The Sky Above Us

by Natalie Lund

  Shane and Israel helped Nate hop across the student parking lot and into the school. “I’m so sorry, man,” Israel said.

  Nate grunted. He remembered feeling a cleat against his right ankle. Israel’s cleat. The slide tackle had driven his ankle in one direction, while momentum forced his weight—and his knee—in another.

  Janie was sitting on the bench outside the front office with a stopwatch as they approached. She appeared to be practicing something—probably the speech for Mrs. Gutierrez’s English class, which they had during different periods.

  The trainer’s office door was closed.

  “Fuck, he’s not here,” Shane said.

  Nate was starting to feel a little dizzy. He pointed at the bench where Janie sat and the guys shuffled him over there.

  “We’ll go find him,” Israel said, and started toward the gym. Shane took another hallway toward the track.

  “What happened?” Janie asked as soon as the guys were out of sight.

  “My knee,” he said, and then gritted his teeth again.

  “Should we go see my dad?” she asked. “I can drive you.” Her braid was crooked, and she was wearing a gray PE uniform T-shirt like she’d forgotten to change after the class or had lost her real shirt in the locker room, which wouldn’t have surprised Nate.

  “Where’s your shirt?” Nate asked.

  Janie looked confused.

  “Your shirt,” he said again, insistent. “You were wearing that orange bowling one earlier.”

  Janie paused a moment. “You noticed what I wore to school today?”

  Nate felt the contents of his stomach rock back and forth. He imagined a wave pool. Up one side. Down the other. He must have moaned because Janie stood.

  “We’ll call him from the car. Come on.” She slid under Nate’s arm and lifted him to his feet. She was strong.

  Israel rounded the corner, shaking his head. “I couldn’t find him. Shane’s still looking?”

  Nate felt Janie freeze beneath his arm. They’d never been caught together before. His stomach rocked again, but this time it wasn’t from the knee. What was he supposed to say?

  But Janie spoke first, directly to Israel. “Can you help me get him to my car? My dad’s a doctor.”

  Israel took his spot beneath Nate’s arm again, without seeming surprised at Janie’s involvement. Nate felt a flash of relief, which was quickly erased by the pain in his knee.

  They hobbled back out of the school and into the parking lot where Janie’s hatchback was parked. Nate’s knee was pulsing now, the pain blinking on and off and becoming brighter each time. Now he felt cold, too. The vomit surged up his esophagus.

  He wiped his mouth and realized that Janie’s shirt was splattered yellow. “That’s why you changed it,” he said, his throat burning from the bile. “Because you knew I’d throw up on you.”

  Janie laughed and pulled her gym shirt off—right there in front of Israel. She was wearing a blue stretched-out sports bra, and her belly was the softest, palest thing Nate had ever seen.

  She blotted his mouth with the clean inside of the shirt and tossed it in her trunk.

  Israel reclined the passenger seat all the way back. “Keep your right leg as straight as you can,” he told Nate. “Pretend you’re doing a one-legged squat on your left and lower yourself down. Sit sideways and we can lift your legs in.” Nate tried to keep all the instructions in his head at once, but they slipped out. He practically dove headfirst into the seat, and pain shot all the way up his body. It made him squeeze his eyes shut and utter an Uhhhhh sound.

  When Nate opened his eyes again, Janie’s dad was leaning into the car and rubbing his beard. They were in the roundabout in front of the hospital where people dropped off patients.

  “Your mom is almost here,” he told Nate.

  Nate’s brain seemed to only be able to think in colors—red every time his knee pulsed and the cool leafy green of that Maryland soccer field—when he thought about what he might lose.

  “Will I play soccer again?” Nate asked.

  His tongue felt like rubber, but Janie’s dad smiled sadly at him as though he understood. “Let’s figure out what’s going on with your knee first.” Nate let his head roll back onto the headrest. Dread the color of ice was expanding inside him, pushing outward on his windpipe. Choking him.

