Touched by Death

by T. L. Martin

  Try as I might, I never could figure out what he was talking about. Sometimes when I was with Bobby, I’d think back to Dad’s words and wonder if maybe that’s what I was experiencing. When Bobby’s touch gave me butterflies, or when I’d feel let down after having to cancel plans with him. But that ache I expected to hit me when I broke things off with him never came. Then I began to think maybe it never would. Maybe what Dad and Mom had was so rare, no matter how hard we looked, it only ever happened to a few of us.

  Now, as I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I see clearly what Dad was talking about. When Death—Enzo walked away from me today, I felt it. I heard the snap of my heart tearing in half. It wasn’t a messy, dirty rip like I’d expected, but a smooth, clean line that knew just where to break to hurt me the most. The cracks spread through my heart, a piece crumbling in his wake.

  This is what it feels like to have your heart break for someone. And I finally understand why Dad was never able to fix his without Mom. Because how do you make something whole again, when you’re missing half of the pieces?

  I’ve got one hand against my chest, eyes closed as I lay beneath the blankets and concentrate. My stomach is tight with anticipation, my nerves electric livewires, ready to go off without warning at any moment. I think I might be about to break my twenty second record of no heartbeat.

  Fifteen seconds. Deep breath. Sixteen. Don’t flinch. Seventeen. Come on, heart. Eighteen. Please. Nineteen.

  A sharp rap on the door whips my eyes open, and I release a loud exhale as I lose focus. When I decide to ignore it and return my attention to my faulty heart, the knocks come faster.

  “Lou? Are you in there?”

  Claire. I grumble and roll off the bed, padding toward the door.

  Her eyes are puffed up and shiny. For the first time since I’ve met her, her hair is not perfectly styled. Instead, it sits in a messy pile on top of her head, and her outfit’s not even color-coordinated today. I frown, wondering if Dylan has anything to do with this, and open the door wider to step aside.

  “Hey,” I say softly, locking up behind her. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m fine.” She plops down at the foot of my bed, her hands fidgeting as she glances back at the rumpled blankets. “Oh. Sorry, did I wake you?”

  I shake my head as I make my way to the bed, sitting beside her. “No, I couldn’t sleep much last night. Been up for a while.”

  She nods, looks down, bites her lip.

  “Claire?”

  “No. No, I’m not okay.” Tears are sliding down her cheeks when she looks back up at me. She shakes her head, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. “I’m so stupid. So, so stupid.”

  I don’t need to ask what she’s talking about because I already know, so I just wrap my arms around her and pull her in tight. “Trust me. You’re not the stupid one, Claire.”

  “I—I should have known, right? I mean, what kind of boyfriend cancels on you three times in one week?”

  “The stupid kind.”

  “And what kind of girlfriend doesn’t see right through it?”

  “The trusting kind. The loving kind. The good kind.”

  She only shakes against me, squeezing tighter. “I don’t know, Lou. Sometimes I wonder if I need to toughen up, stop being so naïve. Maybe then I wouldn’t find myself in messes like this one.”

  “What?” I pull back, keeping my hands firmly on her shoulders as I look into her eyes. “Because you chose to trust in something, that means you’re not tough?”

  She gestures at herself, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “I think that’s pretty obvious right about now, don’t you?”

  I shake my head. “No, I don’t think that’s obvious at all. You want to know the truth?” She says nothing, gaze latched on mine. “Sometimes I think people like you are the strongest of us all. The kind of person who can find beauty in anything. Who chooses to believe in love before hate. Who doesn’t just hope for happy endings, but has what it takes to create the happy ending. It’s so easy to be angry, to hate, to see the worst in a situation. But to actively choose to see the best? That’s where all the courage is.”

  As I say the words, the truth they hold rings back at me with total clarity, my mind eager to grasp onto any straws of hope it can find. I find myself looking at Claire in a new light as I think back to my situation with Enzo. Maybe I can stand to learn a few things from her.

