waters
run deep
I’d killed Oliver. But then there was Trevor. I hadn’t made the connection until now: two boys were dead from one family. Thinking about it caused my stomach to twist and knot.
I pinched myself, forcing my mind to focus on something else besides the horror film in my head. Taking a deep breath I glanced around once more. David had disappeared, but the overpowering scent of his cologne lingered, polluting my safe haven. It didn’t really matter. The truth was that no place was safe anymore. I hightailed it to the stairs.
Common sense dictated that I couldn’t hide from any of this, but my feet seemed to have other ideas. I walked down to the water and followed the shoreline away from the Haven, Mel’s Workshop, and the smell of David.
I was gagging on my guilt as I headed for the lake. I needed to escape, get out of my own head. I seriously thought about taking up drinking, but I was already too aware of how revealing my sober bursts of emotional creativity could be. Drinking at the Obmil could cause quite a show. I didn’t want to be a sloppy mess. As it was, I could barely meet the eyes of the people who’d Delved with me.
I plodded forward. The soft, sandy beach was getting progressively rockier. Before I knew it, I was climbing boulders and hugging sheer rock walls. Sweat dripped from my brow, and my thoughts narrowed to a pinpoint of focus. My palm stung from gripping a knife-sharp handhold.
I tried to increase my speed and slammed my knee into the wall of granite. I could feel a bruise rising to the surface. I let out a hiss and rubbed the tender spot. I’d have to concentrate more in order to move forward safely. A chuckle escaped at the thought. “Hello, dummy, you’re dead and can’t be injured.” I said it aloud to myself. Old habits die hard. The living are wired for self-preservation and I’d never been able to shake those instincts over the course of my visits.
Once when I’d been eighty-year-old Arty, I was goofing around, trying to make silly faces at a child who wasn’t?mime=image/jpg" width="3suunderstand interested in eating her dinner. In the middle of my theatrics, I tipped over my glass and it shattered on the floor. In the scramble to pick up the broken pieces, I’d sliced open the palm of my hand. Blood oozed through my fingers. Spots danced across my vision. Just as I began to panic, Mel asked me to stop for a moment and picture the wound healed. The image was in my head no more than a few second
s before the cut and the blood were gone. I asked her what would have happened if I hadn’t pictured myself fixed. Would I have sat there bleeding and suffering forever?
She’d laughed, assuring me that the process was automatic and would kick in by itself. We simply had the capacity to hasten our own ability to be healed.
A sigh escaped from my lips. I could create weather and buildings. I could make the world around me appear just like I envisioned it. I could make myself whole, too. Well, at least physically whole. Mel also seemed to think that if I tried hard enough, spiritual and emotional wellness could be mine for the asking. It sounded nice, but I had my doubts.
The rocky terrain leveled off as I moved away from the lake. I found myself walking through a shady forest of old growth trees. There was no path. This was clearly a manifestation of my own state of mind, proof that I had no idea what direction my life should be taking. I squinted. I’d stepped out of the cool and quiet darkness of the woods into the sunlight. The sudden movement from dark to light blinded me, so I took a step back and shaded my eyes with my hand.
In front of me was a pond. I could smell its earthiness now that I was paying attention to my senses. The outer edges were decorated with a filigree of lily pads and blossoms. On one side, across from where I stood, there was an army of reeds and cattails fencing in the perimeter. The bull’s-eye ripples on the face of the water gave away the last location of a small frog. Directly across from me was a small peninsula of land that jutted out into the placid water. A tiny, cedar-roofed gazebo—really just an awning over a bench—caught my eye. I exhaled, not realizing until then that I’d been holding my breath.
The whole scene was beautiful, but I hadn’t created it, so who had? This place was so achingly lovely and relaxing. It had to be someone’s creation, but I’d never heard about it, so I must have stumbled across someplace private. There were some legendary places at the Obmil that souls passed down. If I left here and told Julia about the pond, and later she came searching for it, she might actually find something that was pretty darn similar because my vision had become her vision. Not like that would actually happen, the way things were between us.
I scanned the banks of the pond. No one was here. I moved to the left and circled around. I felt as if I should be cautious, but the calmness of the place balanced out the strangeness of not knowing where the mysterious creator was.
That’s when I saw him. Trevor was sprawled out on the very tip of the peninsula. He’d been hidden from view by a clump of wild grasses growing by the water’s edge. His eyes were closed and he was soaking up the sun. He appeared relaxed, and obviously he was, if he could create such a tranquil place to rest. His chest was free of his usual taunts and it rose and fell slowly as he breathed. What was he doing out here? David had told me that he was off Delving with Mel. I wondered who’d been lying.
I edged closer, crouching down and moving like a ninja from one form of cover to another. I felt silly, but I couldn’t resist seeing his face relaxed, devoid of its usual hostility.~uthi
When I reached the gazebo bench I stood on the seat and threw one foot up on the railing. Wrapping my arms around the side support I pulled myself upward and peered down at Trevor, not knowing how I would explain my awkward behavior if he woke up.
The sensation of wrongness hit me immediately. At this height I could see the other side of his languid pose. His arm was tucked underneath him in an awkward position. He wasn’t sleeping—something wasn’t right.
