Touch (A Reaper Novella)

by Jennifer Snyder

  There was definitely something different about this ghostly little girl, something which made her stand out in my mind against all the others I’d seen lately. The woman near the end of my road, the morbidly obese man in the grocery store parking lot, the teen boy inside the gas station on the way to Walmart—they were all bad enough. But this little girl knew she was dead and seemed fine with it.

  “What were the colors of the Spanish flag, again?” Kami asked a second time. She flipped a stray blond curl from in front of her left eye and chewed her bottom lip while staring at our poster fixedly.

  “Yellow and red,” I said, reading straight from our chart.

  “Okay, got it,” she replied, grabbing a yellow marker first. “You know, I’m glad we were paired up for this. With your artistic flare and my perfect bubble letters and organizational skills, we’re gonna ace this project!”

  “It’s surprising she doesn’t bust out the pom-poms after saying that one,” the little girl said in the sugary-sweet tone of hers, which still surprised me forty minutes later.

  I allowed my eyes to flicker her way for a brief moment. I’d spent the last thirty minutes trying extremely hard to ignore everything about her, hoping if I did she’d take a hint and leave me alone. So far I’d had no such luck; she continued to sit in front of me, staring.

  “Hey. I’m gonna grab a Coke. Want one?” Kami asked, her tone making me think she’d had to repeat herself more than once.

  I pulled my eyes from the little girl and glanced at Kami. Her eyebrows were drawn together in an odd expression, like I was being completely weird and almost scaring her a little.

  “Uh, yeah, I’ll take one.” I answered her with a smile, hoping it seemed genuine enough.

  She stood and walked toward the kitchen without glancing back at me. I let out a breath and sank down farther in my chair. Kami had been my best friend as far back as I could remember, but ever since my mother took her own life, we’d hardly spoken more than a few words. Maybe it was my fault because I’d closed myself off from everyone after that, including her. If I were being truly honest, I was still fairly closed off, even now.

  “She’s only worried about you,” the little girl said. She sat back in her chair, and folded her tiny arms across her chest.

  “I know,” I whispered, hoping Kami didn’t hear me talking to myself.

  “She’s been worried about you ever since what your mom did.”

  “How do you know?” I couldn’t believe I was having a conversation with someone who was dead. Was this what it had been like for my mother?

  The little girl shrugged. “I heard her talking with her mom about it a few times. She still cares about you, you know; she’s just scared. Kami’s never had to deal with death before, even her grandparents are all still living, so the thought of death being real and so unpredictable scared her more than you might realize. Everyone is more afraid of what they don’t know or understand.”

  I gazed at her, this little girl with such an innocent face, as her words of wisdom echoed through my mind. I wondered what had happened to her and how she’d come to know so much about the living and the fears that plagued us such as death. Why was she still here and why hadn’t she moved on? Weren’t you supposed to go someplace else when you died? I made a mental note to ask Jet when I saw him again—if I ever did.

  Before I could reply, Kami came back carrying two Cokes and a large bowl of popcorn.

  “Here,” she said, handing me a Coke. “I’m a little hungry, so I made us some popcorn.”

  “Thanks,” I said, cracking open the cold can of cola.

  “So, where were we?” she asked, somehow managing to keep her usual cheery tone even with a mouth full of popcorn.

  “Finishing up with Spain,” I answered.

  Hours ticked away while we finished our project and talked. The next time I glanced at a clock it was 5:56 and the early darkness of a winter night had already begun to swallow the sun.

  “Do you want to stay for dinner?” Kami asked, hopeful. “I’m sure mom won’t mind.”

  “Um,” I started, but then stopped.

  “It’s spaghetti.” Kami insisted.

  “Sure.” I shrugged, positive there wouldn’t be a hot meal waiting for me at home.

  Eating dinner at the Holland house was chaotic and slightly hilarious. It was just the distraction I needed to release my mind from the gloominess of my impending death, if for only a moment. The warm, fuzzy sensation of love, happiness, and normalcy which flowed between the walls clung to me all the way home. Unfortunately, it disappeared the moment I stepped inside the emptiness of my house, where thick silence seemed to breathe and fester, taking on a life of its own. Sadly, this was something I was growing used to.

