The seconds ticked by as he sat on the ground next to my chair, fiddling with the untucked ends of his shirt. “Uh . . . Yara,” he started, lifting my chin so his eyes bored into mine. “There is something I have to tell you.”
The scraping of the door and the lights flickering on drew my attention to Cherie and Steve walking into the pool house. I squinted at the sudden brightness, smiling at the sight of my friends, trying to figure out how I would explain to them why Brent and I were both sopping wet. Except . . . I took another look around and realized we weren’t wet at all; in fact, we were perfectly dry. I stumbled mid-step and Brent deftly caught me.
“I swear I saw them come in here,” Cherie mumbled. “He left, but she didn’t.”
“Nice to know you’re able to pay such good attention to details and kiss me at the same time,” Steve teased with a grin. He glanced around the room, looking right past us, ignoring me even though I was looking right at him. “Maybe they left,” he suggested.
“What?” I gasped, coughing, my throat raw. “I didn’t!”
“I guess,” Cherie said, sounding unsure. “Wait, what’s that?” Cherie asked, pointing to the water’s edge where my purse lay haphazardly.
Cherie bent down and picked it up. “It isn’t like Yara to leave things. You don’t think . . .” she trailed off as she looked toward the water. She and Steve spread out each peering into the pool. Steve crouched low next to the water and pointed to something as the two of them gasped. Steve dove in while Cherie started screaming hysterically. They were jumping toward all the wrong conclusions.
“It’s okay, guys. I’m over here.” My voice, though, was still too weak to carry even across the room. I turned toward Brent who was watching the scene with a look I didn’t understand. “Can you get their attention? Cherie’s flipping out.”
Brent shook his head. At that moment, I heard Steve resurface. He was pulling something heavy in his arms and Cherie ran to help him.
I turned again toward Brent. “What is that?”
“You really shouldn’t watch this,” he said, shielding my eyes.
“Watch what?” I demanded, pushing from his embrace. I took a few steps until my knees buckled at what I saw and a hysterical laugh escaped my throat. Steve was giving CPR to a girl. Had there been someone else down there with me? I looked at the broken body but didn’t recognize her.
“One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five!” Steve shouted, pushing on her chest. He leaned toward her now blue lips.
Watching, I prayed for her to be okay; a moment of survivor guilt washed over me. I noticed how the poor girl’s arms were sprawled out next to her limp torso with her legs twisted under the long ball gown. The once-elegant frock was now ripped into shreds, dripping with pool water as it clung to her still body, the shredded dress a chilling evidence of the fight she had put up to survive. The frayed material wrapped around her twisted ankle was so perfectly horrific that it almost seemed staged for a slasher movie. I couldn’t bear to see her poor face, now a pale shade of baby blue, eyes closed and mascara running down her cheeks, lying on the lair of tangles and snarls that was her hair. My heart ached for her, still so beautiful in death.
“Breathe, Yara!” Cherie begged, tears running down her face.
Her words made me jump. “What?”
“Don’t die, Yara,” Cherie pleaded wiping at her damp face and clutching to the dead girl’s hand.
“Is this some sort of sick joke?” I demanded spinning around toward Brent. I pointed toward the girl. “She isn’t me!”
He shook his head, stepping toward me. “Let me explain.”
“Stay back!” I warned. I looked down once more at the broken body. She did sort of look like me but . . . it was too much. The room around me spun. “But I’m alive. I’m here!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
They ignored me. I turned toward Cherie, knowing somehow she would sense me. The slight grip on reality I held drifted away as she stared right through me and asked, “She’ll be okay, won’t she?”
Steve didn’t answer.
“Of course I’m going to be okay. I’m here now.”
She didn’t respond.
“Don’t you see me?” I tried to grab Cherie’s shoulders so I could shake her and make her see me, but instead of making contact, I fell through her. I looked pleadingly toward Brent. “I’m going to be okay, right? I mean, I’m here and Steve’s doing CPR on . . . me. Right?”
