Between Life & Death

by E K Bennett

  "Yeah," Josh agrees, "and you got possessed."

  I hate that idea. I wish none of this happened. Maybe then I could carry on with my monotonous life and never give the dead a second thought. Maybe then I could stop almost dying, as an afterthought.

  "Of course, in the three minutes that I leave to take a pee, you wake up," Sam's voice comes from the doorway. She gives me a stern look. "You know, could have been way worse," she says.

  I keep my mouth shut, ready for her wrath.

  "I mean, what the hell were you guys thinking?" she asks, mostly directed toward Josh like How could you influence her like this?.

  "And especially after I told you how dangerous it is?" she rants.

  "Oh come off it, Sam," Josh complains. "It's not like we were doing some sort of satanic ritual. People use these things all the time. The chances of bad things happening aren't even really--"

  "Um, excuse me??" Sam snaps. "Did you or did you not just witness a fucking possession right in front of your eyes? You don't classify that as dangerous? What the hell were you thinking, letting her do this? Especially after a ghost almost concussed her a week ago?"

  "Sam!" I yell. "I agreed to this, okay? I'm not a child."

  "Yeah well you're kind of acting like one. It's not like I didn't tell you how bad an idea this was. And you knew Lotty was dangerous."

  I roll my eyes. "You know, for a while I was beginning to think that I was just imagining all this shit. Like up until now I didn't believe in ghosts. But it's over. Now can you please stop yelling at me?"

  "No, I can't stop yelling at you! And it's definitely not over, Lydia. I told you this was dangerous, you knew that Lotty could possibly hurt you."

  "What does you being right have to do with anything? Does it give you some sort of satisfaction that I was stupid and nearly got killed? I just wanted some confirmation. I thought this would work, that maybe it would make her leave," I sneer.

  Sam's eyes are wide, and she looks like she's going to cry. She always cries when she gets frustrated. I sit up straight and feel a little dizzy.

  Sam sighs and sits on the floor in front of the couch, even though there's a space next to me where she could easily fit.

  "You can sit next to me, you know. I'm not plagued or anything."

  "You should really lie down," she retorts, ignoring me.

  I sigh. "Josh, can you get me some water?"

  "Okay. I think I'll call your dad while I'm up, tell him you're awake." Josh says.

  "I'll call him," I sigh. I reach for my phone in my pocket, but my hand hurts too much to actually get it out. Sam gives me a sympathetic look and hands her cell to me.

  Dad picks up in the middle of the second ring. "What's wrong?" he asks immediately.

  "Um, nothing..." I say. "At least nothing that wasn't wrong before."

  "Oh, it's you!" Dad says softly. "Are you all right?"

  I nod, then realize he can't see it and I tell him everything's fine. "Is an ambulance coming or anything? And where's mom?"

  "She's with me. She was working the late shift so I picked her up, and no, we're taking you to the hospital."

  "Why hasn't she picked up her phone?"

  "She left it at work."

  "Are you almost here?"

  "Close."

  "Can I talk to her?"

  He hesitates before saying, "We'll be there soon, you can talk to her then. We love you, talk to you soon."

  "Is she still mad at me?" I ask quietly.

  But he's already hung up. I sit there with the phone up to my ear until Sam says my name.

  I flip it shut and hand it back to her.

  "What's wrong?" she asks.

  "I think my mom's still mad at me for being a bitch at the hospital..." I say absentmindedly.

  Sam doesn't say anything.

  "What, do you think she should be?" I ask defensively.

  "No!" she answers immediately. "It's just that it's kind of sketchy, how you acted in the hospital. And I've heard things about ghosts," she pauses, probably waiting for me to press for more answers, but I just stare at her, waiting. "Well, I've heard things about demons. Like they influence your actions and emotions sometimes."

  Josh walks back in the room and hands me my water, then he sits next to me on the couch. He looks like he's about to say something, but Sam starts talking again.

  "At the hospital, you weren't yourself. We can all agree on that, and I think Lotty had something to do with it. I'm sure if you explained it to your mom, she'd understand."

  I bite my lip because I don't know what to say. "She'll think I'm crazy. I know it."

  Sam shakes her head. There's a long pause before Sam said, "Lydia?"

  "Hmm," I say absentmindedly, my mind still racing.

  "What if..." she doesn't finish her sentence right away. She stares at the ceiling, the pictures on the wall, the television. Anything but me.

  "What if what?" I ask, still distantly.

  "Um. What if Lotty's 'plan' is actually more than what we thought...?" She asks me uncertainly.

  "So I'm assuming Josh told you about everything, then?"

  She nods. "But what if..." she repeats.

  I stare at her dully, feeling tired and sad.

  "But what if what?" I sigh.

