Andy’s eyes are closed as he’s lifted into the ambulance, sirens blaring loudly; the crew grab a multitude of medical
equipment and attempt to resuscitate Jeremy and calm Andy’s frantic breathing.
“Could you stop looking so thrilled that you just died and
nearly murdered my friend? We’re in an ambulance; stop smiling.”
“Come on, this is so cool. They can bring me back anyway, and so what if they can’t. I’ll just haunt little nerds like Nolan from the other side. No big deal.”
Ugh, this kid is frustrating. He’s making it very difficult for me to feel guilty about killing him.
“Mellie,” I say, glancing around the inside of the car like I expect she’s about to pop out from behind a gurney or something, “any time you want to swoop in and save me from having to deal with this moron, that would be very much appreciated!”
Silence. I shouldn’t have expected anything else.
Jeremy looks at me like I’ve gone crazy and started shouting at myself. Which I guess it probably looks like I was. And who knows – maybe I am crazy. After all, I did kill myself, and now I’m a psycho murderer just like I was warned about. And now I’m stuck for the foreseeable future with the spirit of the guy I just killed.
My life would either be a blockbuster movie, or a terrible flop of a film.
I ride with Andy to the hospital and stay by his side as he’s wheeled into the emergency room and moved onto a larger operating table so the doctors can assess his injuries. Jeremy’s body is taken to a different room and, thankfully, his annoying ghost follows.
Andy must be unconscious, because his eyes don’t open even
once as the nurses stick a needle leading to an IV drip into his arm and check his vitals with a variety of tools. The blood is cleaned off of his face and his shirt is cut off, as well as his binder. I try not to
look at his chest and instead focus on the bruises on his stomach and
the cuts on his face.
A doctor comes in and resets his broken nose with a cracking noise that makes me wince. He needs stitches, and I lose track of how many are put in his lip, cheeks, and chin. At least one rib must be either broken or fractured, because a bandage is wound tightly around his torso. Two different medications drip down through his IV, but I don’t dare get close enough to read what they are. I don’t think Andy would want me to see him like this, unconscious or not. I’m pushing my luck just by being here.
I’m tempted to go check on Jeremy, but I already know what the outcome is going to be. I pulled his soul out; there’s no way the doctors can revive him after that. He’ll be pronounced dead, thrown into a body bag, and become just another statistic on Mellie’s list of deaths. If she ever shows up to claim him, that is.
After the blood is cleaned and his wounds are taken care of, Andy is dressed in a short hospital gown that I’m sure he’ll hate when he wakes up and carted away to a recovery room. A wave of relief rolls over me; at least his injuries were only superficial. A few stitches and bandages and he’s as good as new. If I had let Jeremy continue beating on him, I’m certain the diagnosis would have been a lot bleaker.
They won’t let him wake up right away. I can hear the
doctors talking to each other in whispers in the hall an hour later, piecing their stories together in hushed voices. Jeremy was pronounced dead over an hour ago. I’m not surprised, but something about hearing it from a doctor’s mouth makes me feel sick. He may be a jerk, but he didn’t deserve to die. Nobody does.
Except, I guess, me. Since I made the decision to die on my own.
I’m sure the police will be involved at some point, and Andy will be questioned the moment he wakes up. I don’t know what he can possibly say – he was caught next to a dead body with no one else in sight. He can’t exactly pin the blame on an invisible ghost.
Nobody comes to visit Andy while he’s recovering. I’m not really surprised, but I’m more than a little disappointed. Did he really have no friends at all in school? Not that I had that many either, but at least a dozen people showed up for my funeral. The way things are going, I don’t even know for certain if Andy’s own mom would have shown up for his.
I decide to sit in the waiting room like a ‘normal’ human, planting myself on a plastic chair that looks like it would be uncomfortable if I could actually feel it. Doctors pass by, and I keep expecting one of them to stop and talk to me, but that’s ridiculous. Nobody but Andy can see me, and as far as I know he’s still asleep.