  Either Dad was on his way home now, or else he’d be working extra late again. I guess that’s a plus of owning your own business—quitting time could be whenever you liked. And apparently, the custom signs and banner quota had more than quadrupled since my mother’s death, meaning Dad worked long hours while I sat home alone in the place that had been my mother’s tomb.

  Chapter Six

  At 8:57 p.m. Dad finally pulled in the driveway. I’d been curled up on the couch with the TV volume on low, jotting down all the questions I’d thought of to ask Jet, when Dad stumbled in.

  For the first time in my life, I witnessed my father drunk.

  I closed my notebook, marking my place with my pen, and watched him sway through the front door, oblivious to me.

  “Hi,” I said, when he started toward the kitchen without saying a word.

  His bloodshot eyes darted to mine. “Hey, honey,” he slurred with a smile.

  My heart began pounding. Was this for real—was my dad seriously standing in front of me plastered? Shouldn’t our roles have been reversed? I was the one who was seventeen; shouldn’t I be the one coming home drunk, stumbling through the front door after dark?

  “I’m gonna make something to eat; you want something?” he asked, and I was barely able to decipher his words.

  “No.” I shook my head. “Are you drunk?” A question which didn’t necessarily need to be asked, but I’d asked anyway.

  He nodded, continuing to the kitchen. “Yeah, I’d say I am.” He chuckled to himself.

  Anger lapped at my insides as I stood. “You could have died driving like this!” I shrieked.

  “Would that have been so bad?” he asked, devoid of emotion as he rummaged through the contents of the fridge. “The best part of me died a long time ago,” he added with more conviction.

  My chest tightened, squeezing all the air out of my lungs and clamping off my vocal cords. I knew instantly what he was referring to—my mother’s suicide—and I wasn’t sure which emotion his cold statement stirred most within me: anger or sadness. Anger because the vacant, King of Avoidance father I’d lived with for the past five months had now transformed into a person who chose to drown all his problems with alcohol and his behavior was supposed to be justified? Or sadness because I could relate to what he was feeling completely.

  Between the two emotions, anger won. Anger always wins; it’s always the victor over every other emotion known to man. I narrowed my eyes, watching him as he clumsily made himself a sandwich in the kitchen.

  “I miss her, too!” I shouted, stalking into the kitchen. “You’re not the only one!”

  He leaned over the countertop, the butter knife he’d been using still clasped in his hand. “I never said I was,” he said in a low voice, closing his eyes and hanging his head.

  His broken frame didn’t lessen my anger any; in a twisted way, it intensified it. All I kept thinking was that at least I was finally seeing some form of mild emotion stirring in him, regarding my mother’s suicide.

  “Might as well have.” I pressed further, fueled by rage and pain. “You haven’t talked to me about anything; you haven’t even acted like you care how I feel about mom killing herself!”

  Dad glared at me then, hard, before hi
s butter knife and sandwich both went flying across the kitchen. “What, Rowan? What the hell do you want me to say? That it’s all finally sinking in for me? That your mother took her own life instead of taking a damn pill and living? That I’ve beat myself up every day since because I knew how depressed she was, but I didn’t want to believe it? Is that what you wanna hear?”

  I gaped at my father, not knowing how to respond to his sudden outburst and the harshness of his words.

  “Because it’s the truth… I blame myself every day. I pushed all the signs I noticed under the rug and forgot about them.” His red-rimmed eyes shifted to the countertop and became glassy. “And I… I miss her so much it hurts…”

  The raw emotion in his voice was unmistakable, and it stabbed at me like a knife through my heart. For the second time in a single evening my father surprised me, this time because he cried. His face had been blank and emotionless at the funeral and throughout these last five months, but now it was easy to see how tortured by my mother’s decision he’d been.

  “I know,” I said, moving to stand closer. “Me, too.”