  "But what if Lotty wants to...repossess you?" Sam suggests quietly. "I've been thinking...Lotty wants life. What if she's trying to use you as a...hose or something?"

  "Sam," I say cautiously. "You're scaring me. Please stop."

  "But what if it's true?" She looks like someone just told her her mom died. "What if that's what Lotty wants? To take the body of a youth?"

  "Where are you getting this shit from?"

  "I was just thinking..." she slumps her shoulders.

  "Please stop."

  Josh slips his hand carefully into mine, and I cringe and pull it back, mumbling "Ow," under my breath because I'm an idiot. Both of us are embarrassed so he just apologizes awkwardly and puts his hand in his lap. No one says anything after that. It's completely silent until my parents get here. The pain in my arm is becoming unbearable and my eyes water. Then the front door opens and my parents rush in.

  "What happened?" My mom asks.

  "What did you say you guys came to get over here again?" my dad says.

  "What were you thinking?"

  "Can you stand up?"

  "How much blood have you lost?"

  "Why didn't we call the ambulance?"

  "Are you okay?"

  "What the hell happened already?"

  I sigh and stand up, stagger a little (everybody freaks out and tries to steady me, which is just annoying), and look from my mom's worried and angry face to my dad's.

  "Can we just go? I'll explain in the car. It hurts."

  ~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

  "A ghost," my mom sighs.

  My dad says nothing, just keeps his eyes on the road.

  I don't respond. I feel like an idiot. I knew they wouldn't understand.

  "A ghost made you cut yourself," she repeats, probably to herself.

  "I knew you wouldn't believe me," I mumble.

  "You harmed yourself because a ghost told you to?"

  "No, Mom, I think I got...like...possessed or something."

  "Get off at the next exit," she tells my dad, ignoring me completely.

  "I know how to get there," he retorts.

  I keep my gaze focused on the yellow freeway lines.

  "Which hospital are we going to?" I ask after a moment. We've already passed the usual emergency room in our area.

  "A new one," is all she says. "Your bags are in the trunk."

  "Wait, my bags? As in luggage? What?" I turn to her.

  She doesn't turn around to look back at me, like this is some sort of normal conversation about the weather or where to eat dinner. "We should have told you over the phone. There's a special hospital in the next county that offers a program where they help people who...cut themselves." Her voice breaks at the end.<
br />
  I can't breathe. "You're shipping me off to an institution?"

  "No, we're not shipping you anywhere," she says too calmly. "It's a two-week program to help you get back on your feet."

  "Get back on my feet?" I argue. "What is this, an infomercial? I don't need to 'get back on my feet'!"

  "Mom! I need medical attention! Not freaking rehab!" I yell.

  "And all this talk about ghosts needs to stop. I get it, you're supposed to be allowed to believe in whatever you want. Great. But I already have a daughter who's emu, I don't need one who's insane."

  "It's emo, Mom," I say instinctively (my mom is clueless about anything modern). "And I'm not insane!"

  I look back out the window. My stomach growls. I hope to God they feed me. "What about my friends? I haven't seen them all Winter break, and now I'm going to miss two weeks of school, too?"

  "Oh, you've seen enough of your friends for a while, Hon." I hate it when she calls me Hon. "That Josh boy is a terrible influence on you."

  I snort. "Josh?"

  "What, isn't that his name?" Mom snaps.

  "Ma, Josh has spent most of his life volunteering at natural disaster sites! You cannot tell me he's a bad influence!"

  "Actually, I can tell you whatever I want, young lady. I'm your mother, now stop sassing me."

  Young lady. Young. Youth. Possession. All of it is overwhelming, and my head hurts again. I lean my forehead against the cool glass of the window.

  "How come you never talk to Adam and Sam anymore?" she asks for a while.

  "Oh, I don't know, Mom," I say with heavy sarcasm. "Maybe because I've been in quarantine since my head got split open?"

  "I said don't speak to me with that tone, Lydia," Mom snaps. "And Sam was at our house this evening, anyway. What about Adam? Did you guys have a fight?"

  I want to punch her. Punch something. The world, maybe. I try to keep my voice level when I say, "He is on vacation, Mother. And you know how I know that? Because I read it on Facebook. Because I have no other means of communication with my friends!"

  Mom starts babbling about God knows what, but I stop listening about two words in. I would give anything to get out of this car. Even if it means going to this fucking rehab center, because at least then I wouldn't have to deal with my family right now. Maybe they could give me some drugs to make me sleep. Make my headache go away. Make my arm numb. Make me forget everything. I close my eyes, but all I can think about is Lotty. Lotty's laugh, Lotty's face, Lotty's "plan".

  Finally we pull into the parking lot and I take a first look at the hospital. Big, gray with a lot of windows, and not much else. A tear rolls down my cheek as I wait for my dad to open my car door.