Steve’s lips were against mine, giving my lungs the air they couldn’t get for themselves.
“I think she’s gone,” Steve told Cherie.
“No! No, she’s not,” she cried, shaking her head, distancing herself from my body.
“Cherie,” Steve said softly. “I’ll keep trying. Go get help.”
“I can’t leave her,” Cherie sobbed. She had her eyes squeezed shut, tears cascading down her cheeks. Her tears sliced my soul like a razor and I had to look away. Finally she left the pool screaming, “Help!”
“Don’t give up! I’m still here!” I told Steve as he continued pumping on my chest.
“Yara,” Brent said. He shook his head, a deep sadness in his eyes. “No, it’s too late. You’re not going to be okay. You’re dead, just like me.”
****
Brent’s words echoed in my ears, ‘You’re dead just like me.’ The refrain opened an emotional chasm at my feet and I was teetering on the edge about to tumble into it.
“There’s still hope,” I yelled, shoving Brent hard. I tried to block out Steve still attempting to revive my motionless body.
Brent rubbed his shoulder grimacing. “I forgot about your temper. I thought maybe dying would have cured you of that.”
“Are you sure we aren’t just projecting?” My eyes studied Brent’s, waiting for a smile to crack his grave expression.
“Yara,” Brent began warily. “You know you drowned.”
“Maybe I did . . .” I gulped, forcing the word from my tongue, tears puddling in my eyelashes. “Maybe I did d-drown but you didn’t. You’re alive. Get back to your body and tell them not to give up because I’m still here.”
“I can’t.” Brent said, his head swiveling to watch as Headmaster Farnsworth entered, a bathrobe pulled hastily over his pajamas, with two other faculty members in tow, each talking frantically on a cell phone.
“Brent, you’re not dead. I would have noticed. I’ve been with you all night, at the party and then here.”
“I was at the party, but I wasn’t sitting beside you,” Brent said, slowly rubbing the back of his neck.
“Of course you were sitting beside me. We both saw your brother when he appeared. He—”
Brent interrupted me. “That wasn’t my brother, it was me.”
“So you projected during it . . . as some sort of prank?”
“I wasn’t projecting and I wasn’t one of the guests.”
“No,” I said with a firm head shake. “You were sitting beside me.”
“Let’s try this again,” Brent sighed and I heard his teeth grind together. “The guy sitting beside you wasn’t me.”
“Wait,” I said, holding up my hand. “What?”
“The body next to you was mine but the soul inside of it wasn’t. Think about it, if I had been projecting, I would have been wearing the same suit as the body sitting next to you. But I was wearing this thing, remember?” He asked in disgust, gesturing to his school uniform. “And you were wearing that.” Across the room, now being encircled by faculty, my lifeless corpse was wearing a mangled version of the gown I was clothed in.
The truth started to sink in, but before I could mentally take it any further he interrupted and kept talking. “So yeah, I was at the party. I was the crasher, the entertainment, the rambling ghost who garbled out a cryptic message that made no sense.”
“Yeah, what was up with that?” I demanded. “Why couldn’t you just say ‘Hey, Yara, the jerk next to you stole my body and he’s trying to kill you’?”
Brent shot me an annoyed look. “It’s not as easy as it looks! Ever since that jerk stole my body, I’ve been trying to tell people what’s happened. I’ve had a hard time communicating with the living. Every time I did I’ve been rushed or interrupted by you freaking out and severing the connection we had. Tonight I was determined to get through to you. I turned on that song I used to whistle to let you know I was coming. But as soon as it began, this thick black barrier erected around me. Did you see it?”
“It was the mist. Or at least that’s what I call it.”
“Well, it took all my concentration and energy to break through. I made the whole room shake just trying to get through.”
“That was you? Poor Audrey was so scared.”