  She’s quiet for a long moment, so long in fact that I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing. But then her lips start to quiver, and she yanks me toward her in the tightest hug I’ve ever received in my life. My eyes go wide, but I pull myself together and squeeze her back. I should seriously consider taking up writing Hallmark cards.

  A ding from her pocket makes us pull apart. She wipes her eyes and chuckles, embarrassed. “What a thing to wake up to, huh? Bet you weren’t expecting to start your day this way.”

  I shrug, thinking of the way I’ve had to start my days lately—with a hand on my heart to check if it’s still working. “Could be worse.”

  She frowns, then opens her mouth as though to say something when her phone dings again. A grimace appears on her face as she reads the text. “Uh oh.”

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, just Paul. When he came in to grab his paycheck this morning, I snagged him so he could cover the desk while I ran up to see you. But, um, I think he might be just a teensy bit high. Like, even more than usual.”

  My brows draw together as I lean in for a peek at the screen. It’s a picture. A selfie, actually. Paul is at the front desk, leaning over a dead fly. His long hair is down, falling around his face, and he’s got tears in his dazed eyes as he points at the insect. Below the image reads: I dunno what happened. We were just talking. I swear, Claire. We were just talking.

  I can’t suppress a chuckle as I shake my head. “Poor guy.”

  Claire snickers with me. “Yeah, I guess I better go help him before things get weirder down there.”

  “Good plan.”

  She flashes a quick grin as she gives me one last hug, then bounces off the bed, toward the door. As she turns the knob, she glances back at me. “Hey, Lou?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re that kind of person, too, you know. The kind who has what it takes to create her own happy ending.”

  I smile vaguely, mulling those words over as the door closes behind her. Placing one hand over my heart, I listen to the silence that answers. A heavy anchor of fear wells in the pit of my stomach at the stillness beneath my palm.

  I may not be able to have my own happy ending in this life. But I think I might be able to create one for someone else. Someone who deserves as fair a shot at happiness, at life, as the rest of us.

  Chapter 44

  Age: 16

  Name: Jason Koryn

  Case #67 - Missing Child

  In the fall of 1986, sixteen-year-old Jason Koryn fell into a coma of unknown causes. Cared for by the Westlake Pediatric Center, he survived on life support for three weeks until being officially pronounced brain dead. Less than twenty-four hours from that point, he was reported missing by both the hospital staff and his parents. Jason’s case was under investigation for several months before being left unresolved. Making Jason’s case even more curious is that his is one of six known instances in United States hospitals in which the patients (all in near-fatal condition) have disappeared from their rooms.

  I glance up from the book on my lap, chewing the inside of my cheek. How could a kid in a coma just disappear from a hospital? Despite having spent the last three hours reading and rereading Mr. Blackwood’s Other Unsolved Mysteries, this is one of the few cases I keep gravitating back to.

  Something about it reminds me of what Enzo was describing. The way he’d been on the brink of death, yet still technically alive, when he felt the pull come for him. Could that be what happened to this boy? Am I just reading too much into these stories, trying to find a connection that isn’t th
ere?

  The only other cases that have caught my attention as much as this one are the four Sudden Unexplained Deaths recorded here. Four individuals, all different ages and all in different parts of the world—Houston, Montreal, Kiev, and Kampala. Each of them went to sleep perfectly healthy, and never woke up the next day.

  What are we not seeing here? Why doesn’t anyone have solid answers? I shake my head, running a hand through the strands of my hair as the frustration builds inside me. Case after case, page after page, all I’m left with are more questions. Of all the subjects philosophers, scientists, religions, and the like have tackled, the question of what exactly happens to us after life remains the biggest and most contradicting of all. If not even Death himself understands it, how can I expect to make any progress?

  I set the book down, placing it beside A New Dimension—the other book I’ve been racking my brain over all day—and push myself up from the sofa. I pace in Mr. Blackwood’s living room, back and forth, back and forth. Think, think, think.