  REMEMBERED SOULS FORUM

  GULF COAST

  BTS4U: Hi! New here. Jumping on this thread to introduce myself. I’ll follow suit and share my death.

  I think I was a teenage boy—17 or 18. I made it on time for the 3:07 from Jasper. I jumped the fence and stuck to the tree line along the tracks. I assume I needed to stay hidden so they didn’t get me on trespass. The 3:07 was going to be my chance to get away from my bastard of an older brother, Charlie. I don’t remember what he did to me—just that I hated his guts.

  I heard the 3:07 sounding its horn as it crossed through town. Once it cleared town, it sped up, so I had to be ready to catch it before it got going too fast. It chattered and roared up to where I crouched. The conductor was oblivious to me, so I took off running. A livestock car flew by first. It smelled of pig and wet hay. It was followed by a few closed cars—probably coal. The first empty one I saw, I flung my bag and ran hard like back when I raced in school. But the fall leaves were slick from rain, and they churned under me like I was a cartoon character on a banana peel. I slipped and that was it. I must have gotten caught under the wheels.

  Here’s my question for the group: Why do I remember? Why do we remember?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ISRAEL

  Thirty-one days before

  ISRAEL COULDN’T SHAKE the sinking feeling in his stomach as he unlaced his cleats and slid them off. It was a perfectly legal slide tackle—he’d gone for the ball, not Nate. But now Nate could barely walk. He’d thrown up. It was serious. And accident or not—Israel was to blame.

  He opened a group message with Nate and Shane.

  Hey, Nate. You okay? he typed. I’m so sorry.

  Shane was talking with some teammates a few feet away. His blond hair was wet with sweat, and he was stretching one of his quads, pulling his foot behind him and balancing with a hand on Javi’s shoulder. He made it look so easy—to gather people around him, to let himself be admired.

  He must have heard the text message notification because he dropped his foot and pulled his phone out of his soccer bag.

  The doctors say anything yet? he texted to the thread, and then looked up and met Israel’s eyes.

  “You wanna come over?” he called out. “Cass is bringing a pizza.”

  Before Shane and Nate, Israel hadn’t had many friends. Just a few bookish kids who were in Mr. Swanson’s board game club. One day in eighth grade, he’d been walking home alone—Izzy was in detention—wearing new headphones and Js his dad had bought him. Something hard had struck him at the base of his skull. He’d tripped forward onto his stomach, scraping his chin on the gravel. When he’d tried, dizzily, to push himself onto his knees, someone had kicked him in the side. He’d curled into a knot, but the pendejos had ripped his headphones from his head and pried off his shoes.

  Someone had shouted and he’d heard the scuff of gravel as his attackers ran away. It was Shane who’d yelled, who’d helped him to his feet and loaned him his bike so that he could ride home shoeless.

  “Do you mind not telling anyone about this?” Israel had asked, embarrassed, when he returned Shane’s bike the next day. Izzy had known, of course, because she’d felt his pain in her side and sprinted home from detention, earning herself an in-school suspension.

  “No problem, man,” Shane had said, shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal.

  “Is there anything I can do to thank you?” Israel asked.

  “Hmmm. Not really. Just buy me one of those doughy cookies at lun
ch.”

  So Israel had, expecting that that would be it, but when he’d delivered the cookie to Shane’s table, Shane had scooted closer to Nate and offered Israel a seat. Shane had never stopped giving, and Israel did what he could to give back: answers to test questions, rides, and plenty of distance from Cass—who he’d had a crush on since Izzy adopted her as her best friend back in kindergarten.

  Israel stuffed his cleats into his bag and shook his head at Shane. He couldn’t eat pizza with Cass and Shane and pretend everything was fine. “I’ll give you guys some space,” he said.

  Shane frowned slightly. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I’ll text you later.”

  Shane nodded. “See ya.”