“So, it turns out I’m dead,” Jeremy says, floating down the hall and coming to a stop next to where I’m sitting. “That’s kind of a bummer.”
“Tell me about it.”
It really is, though. I think for the first time since I died, I’m beginning to really regret what I did. Not just during certain circumstances, but in general. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t killed myself. Andy and I might have been friends if I had just met him when I was alive, and I wouldn’t have killed Jeremy. I
could have protected Andy without being afraid of accidentally
hurting someone.
But, I guess if I wasn’t dead Andy would never have noticed me. Or maybe I wouldn’t have noticed him. He tries so hard to be invisible, I never knew he existed until I thought he was going to die.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Jeremy. “For what it’s worth, it really was an accident. I was just trying to help Andy.”
Jeremy scoffs. “Yeah. Not really worth it, was it?”
I don’t answer him; I’m not even sure I have an answer to give. Was it worth killing someone just to give Andy a little more time? Is he still going to die like Mellie said, or have I managed to change things?
When I died, I spent the first couple of days before meeting Mellie feeling lost. I floated around with nothing to do and no explanation about where or what I was.
I think I feel even most lost right now, waiting for Mellie to help me out and Andy to wake up. And I still have no explanation, but I should be getting used to that by now.
Chapter Nineteen
“This is bad, Terra,” Reece says, floating down beside me.
Great, so we’re getting right into it. Not even a ‘hello’ or ‘how are you?’ or ‘I sympathize with you even though you just killed someone without a reasonable excuse’. See, this is why I don’t particularly get along with Reece. He’s cute, and sweet most of the time, but he’s so attached to Mellie now that he’s almost becoming like her. And that’s a scary thought because Mellie is the result of years without empathy and I hate seeing something like that happen to someone as innocent as Reece.
I mean, his own father shot him dead. He should understand what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a bad situation.
The squishy chair in the waiting room next to where Andy is sleeping creases slightly as Reece sits, but it doesn’t make any noise. Reece looks uncomfortable and rigid; I don’t think he likes hospitals very much. Or maybe he just doesn’t like me.
“I know,” I say, sighing between my teeth. “I know. But there was nothing else I could have done, okay?”
Reece cocks his head to one side, skeptical. “You know as
well as I do that’s not true. Your friend has lived past his time,
and – ”
“ – and I’m supposed to just let him get the life beaten out of him? That’s how I should let him die?”
A burst of anger swells in my chest. Reece doesn’t know Andy like I do; he has no right to come here and start accusing me without a good reason. If Mellie has a problem with what I did, she can come and talk to me herself. She doesn’t need to send Reece to do her dirty work all the time; it’s just making me resent him, and I don’t want to feel that way about another person.
“You don’t have the right to make that decision. If he was meant to die, then it would have happened. It’s not your place to choose his path for him.”
I have to take a deep, unnecessary breath t
o calm myself down. I don’t want to cause a scene by throwing things and I don’t want to wake Andy up by shouting. I don’t want any more violence; even Reece deserves better. Though he’s really testing my patience right now.
“What if it was your mom?” I say, biting my tongue as soon as the words leave my mouth. It’s too late for me to take them back now. “What if your mom was in trouble and you were the only one who could help her? Wouldn’t you at least try to?”
Reece looks like he’s just been slapped across the face. His eyes are wide and his mouth is half-open like he wants to say something, but all that comes out is a choked heave. I can’t tell if he’s mad or just shocked, but part of me doesn’t want to know.
There I go again – opening my mouth and spewing out garbage without thinking. Why do I hurt people every time I talk? I should be getting better at this, but I feel like I’m getting worse.
“I’m sorry,” I say after a moment passes. Reece doesn’t react. “That was wrong of me to say. I know I can’t compare your mother and Andy, but I just wanted to get my point across. He’s important to me, Reece. I couldn’t just sit there and watch him being beaten to death.”