  “So much…” he whispered through sobs. I felt tears sting the corners of my eyes. “People keep telling me it will get easier, but it won’t, Rowan,” he sobbed. “Not for me.”

  I tangled my arms around him, giving my father the hug I felt he desperately needed, turning this moment between us into another one I felt should be reversed, but wasn’t. We clung to each other, finally releasing our bottled-up sorrows. The sobs that came from some place deep inside of me felt strong enough to break me in half, but at the same time oddly freeing. Until my thoughts shifted to one buried by the moment… one which tainted my tears with even more pain.

  This wouldn’t be the final time my father cried over the loss of a loved one. He’d lose me, soon. I didn’t know how or exactly when, but I knew it was inevitable. I would contribute to this pain that had already swallowed my father whole, a realization that shattered my fragile heart.

  When I finally ripped myself from my father’s side and sauntered back to my room, exhaustion weighed down my every step, pulsating in each of my limbs. A dreamless sleep overtook me the moment my head touched my pillow.

  I woke the next morning, an hour before my alarm went off, and stared up at the textured popcorn ceiling, not yet ready to begin my day. I listened to the quite house surrounding me and wondered if Dad had already left for work.

  When the sun finally peeked up from the horizon, casting hues of orange and pink across the pale yellow walls of my room, I crawled out of bed and padded quietly to my window. Dad’s truck still sat in the driveway, parked at an odd angle. Either he was too hungover or too depressed to be around people today, maybe even a mixture of both.

  Dots of black near our mailbox caught my gaze. The crows had returned to taunt me for another day with their symbolism of impending death and transformation. I stared at them for a while, wondering if their growing numbers held any significance, because if so, then my time must be running out.

  I slipped on a red long-sleeved shirt, a pair of dark denim skinny jeans, and my brown Ugg boots before hesitantly leaving the comfort of my room. The house was still silent, but it didn’t mean Dad wasn’t up. After what had happened last night, I wasn’t sure how to behave around him this morning.

  When I stepped into the kitchen for a cinnamon sugar Pop Tart, dad sat at the counter with a glass of ice water clasped between his hands. I walked to the pantry, searching my mind for something to say besides a simple ‘Good Morning,’ because it wasn’t, not with the way things had gone last night. I hadn’t gone to bed angry with him, but for whatever reason, this morning I found anger rising to the surface of my mind. Seeing him sitting there like that, dazed, was seriously setting me off.

  The silence of the house pressed in on me, making my ears hyperaware of even the faintest sounds. My Pop Tart wrapper crinkling as I opened it sounded like thunder echoing around the kitchen.

  “Rowan, I’m not going to apologize for last night and the way I acted or even for the state I was in. The truth is, it was the first time I’ve actually felt something since your…” He trailed off, unable to finish. I didn’t need him to; I already knew the ending to his sentence.

  “I’m not asking you to apologize,” I said, more curtly than I’d intended.

  His red-rimmed eyes flickered to mine and I dropped my stare to the crumbling Pop Tart in my hand.

  “You know you’re the spitting image of her?” he asked in a dazed whisper.

  I sighed and shifted my eyes to the kitchen window, watching the streaks of orange and pink fade into a blue sky. A crow cut through my view for a split second, an unwanted reminder of something else I had in common with my mother besides her looks.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not her—I’m me,” I said through my teeth, not sure who I’d meant the words for more: him, myself, or the crows.

  I threw the remaining piece of Pop Tart in the trash and stomped out of the kitchen, headed to school.

  Chapter Seven

  My blue sky didn’t last long; by the end of second period a dreary grayness had eaten it. By the end of third, the grayness had opened up, allowing a soggy wetness to pour out. It was the first time I didn’t mind the rain or even the extra chill which clung to the air because of it. It mirrored my mood and I took a small satisfaction in that.

  School seemed as dull and lifeless as the all-consuming grayness beyond the walls. I wondered why I bothered coming at all anymore; I had gone utterly unnoticed and invisible since the month after my mother’s suicide. High school has a fast-tracked time line; apparently a month was an ample amount of time for me to get over my mother’s suicide and when I didn’t I was bumped down the social ladder and forgotten.