I leapt off the railing, reaching for him as I dashed down to the water’s edge. As I moved closer I could feel my vision starting to disappear and my legs dissolving into fizzy tingles. Before I could reverse my forward momentum I realized that he was deep in a Delve and I was being pulled in by my proximity to him. As I tumbled into Trevor’s memory, I felt my body fall against his. Great.
• • •
I dropped into Trevor’s memories like a cartoon anvil. He’d already settled into himself, and catching up with him so rapidly knocked the wind out of me.
He was back in the cemetery. He was alone this time, in the warm golden light of the morning sun that reflected off the jet-black marble bench that served as a headstone.
Trevor straddled the beyeballs. My s
13
questions
We were back at the pond and I was no">I didn’t have time to speculate as he roared back to awareness. “Why are you spying on me?”
Did he mean here or in the cemetery or both? It didn’t matter because I couldn’t answer him anyway. I could barely breathe with him crushing my ribs like twigs, and when I tried to suck in air, the weight of him compressed my lungs even further.
“Gahhhhh . . .”
“Oh, sorry,” he mumbled, pushing off the ground next to me and rolling to the side. He sprung to his feet, agile like a cat. I, on the other hand, was trying to reinflate my lungs before I made any sudden movements. It occurred to me that I would require air to deal with Trevor.
I was less than graceful as I moved into an upright position, nearly tipping back over as I tried to free a stick from my tangle of hair. Trevor paced back and forth between where I sat and the gazebo. His feet were surprisingly stealthy considering the intensity of his movements.
He stopped abruptly and studied me. “Can you answer me now?” His voice was calmer but still had an edge to it. His face was all kinds of serious.
I wasn’t sure how to answer. Like it would matter, anyway. My existence alone was enough to tick him off. I gave a seriously unattractive snort thinking about it. Realizing that there was nothing I could do to make him happy had released all the pressure that was building up inside me.
“All right, Trevor,” I said, flying to my feet and dusting off the butt of my pants. I felt a small quiver of power, as his eyes grew large at my unexpectedly confident response. Feeling braver, I strode toward him. Giddily I watched him take a step backward, then two.
What would he do when his legs pressed up against the wood of the gazebo? The thrill of dominance prickled the hairs on the nape of my neck. Let’s see how he likes being the prey for a change.
“First of all, no one is spying on you.” With my arms crossed, I threw my hip out to emphasize the point. “It’s called hiking. It’s what I do to blow off steam and get my thoughts together. I accidentally came across the pond and . . .” How could I say it without giving him an even bigger ego? “Well, I was searching to see who’d created it. It was just so surprisingly beautiful.” My eyes were slits, making sure he didn’t mock my honesty. If he laughed even a little bit I’d throttle him. But his gaze stayed steady and he remained quiet so I continued. “That’s when I found you and at first I thought you were sleeping. Then I noticed your arm was twisted and . . .”
He was easily swiveling the appendage around with the tiniest of smirks on his face. “Good as new,” he said.
“Oh. Well, good. I’m glad to hear it.” I unfolded my arms.
“Anyway,” I continued, “I ran to help you and—” I was interrupted by a much louder snort than my own. I ignored it and continued. “So as I got close to you, I mean near you, I fell into your Delve and that’s how I landed on . . . This} @font-face {hibto really could be seen as your fault.”
I found myself taking a step back at the same exact moment that Trevor took one in my direction.
There was a slight drawl in his voice as he asked, “So you were trying to save me?”
He was drawing closer and if I moved back too much farther I’d be standing in the pond. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing; I could feel the heat flaring up in my cheeks.
“Well, I appreciate your worry.”
I couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or sarcastic. He was within a foot of me now and I needed to look up to meet his gaze.
“What I wanted to know was, why were you spying on me in the cemetery?”
“Oh.” I bit my lip. “I don’t know why I was there.” I thought about it a moment. “Did you know i
t was me? I mean, did your past self know it was me in the woods or did you always go around threatening people?” I didn’t add that from what I knew of him in the afterlife, it was completely believable.
“Do you always snort?” he asked.
He was outrageous, the master of deflection. I could feel a vein pulsing in my temple.
“Me? Did you not hear the snort that came out of your nose?” I demanded.
The chuckle rumbled from someplace down in his gut. It rolled up and out and bounced around me. He was laughing. For the first time, he wasn’t hard and angry. My tongue felt dry from the breeze blowing into my gaping mouth. A piece of me wanted to be angry that he was making fun of me, but that smile was like light reflecting off the snow on a crystal clear day. I was hypnotized by it, blinded.
“I’m not a beast,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Sure acted like one,” I fired off without thinking.
“Ha.” He threw back his head. “I think I like you better with a backbone.”
“Hey, I’ve always had a backbone.” I glared at him, trying to distract myself from the hummingbirds doing loop-the-loops in my stomach. Where did those little birds come from? I tried to concentrate. “I, on the other hand, was just wondering where you’ve had that smile stashed.”
I sucked in some air for fortification and took a step forward. Shoot, he didn’t back up. Now we were almost nose-to-nose. Actually it was nose-to-chest. All the breath I’d taken in came rushing back out and piled up against the place on his T-shirt where he displayed his witty slogans. God, I hoped it was minty fresh.
“Fair enough,” he said. “I came here angry.”
Neither of us budged and the hummingbirds were going all ADHD on me now.
Breaking the spell, he rocked back and knelt down to tie his shoe. I took that moment to remind myself to breathe.
Touching the Surface Page 6