“You…” His voice breaks and he clears his throat. “You still didn’t have to take someone else’s life. That wasn’t necessary.”
Something about his tone of voice confuses me. He sounds so much like Mellie, talking in a code only they understand, and I know that his words have a deeper meaning. I want to ask him about it, but I know he won’t give me a straight answer.
Not for the first time, I wonder if Reece is being trained to take over for Mellie when she moves on. He seems like a good candidate for a Grim Reaper – better than I am, anyway. I don’t know why Mellie even tried to train me in the first place; it’s obvious I’m not cut out for the job. I can’t just stare death down with a straight face, and I can’t look someone in the eye and tell them that someone they care about is better off dead. I may have killed myself, but I wouldn’t wish death on anyone – even someone like Jeremy.
But Reece… This job is making him colder, I can feel it. It’s in the way he moves and how he speaks. He doesn’t even talk about his mother anymore, and she used to be the most important person in his life. He just follows Mellie around blindly, taking souls without
batting an eye. I wonder how much of it was caused by his murder, and how much is Mellie’s fault.
Has death changed me, too? Sometimes I feel like it has. And then, other times, when I’m with Andy, I feel as alive as I ever have. I think my fixation on him is keeping me human, somehow, but Reece doesn’t have that.
“No,” I agree, shaking my head. “It wasn’t supposed to happen. I just wanted to stop him from hurting Andy. I never wanted him to die, and I regret what I did.”
“Does that make you feel any better?”
“No. Not at all.”
Reece offers me a small smile that I reluctantly return. I’m still upset with him, but I can’t be angry just because he’s doing what he was told to do. Mellie’s the one I should be mad at, but I’m honestly not. What happened to Andy wasn’t her fault, and he’s still alive regardless; nothing else really matters.
“You’re still pretty, even when you’re sad,” Reece says, not looking at me. “But I wish you would smile more. He’s alive, isn’t he? So it doesn’t matter what you did. You saved him; you should be happy about that.”
I have no idea why Reece is telling me this. Shouldn’t he be upset that I killed Jeremy, or at least mad about me interfering with Andy’s death? It’s like the mask Mellie put on him is chipping away, and the real Reece is showing through – the one who doesn’t want anyone to get hurt, the one who cried at his own funeral and still
keeps tabs on his mom in secret, even though Mellie told him not to.
This is the Reece who made me smile, who’s as handsome and kind as he was the day he died. Why isn’t he like this more often?
My cheeks feel hot; I look over at Reece, who’s tapping his fingers soundlessly on the arms of his chair. “Thanks, but… Shouldn’t you be reprimanding me for breaking the rules, or something? You were just upset. What happened to that?”
He shrugs, still staring at the opposite wall. “I was never upset, I was just telling you the truth. Mellie’s going to be mad when she finds out; you need to be prepared for that.”
“You really are her lap dog, aren’t you?” I don’t mean to sound accusing, but I realize belatedly that I do. Reece flinches but doesn’t turn to face me.
“I might be. I don’t know.” He blinks and nods his head once. “I didn’t tell her about Andy, if you’re wondering. And I haven’t told her about Jeremy yet. I wanted to buy you time.”
“Time for what?”
“To say goodbye to him.”
Reece points his thumb in the direction of Andy’s room and finally looks at me. His expression is somber, but there’s a light in his eyes that baffles me. He should be angry, or sad, or at least frustrated with me. Instead, he looks resigned. I wonder how many times he’s had the ‘rules’ drilled into his head to make him give up like that.
“No,” I say quickly. “I’m not going to do that, because he’s not going to die. It doesn’t matter what Mellie says.”
“That’s your choice. I can’t sway you one way or another.”
“Reece… What happened to you?” My voice catches in my throat and snags on my words. I try to let my concern come across, but all it sounds like is accusation. I should be wondering what happened to me, not him; I’m the one who’s changed the most.