  22. She's Everywhere

  Powder pink walls and no windows except for the wall behind my bed and it faces an employee parking lot. No roommate. No sharp objects and no electronics. No pencils. No paper.

  "Do you have a sharpie marker?" I ask the nurse when she comes to check on me.

  "Why?"

  Why the hell not? I want to scream. "Because I like to draw and you won't give me a pencil. So can I have a sharpie marker?"

  "Why don't you go to the lounge?" she asks me again.

  Because it's filled with a bunch of psychotic emos. "Can't I just have a sharpie?"

  "What would you draw on?" She really wants me to go to the lounge. They want everyone to go to the lounge and watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians and laugh it up and be best buddies, so much that we'll stop cutting ourselves and hating ourselves and hating them and the world and knives.

  "I don't know, my arm or something."

  She gives me a look. I sigh. "It's better than cutting myself, wouldn't you think?" I sneer at her.

  She stands up a little straighter, a little taller as if maybe she's making a difference. "Here," she says. "How about you go to the lounge and I'll see if I can find one around here."

  I purse my lips. "Fine."

  I've been here for three weeks and I haven't talked to anyone once. My parents said I would only have to stay for two, but oh look! I'm still here. Looks like they forgot to pick up their kid from daycare.

  The lounge consists of three card tables in the corner, an L shaped couch and a flat screened TV on the wall playing-- you guessed it-- some variation of the Kardashians. At first I just stand in the doorway, trying to find someone who slightly resembles Sam.

  There's a tall girl in the corner with crimped blonde hair and big lips. Her eyes are wide, with sparkly blue eyeliner around her lash line. She's wearing a T-shirt and black yoga pants, which show off her stick thin legs. She looks sickly skinny.

  She's sitting with a guy with closely shaved hair and green eyes, and they're laughing about something, doing some weird imitation of something.

  There's a pale guy on the couch counting the scars on his hands. There's a blank look on his face that shows he doesn't want to be here as much as I do.

  At one of the card tables sits a group of short girls with flat hair and eyelashes that look like black spider legs and Hollister sweatshirts and painted nails.

  One sees me and smiles. She gets up and one of the legs of her pants raises up and exposes a puffy and scarred ankle. I cringe and put my hand on my left arm.

  "Hey," the girl says in a low voice. "I'm Alyssa, but call me Lissi. You should come sit with our group."

  I blink a couple of times then follow without a word. I hate her already. We walk to the card table where her friends' eyes are glued to the TV.

  "See," one of them says, "I knew Kim didn't get those butt enhancers!"

  Another snorts. "But it's just not possible to have such a tight ass without help!"

  The last girl shrugs. "Well she is a supermodel. What do you expect? She's in the gym all the time. Remember that episode when she..."

  Lissi coughs and the girls look up. "Girlssss," she draws out the s. "This is...erm. What's your name?"

  "Lydia," I say monotonously.

  "Ooh, pretty!" one girl says. She has split ends and a high squeaky voice.

  I nod and press my lips together.

  "That's Amy," Lissi points to the squeaky voiced girl. Then she points to a girl with red, chin-length hair and freckles. "That's Chelsea, and that's Bridget." Bridget has thick brown hair with blonde highlights.

  But they all have the same look on their eyes.

  "You look familiar," Bridget points out. "Have you been here before?"

  "I've been here for three weeks."

  They all nod. "Do you like this show?" Amy asks. I try to keep the annoyed look off my face and paste a fake smile on my face. "I, like, live for it."

  I just nod.

  Lissi pulls out a chair and I sit down hesitantly. They all stare at me like I'm a piece of chocolate cake that they wouldn't dare eat because of all the calories.

  "So did you hear about the new kid, Tristan?" Amy leans in towards the center of the table and the other girls follow her example. She points to the guy on the couch.

  "Oh my god, no! What's he in for?" Lissi whispers.

  "They found him in his basement, passed out after swallowing a bottle of ibuprofen!" They all giggle with each other as if they're normal and he's a freak. But there's no normal people in rehab.

  I glance over at the guy on the couch, he lifts his head. I think he can hear us...but the girls don't notice. I stare at my hands.

  "So we know like everything about everyone here," Lissi tells me after a while. "Except for you. So what landed you in this lovely hellhole?"

  I laugh and push my chair back. "None of your lovely business," I imitate them.

  They draw back, looking offended. "We didn't mean it to be like that," Lissi says.

  "Yeah," Bridget says. "we didn't mean to offend you..."

  I roll my eyes and push my sleeve back, holding my arm out for the girls to see. "Too late," I say, and take a seat on the couch next to Tristan.

  He doesn't look up at me, he just keeps counting his scars for two more h
ours until I get up and go to my room with one window behind my bed.