  Okay, well, clearly Mr. Blackwood’s on the right track, vague as it still is. With his research and my own recent experiences combined, I’m convinced of his dimension theory; that other dimensions exist right on top of ours. There are a few kinks I haven’t smoothed out, but still. I’ve seen it, felt it, the way I can step right into the dark void no matter where I seem to be, and at any given time. It’s like an invisible world existing right where we stand, with the beating of our hearts and the pumping of our blood being the only thing separating us from it.

  So my question is, if a person can be dragged into that world while they’re still technically alive, can they be brought back into this one and survive it? I need to talk to Mr. Blackwood about this. I need to tell him everything. Where the hell is he? Why wasn’t he home when I arrived today?

  Shaking the thought away, I think back to Death—Enzo, Lou. It’s Enzo—and the way his heart has started to beat again. That has to count for something, right? I’m not an idiot; I’ve noticed that his heartbeat, his presence here, only seems to get stronger as mine fades away. I’ve put the pieces together—what I can find, anyway—and I know he seems to believe if he stops coming here, to this world, it will somehow save me.

  Yes, maybe that could have worked at one point, before we spent so much time together. Before he became such a solid part of this world. But now? Now the blood’s already beginning to run through him again. He’s already gained a stable heartbeat, far more stable than mine, and isn’t it only a matter of time before he finds himself needing to sleep, to eat? Needing warmth, a home.

  I know the truth now . . . that I’m too far gone. I feel the way my chest rings only of silence regardless of whether he’s here or not. The way I become more and more a part of that world and less a part of this one with every moment that passes. I’ve seen how that place can get through to me, to my mind, within seconds of existing there. And how are his memories staying intact now, even as he continues to return to that dark place? Spending as much time there as he is? There’s only one explanation I can come up with—because he’s now more a part of this world than he is of that one. The darkness wouldn’t have the same control over him it once did, would it?

  Not in the way it now controls me.

  Enslaves me.

  I pull in a shaky breath, the fear seeping in more and more as reality sets in, overtaking the frustration. I don’t even know when I started biting my nails, but my thumbnail is suddenly between my teeth, so apparently it’s a new habit of mine.

  I don’t want to go back there. I can’t go back to that. What will it be like? Eternal numbness? Eternal darkness? What would happen to me? Would I evolve there like he did, acclimating enough to somehow survive it forever? Or would it break me, sucking my soul and mind dry until there’s nothing left?

  My muscles tense, palms sweating as I rub them together. Turns out the idea of eternal enslavement gives me anxiety. Shit, shit, shit. I can’t do it. I’m not brave by nature. Do I even have a choice? Am I being ridiculous by focusing what are likely my final moments on trying to save someone else, when I could be focusing on trying to save myself? On trying to survive? Should I listen to Enzo without a second thought, let him go back to that place and stay locked away so I have a chance?

  What about Enzo? What about his chance?

  I try to imagine what it must have been like for him when the darkness first took over. He didn’t have a warning, or the time to mentally prepare himself. He had a piece of metal lodged inside him, an explosion just waiting to take him, and on top of that, a lifetime of pain, suffering, and loss he’d already endured just to meet such an end. The one person he’d loved with all of himself, who’d loved him back unconditionally, had been killed before they’d even reached adulthood.

  I wipe the tear from my eye, only to have more fall in its place. I haven’t had the best life. Haven’t had my family with me as much as I wanted. Haven’t done half the things I’ve always thought of one day doing. Haven’t done anything memorable, really. Anything to make a difference here, to make my mark, or give me a sense of pride.

  But I’ve had the choice. I’ve been given a life, and with it the free will to make my own path. I’ve been loved. By a mother who gave her heart to me before she’d even met me. By a father who’d held on for eight long years just for me, after he’d already crumbled inside. By a grandmother who’d risked everything, given everything, to give my mother and I a chance at a good life. By Jamie, by Bobby, by Claire.