  Israel slung his bag over his shoulder. Truthfully, he wanted to go home and lie down, but his exhausted body would probably fall asleep immediately, cueing the dream. And, undoubtedly, Izzy would be home and want to know what was wrong.

  Her twinsense had started to bother him in elementary school. Their teachers had kept them in separate classes—it was supposed to inspire them to be independent—but it hadn’t stopped Izzy from showing up to save him. Like the time Carmen Mendoza had teased him for a dried mustard stain on his shirt during the class party for her birthday. Israel’s old house didn’t have a washer and dryer, so he and Izzy had to re-wear their uniforms in between weekly trips to the washeteria. Not a minute after Israel had teared up at the insult, Izzy had barged into the room.

  “What’s wrong?” she’d asked.

  He’d dropped his eyes, blushing, but she’d pried the story out of someone else in the class and then popped every single one of Carmen’s birthday balloons with the tip of her pencil. As she was being ushered out by Mrs. Anderson, Israel had tried to shrink into his desk and disappear.

  After years of being told that her twinsense was an invasion of his privacy, she’d mostly stopped coming to his rescue—except in her sleep. She still knew when he was upset, though, and always asked about it, so if Israel needed space, it was just easier for him to stay away.

  He pulled up Lara’s address on his phone again. Even looking at it on a map made his heart flutter with nerves. It was on the mainland, only an hour away. There’d be no harm if he just went to look.

  * * *

  • • •

  Unlike the lofted homes of their island, Lara’s house was low and flat. It sat in a subdivision of new ranch-style homes, which seemed to come in just four models, each a different shade of tan. Some had kidney-shaped pools and others had pergolas that seemed useless for blocking the sun. Lara’s house had neither, but it did have a two-car garage and two large aloe plants standing like sentries on each side of the path leading to her front door.

  Israel parked down the block and sank in his seat. This seemed like the kind of neighborhood where someone might notice him and call the police. He pretended to be busy on his phone, keeping one eye on the house. There weren’t any texts from Nate yet; he would have written by now if everything was okay. Or would he only write if it wasn’t? Israel tried not to think about it.

  Though Shane was the one who’d ushered Israel into popularity, Nate and Israel had more in common with each other. Nate was clever; he could deliver a joke so straight-faced, you weren’t entirely sure if it was a joke. Once you got it, though, he’d give a lopsided smile—like he was half sad it had taken you so long. Israel was convinced that, if Nate applied himself even a little at school, he’d probably be near the top of their class. The thing about Nate was that he didn’t seem to care much about school. He wasn’t pretending not to care like so many other people in their grade—he simply didn’t. Soccer was it for him. Israel had given him the University of Maryland pamphlet trying to be a good friend. He had thought that if soccer got Nate into college, he might start to care about doing something else. Israel may as well have ripped the pamphlet back out of his hand.

  Israel glanced at Lara’s house. Still no movement, so he opened Remembered Souls and scrolled to see if there were any new posts.

  There was a user he’d been following since he’d joined a few months back. Unlike most, OtherPlanes remembered more than one of his past lives. In one, he’d lived as a wolf on the Great Plains, before the white settlers. He said the memories were less clear than when he’d had a human consciousness, but that he remembered a lightning storm and the stink of his pack’s fear. He remembered his pack cornering an injured buffalo, and the sound of its bellow. And he remembered howling, a cry that sprang automatically from his throat when he heard other howls. There’s something magical about being part of a collective, OtherPlanes had written. Israel had never forgotten that line. He felt the same way about Shane and Nate. As a little kid, he’d been bullied for being poor, for being chubby and hairy, for being too serious and meek. He’d never imagined that someday he’d have friends like Shane and Nate.

  Israel appreciated that OtherPlanes didn’t just write about his past lives or deaths, like the other users; he shared his theories, too.

  Earlier that day someone had responded to a thread asking why people in the group remembered their past lives. OtherPlanes had been quick to offer an explanation.