He shifts in his seat, the squeaky leather bending beneath him. Nobody else seems to notice.
“I died,” he says. “That put everything into perspective. Things like this just… don’t matter as much anymore.”
I shake my head at him. “They’re people’s lives we’re playing with, Reece. They matter so much.”
“Says someone who killed themselves.”
Reece’s words hurt more than I expect them to. There’s a bitter feeling in my stomach when I think about how I died, but I don’t know why that is. It almost feels like regret.
Sometimes I feel like I’m using Andy to repent for my own death – saving him to push away some of the guilt of taking my own life. I hurt the people I love. My sister, my father, my friends at school… Maybe if I can help Andy, I’ll be forgiven in some way. But I think the forgiveness I’m looking for is from myself more than anyone else, and I know how impossible that is.
But I don’t regret what I did. There has to have been a good reason, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. I have to believe that it wasn’t for nothing.
Reece gives me an odd look, almost like sympathy but with an edge of frustration. He looks like he wants to be upset with me, but something is keeping him from lashing out. He’s too much of a gentleman. He doesn’t deserve to be in a job like this.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “That was out of line. I just meant… If Andy wants to die, you shouldn’t stop him. You wouldn’t have wanted anyone stopping you, right?”
That’s a good question. Would I have wanted someone to prevent me from killing myself, if I had the choice? My immediate answer is no, but then I remember Olivia running into my room in the middle of the afternoon and shouting at me to wake up, please, just open your eyes. If I could have spared her that pain, I would have. If she could have saved me, I would have let her.
But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have tried again later. Suicide isn’t something you just get over; it sticks with you for the rest of your life, whether you act on those feelings or not. If that’s what Andy really wants, he’ll find a way – whether I want him to or not.
I shudder and look away from Reece. The waiting room is starting to fill up again. Andy’s parents aren’t here right now, thank God, but there’s a woman sobbing in the chair in the corner and I wish she’d stop. A nurse with a clipboard walks past us, so close she nearly touches my leg, and I jerk away out of ins
tinct.
I don’t give Reece an answer, because I don’t have one. His eyes follow the nurse down the hallway until she disappears around a corner and then he focuses again on the crying woman across the room.
“Things are black and white with you, aren’t they?” I ask him instead. “You’re just like Mellie. But I don’t think like that. Andy isn’t like me just because he… because of what he’s done. He’s gonna be okay. I’m going to make sure he’s okay.”
I sound like I’m trying to convince myself more than Reece. Maybe I am.
Reece stands, his feet barely touching the ground. I stay sitting where I am, waiting for Andy to wake up; I’ll stay here all day if I need to.
“I don’t know if that’s possible, Terra,” he says without looking at me. The woman in the corner starts hiccupping, her boyfriend rubbing her shoulders and whispering something in her ear that I can’t hear. I don’t feel a pull towards anyone but Andy right now, and I wish I could tell the crying woman that whoever she’s worried about isn’t going to die, but I can’t. Once again, there’s nothing I can do.
Reece leaves without another word. Is he going to tell Mellie what I did?
What’s she going to do if he does?
Chapter Twenty
Andy wakes up later that night. To my surprise, his father comes to visit him, bringing a card and an apology from his mother. Of course she wouldn’t want to see him – not after what she did. This is all her fault, after all.
And some of it is mine, too, I guess. If I had just stopped Jeremy earlier, or come up with some way to keep both of them alive, then none of us would be here right now. Jeremy’s been hovering annoyingly close since he died, but he doesn’t dare face Andy after beating him nearly to death. I don’t know if it’s guilt or disgust, but when I finally phase through the door to Andy’s room, Jeremy doesn’t follow.
I take a seat next to the bed, watching his pulse flicker on the monitor. His nose is wrapped in gauze and tape, and his messy hair is stuck to his forehead with sweat. He’s got a blanket pulled up over his chest, but the bulk still shows through slightly when he breathes. I try not to look.
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