  I’ve been loved.

  I’ve been free.

  I’ve been me.

  I’ve had everything Enzo hasn’t, and what have I done with it? Am I really so selfish I’d allow him, someone who’s already been through more pain than I could imagine, to stay in that horrible, soul-sucking place for . . . for how long exactly? An eternity? Someone who’s strong and good and so selfless that he’d sacrifice the one chance he may ever have at a real life, for me?

  And then what? Say it works, his plan, and I get my life back. What kind of life would it be, knowing what I’d done? I’m not so blind to think I’m not in love with him. Not after the way my heart tore when he walked away. If Grams, Mom, and Dad taught me anything, it’s the way love makes you strong and selfless in ways nothing else can.

  No. When the backs of my hands are too damp from wiping the constant stream of tears, I switch to my sleeve. No, I won’t let him do it. How could I? Maybe this is what I’m meant to do. Maybe this is my mark, the difference I’m supposed to make. Fate. I snort aloud, shaking my head. I’m probably just stuffing lies in my brain as a form of comfort, but I’ll take what I can.

  Letting out a long, uneven breath, I return to the sofa and snatch up A New Dimension again, flipping straight to the epilogue and scanning over its contents with revitalized determination.

  Third paragraph down:

  So yes, in short, what I’m getting at could be summed up in one, tiny, six-lettered word: glitch. A wrinkle in the afterlife, a kink in the system—call it what you will, it all boils down to the same thing. Not everything is the clean line we think it up to be. Even in the afterlife, mistakes are made, and I’m just one of countless individuals to have witnessed proof to this very fact.

  The question remains: is there a solution? Is there a means of solving such an enormous and vaguely understood issue? The answer lies in the very definition of the word. Glitch: a sudden malfunction or irregularity. How does one get something to function properly that, scientifically speaking, doesn’t even exist in the first place? Simple—you don’t. You’ve got to get a grasp on it first.

  I pause, my finger going back to the six-letter word. Glitch. Well that’s a polite way to say we’re fucked, isn’t it?

  Chapter 45

  Lou Adaire, if there’s one thing I can teach you right now it’s this: never spring into action without a foolproof plan.

  Oh, Grams. You’d be so disappointed right now.

  This is probably as far from
being planned out as it could get. In my defense, I doubt even she would be able to come up with a decent course of action for this sort of thing.

  I step into my room and lock the door behind me, then take a deep breath. I don’t know why I’m suddenly feeling nervous about this. Maybe it’s because he already made it clear he was saying goodbye. That he never intends to see me again. Did he really expect me to be all right with that, though? Doesn’t he know I need him to be okay in order for me to be okay?

  I clear my throat, going for strong and confident. “De—Enzo?” No answer, but that was to be expected. “Enzo, I know you can hear me.” Silence. At least I hope you can. I walk a few steps further into my room, scanning it for any signs of him. “I just want to talk, okay?”

  I close my eyes, picturing him listening somewhere. Picturing his face, those green eyes, those lips I’ve kissed and want so badly to kiss again. Just once more.

  “Please.” The strong façade falters as quickly as I’d slipped it on. My voice breaks when I speak, betraying me. “I-I’ve been reading Mr. Blackwood’s books again, you know. He’s really onto something. I mean, I don’t have enough to know exactly how to fix this yet, but I think . . . I think we can figure it out. Together. And I’m—I’m scared of running out of time to do it.” I wander toward the bed, lowering myself slightly so I’m resting partially against it. I fidget with the ring around my finger. “I do have an idea, but I need to tell you in person.”

  I don’t think the ‘we should just let the switch happen, swap places’ card will go over very well any way I play it, but I feel like something like that should at least be said face to face. Maybe if he sees how much I mean it, how desperate I am to see him get the life he deserves, then maybe I’ll have a better shot at convincing him.