  It’s those tough situations life throws at you that you walk out of knowing exactly who your true friends are. In my situation I’d only had one—Kami—and because I’d built such high walls closing myself off… I’d lost her too.

  Taking one month to bounce back from something in high school is a lifetime, but taking five months or more is an eternity, especially to a best friend.

  “Rowan, hey.” A familiar bubbly voice called after me. “Wait up!”

  I stood in the crowded hallway after the final bell of the day had rung, releasing us all from this torture they called school, and waited for Kami to catch up.

  “Hey,” she said, sounding out of breath. “I didn’t think you were ever going to stop! I’ve been yelling for you since Mr. Moore’s room.” She ran her fingers through her silky blond curls, then straightened her shirt.

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear you,” I admitted as we continued walking.

  “It’s okay. I just wondered if maybe you wanted to catch a movie? There’s a group of us going and we’re all meeting in the parking lot now… so I thought I’d ask.”

  I could feel her brown eyes zeroing in on me, willing me to say yes. This was the last strand of our friendship she was reaching out to me with, I could feel it.

  “A movie?” I stalled while I contemplated my answer.

  “Yeah, it’s some stupid comedy,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But it should be fun! Emily Short, Kyle Taylor, Samantha Gordon, Shelly Wilmington, Cory Gilbert, Trent Holbrooks, and Darren Wooten are all going to be there. You should definitely come!”

  I could tell from the way she’d overemphasized Darren’s name he must be her new crush of the week. An awkward silence began building between us while I tried to think of an excuse to not go, I’d been lucky our high school was fairly new and hadn’t been built on any kind of burial ground so it was ghost free, at least as far as I could tell. But the movie theater was old, real old. There was no way I’d get lucky twice in one day. Besides, once I factored in Kami with the others she’d named, there were four couples when you paired them all up, which would leave me being the odd person out.

  “Um, actually I have a lot of homework tonight.” I lied lamely, wiggling my notebook as thoug
h my holding it were all the proof she’d need to believe me.

  Skepticism pooled in the depths of her muddy brown eyes. “Homework. Really?” Her tone went up an octave or two on her last word. “You know, I just don’t get you anymore, Rowan. I mean, seriously, homework?”

  I dropped my gaze to my boots, hating where this conversation was headed. How was I supposed to explain that it wasn’t anything personal against her, I just didn’t want to hang out with anyone? Period.

  “I’m trying to give you a freaking olive branch, or whatever that stupid saying is, and you’re just swatting it away! I thought maybe things were going to be okay between us again—guess I was wrong. You’re never going to snap back to reality, are you?” Kami stormed away, leaving me frazzled by her sudden flare of anger.

  I didn’t shout after her. I didn’t even speak. Instead, I pursed my lips together and stalked forward, wanting nothing more than to be free of this crowded hallway with its satisfied eyes filled with new, juicy gossip. I hoped everyone thought my cheeks were reddened from anger and not embarrassment, which tingled beneath my skin.

  I exited the main building through the double doors at the front, instead of the side exit near the parking lot, and sucked in greedy gulps of the damp, cool air my lungs seemed starved for. I started down the stretch of steps and walkways, which led from the front of the school all the way to the sidewalk lining the street. I couldn’t face Kami again right now or witness any of the odd glances I was sure her newfound friends would be shooting my way.

  I decided I’d walk to a place I hadn’t visited in a while—my mother’s grave.

  The rain had died down to a fine mist that stuck to my face and threatened to mingle with the tears pooling in my eyes. Kami had no idea what I’d been through lately. Not only had I lost my mother, but in the last five months I’d also lost my dad, my best friend, and myself. Plus, I’d gained a creepy new talent, met an actual Reaper, and had an invisible hourglass positioned above my head which steadily dripped away the sands of my life at a speed unknown.

  Maybe Kami and I rekindling our friendship was a bad idea. I’d hate to be the one to bring death into her sheltered life a second time.