  OtherPlanes: My theory is we have restless, hungry souls. While everyone else waits their turns for a blank slate body, we badger our way in and try again.

  BumblerX9: But why are we restless?

  OtherPlanes: I think we can’t seem to get it right. That’s why we remember: so we can try again.

  What if Israel could figure out what his soul hadn’t gotten right in the last life? Could he fix it? Would that finally stop this awful recurring dream?

  Motion caught Israel’s eye ahead. A silver pickup was backing out of Lara’s garage. He ducked lower in his seat. The driver—a light-haired wiry man with a barely there beard—never glanced his way. But Israel could see that the man was cringing at the road in front of him like it was too bright out.

  Peter.

  Israel put his car in drive and followed, hanging back a few hundred feet. Peter turned out of the neighborhood and drove to a grocery store near the highway. After he parked, Israel chose a spot on the other side of the lot. In the rearview mirror, he watched the man climb out and gather reusable grocery bags. He glanced once toward Israel’s car, and Israel froze, heart thudding, but Peter continued to the entrance without another look.

  Following this man wasn’t going to help him fix whatever his soul had gotten wrong. He had to talk to Peter and Lara and gain their trust. Israel pulled up their photos again. Lara, with her solemn face, almost dared him to fool her. There was something gentler about Peter’s expression: not so much gullible as hopeful.

  It wasn’t hard to find the man’s email address with a quick search, or to come up with a white lie about why Israel was emailing. It was much harder to press send, to take the shot in the dark.

  Dear Mr. Ryerson,

  I’m a student at the University of Houston working on a thesis on trauma and grief. I’m especially interested in studying people who have lost loved ones to a traumatic incident. I saw your father’s accident referenced in newspaper archives. Would you mind answering a few questions?

  Israel J. Castillo

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SHANE

  Thirty-one days before

  SHANE STRETCHED OUT on his back, hanging his head over the edge of his bed so it was beside Cass’s. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed with his chemistry book in her lap. He kissed her cheek, a purposefully slobbery one, and she wrinkled her nose and shoved him away.

  “What are covalent bonds?” she asked, sounding bored. She was in AP Chemistry, so this was just basics to her.

  Shane searched his memory. Covalent bonds. Covalent bonds. Something about electrons? “What do you want to do for the long weekend?” he asked her instead of answering.

  “I
have a volleyball tournament in Austin, remember?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” He felt a throb of disappointment. Weekends were starting to feel like a precious resource that was evaporating. How many more easy days would he get to spend hosting Cass, Nate, Israel, and the rotating cast of peripheral friends at his house? His parents turned a blind eye while they sprawled on towels by the pool, blared music from his dad’s sound system, drank everything in the house, and snuck quickies in the humid garage, legs tangled in swimsuit bottoms, heads buzzing from the smell of motor oil. He loved being the center of it all, filling Solo cups with rum and pineapple juice, grilling hot dogs, orchestrating water volleyball and flip cup, keeping smiles on everyone’s faces. Especially Cass’s, which, after hours outside, shone like she was a sun lion.

  “So, covalent bonds?” Cass prompted.

  He rolled onto his stomach to see down her shirt. Her breasts bloomed over her bra cups.

  “Why don’t you come up here?” he asked, letting his voice drop drowsily. It was the wrong move.

  She twisted around, practically knocking skulls with him. “Shane, Jesus.”

  “What?”

  “First of all, your mom is downstairs. Second of all, I’m trying to help you study for this test. Please don’t waste my time. You know I can’t afford college without scholarships.”

  “I didn’t know I was such a waste.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that we weren’t all born rich.”

  He shrugged. What really seemed like a waste was all this time he had to spend worrying about staying eligible for the soccer team and going to college and planning out his entire future. Was he the only one who felt his youth beating impatiently inside him? The only one who could taste it, buttery on his tongue? “I wish this were easier,” he said.