Brent tipped his head back and laughed. “That’s right. The mouse even made her jump.” He wiped away tears. “Anyway, after my little earthquake, there was this flash of bright light and you could see me. But I felt different. I was so tired and worn out, like I had short-circuited, like I was trying to wake up from general anesthesia. All I could muster were the simplest parts of my message and the basest raw emotions, like my anger at the guy who stole my body. I’m actually surprised I was able to get anything out at all.”
My fingers pressed against my temples trying to stop the pounding behind my skull. “Were you the other ghost, the one who kept leaving me messages?”
Brent nodded as the sounds of approaching sirens ripped through the night, reminding me of what I had lost. I looked down at the floor for a few moments, trying to collect my thoughts. “How did you die?” I asked quietly.
“I’m . . . not sure. One minute I was studying with my lab partner, Phil, and the next thing I know I was pitched out of my body. And when my spirit left, someone else moved in, like a vacant hotel room. I bet there was something in those lousy snacks he brought.” Brent punched the wall with a frustrated grunt.
My brain short-circuited, and steam probably escaped my ears as I tried to process everything I had just learned. It was too much.
Suddenly, I laughed hysterically, like a full blown, straight jacket-wearing lunatic, feeling my thin thread of sanity slip through my fingers. Brent stepped toward me and put his arms around me. I shook them off angrily.
“Leave me alone,” I shrieked, gasping for shallow breaths. Uncontrollable tears flowed from my eyes and pure panic enveloped me; I was losing it.
Brent grabbed my arms, shaking me, knowing I was on the verge of a breakdown. He looked frantic as he took in my desperate panting and wild shuddering, my fingers digging into his arms. Brent lifted his hand and somehow I knew he was going to slap me.
“Don’t . . . you . . . dare!” My teeth may have been helplessly chattering in my mouth but my eyes stabbed him with an angry glare that made his hand drop instantly.
Brent looked lost for a second, unsure how to help when I saw his eyes ignite with a plan. He gathered me in his arms and brought his lips to mine, engulfing me in a soothing warmth, and sending a little jolt of something into my dead heart that I chose not to acknowledge. Angrily, I shoved him away and slapped him hard across the cheek, snapping his head sideways.
“What was that?” I demanded, my hands resting uneasily on my hips.
Wincing louder than I thought my slap warranted, he held his cheek and worked his jaw. “Again with the anger. You could just say thank you.”
“Thank you?” I shrieked.
He smirked. “You’re welcome.”
I shuddered with rage. “You want me to thank you for kissing me?”
Brent bit his nails with a flippant grin. “Well, you could thank me for that too, but I was referring to the fact that I stopped your volcanic meltdown.”
It wasn’t easy swallowing down my enraged retort but I managed when I realized my freakout had stopped.
I bit my lip hard, my cheeks burning. “So there was no romantic subtext there?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he scoffed, folding his arms. “My body’s been hijacked; kissing you isn’t high on my list of priorities right now.”
“Oh . . . right . . . I didn’t think . . .” I said, stumbling over my words while tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear.
Brent stepped toward me, slowly lifting his hands to my arms. “Everything is going to be okay, Yara. I’m not sure how, but it will be.”
“Stop that! Stop trying to comfort me with empty promises.” I glared at him for a second. “There has to be a way to fix this.
“There isn’t a solution, only acceptance,” he said, with a wisdom that seemed to go beyond his teenage years.
His words ruffled something deep in my soul and I stopped, my eyes finding his. “How? How do I simply accept my death? I have no idea how to make peace with this.”
“You can start by saying goodbye to your friends.”
Cherie now sat in a pool chair weeping quietly, her drama teacher, Mrs. Tolley, holding her hand. Steve stood behind her with his hands resting on her shoulders.
“I can’t do that.”
“It will make it easier.”
“For who?” I asked angrily. “She needs me and I’m not leaving her. If you think I’m just going to accept this, then you don’t know me very well. I’m not ready to die,” I insisted through clenched teeth.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re ready or not, you already did,” he reminded me evenly.
“There is always a solution.”
“Not this time,” he said, sitting on the edge of a glass table.
“Look . . . I’m willing to accept that I . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word drowned again, “ . . . had an accident, but I just can’t believe that it’s over. If this is it, then why am I sitting here and not in the Great Beyond?”
He started to say something, but a look I couldn’t read, maybe guilt, crept across his face and he kept quiet. With a deep breath, I began pacing around the room, still massaging my temples with my fingertips. I hoped rubbing them with enough force would somehow make sense of the last few minutes and help me see a way to make everything right.
I have no idea how long I went on like that, but when I finally sat down next to Brent, I realized the paramedics had arrived.
Bright bursts of red and blue light swept around the room from the emergency vehicles parked outside. A paramedic was speaking quietly with Steve. A man in a police uniform was standing close by with a notebook out, jotting things down that Steve was telling him. Cherie, who was standing next to him, holding his hand, was staring blank-faced toward the pool. A photographer was taking pictures of the scene and several other officers were sealing off the room. I buried my head in Brent’s chest, unable to watch as they zipped my body up in a long black bag before strapping it onto a gurney. He soothingly stroked my hair, murmuring comforting words into my ear.
I couldn’t help but follow as I was wheeled out of the pool area and into the ambulance.
“They can’t take me away,” I cried to Brent.
“They have to,” he said, tightening his arms around me.
“But if they do . . . how am I going to fix it?”
“Please believe me— you can’t fix this, Yara.” He moved my chin so I had to look into his eyes.
“No!” Cherie screamed, chasing after the ambulance.
Steve was right behind her, pulling her back. My unbeating heart wrenched painfully at Cherie’s desperate pleading, at the way her body crumpled into Steve’s arms as she sobbed. As I watched her mourn, the whole world began to spin dangerously fast and nausea swept through me. I couldn’t take it anymore. Desperately, I fled the room and out into the trees to put distance between me and my grieving friend.
Chapter 9
I was thoroughly overwhelmed and I fled into the groves for refuge, sprinting at full tilt, branches and rocks all skimming past me, through me. Even though I couldn’t hear him, I knew Brent was close behind me; I could feel him near. I stopped and clung to a tree, trying to get the last image of Cherie out of my head.
Her expression had made everything far too real. I couldn’t deny it anymore: I had died and there was no way to fix it. As I finally accepted this, everything fell into place, how everything had gone dark before Brent had been able to rescue me, my heart being so silent because it was no longer beating and the way everything was now bathed in a beautiful glowing light.
Brent’s breath warmed my neck as he came close behind me.
“How did I die? I mean I know how . . . just, what happened? I was sitting by the pool talking to the imposter you, next thing I know my spirit was shot across campus, only to find my body had a restraining order out against me.”
The corner of Brent’s lips twitched as he ran his fingers through his chestnut hair. “I’m pretty sure your drink was spiked with some concoction, probably containing a special blend of black licorice. I knocked it out of your hands but his had stuff in it too. I did try to keep him from sharing his drink with you, but his grip on it was too strong.” Brent sighed.
The groaning of brakes and tread of tires rumbled past us as the emergency vehicles left Pendrell. After they were gone the night became silent, even the insects hushing as if paying their last respects to me.
“That stuff he gave you can be pretty nasty for people who can project. It gives your spirit the old heave-ho and then won’t let your spirit or anyone else’s near the empty body.”
“I died because I drank some stupid drink.” My shoulders slumped. “So that orange thing you destroyed— was that created by the licorice stuff?”
“Yep.”
“I was so dumb to not pay closer attention to your warnings. Thanks for trying to save me from my own stupidity.” I lifted my head and looked at Brent, completely defeated. “At the risk of stating the obvious, I really wish you had saved me.”
He sighed heavily. “Me, too. But I failed you again.”
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