by Ann M. Noser
I’m right. Jake was the ultimate party boy.
Not that his death isn’t still sad.
Jake stops talking. I take this as an invitation to proceed.
“You’re the second guy who’s walked around this campus in that body. I need to tell you about Sam so you can act like him. And I need to tell you about Abby, Sam’s special friend. I just really have to go to the bathroom first. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
He doesn’t even look up as I grab my bathroom tote.
I brush my teeth, wash my face, and put in my contacts. I want to give Jake a little space so he can absorb his shocking new reality in private. I walk back to my room and knock twice before entering. Fortunately, no one stands in the hallway wondering why I’m asking permission to enter my own room.
Unfortunately, no one is inside my room, either.
here did that idiot go? He could be anywhere on campus by now, saying all sorts of things that could get both of us in trouble. I need to find him fast, especially with Officer Walker lurking around. I throw on a jacket, grab my backpack, and race out of the dorm without breakfast.
My search for Jake keeps getting interrupted by my class schedule. Abby acts surprised “Sam” doesn’t sit with us during Zoology. I pray I’ll find the “new Sam” before Abby runs into him somewhere, but everywhere I turn, I am literally chasing a ghost.
Near the campus bookstore, I run into one of the students I tutor. “Hey, Katie, have you seen Sam?”
“Sam?” She looks puzzled. “Oh, you mean your boyfriend from tutoring?”
“He is most definitely not my boyfriend,” I hotly declare.
She shrugs, making her glittery earrings jangle. “He was just here.”
“Well…” I wait, wishing she was a little faster on the pick-up. “Do you know where he went?”
“No.” She blinks at me blankly.
How helpful. That figures.
By asking everyone I know on campus, I find out Jake won a pie-eating contest in the cafeteria, scored a touchdown in a spontaneous outdoor football game, and flirted with Love-Struck Lisa, the Pajama Girl.
And it isn’t even noon yet.
“Your friend is so adorable,” Lisa croons. “I can’t believe I sleepwalked out onto the bridge―I haven’t done that since grade school. The campus clinic said it was from stressing out over exams and taking too much Ambien to help me sleep.”
“You’ll have to be more careful.” Hmmm. Apparently, this saving one’s life thing really works for girls, just like it does in the movies.
“Yes. I can’t believe Jake was there to rescue me.” Lisa’s eyes melt in adoration. “Does he have a girlfriend?”
I panic at her use of the name “Jake”. What’s he thinking, using his real name? “I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask him. Do you happen to know where he is now?”
“No, I don’t.” Lisa continues to swoon. “He’s like my very own knight in shining armor. And it’s so wonderful of him to volunteer to have that awful surgery.”
“What surgery?”
“Wait, I wasn’t supposed to tell you about that.” Lisa giggles. “I’ve got to go now.” And she sprints away in the other direction.
I shake my head. I don’t believe her anyway.
After my golf class―something my father recommended―I run into Chrissy. To my amazement, she smiles.
“Hi, Emma! I saw your friend today.”
“Why are you so happy? I thought you hated him.”
“How he saved that girl last night is amazing! Everyone’s talking about it.” Chrissy gives me the full report and ends by saying, “The campus radio station wants to interview him. Officer Walker oversees the campus police, so he’ll probably want to talk to him, too.”
“Okay, I’ll let him know.” Holy crap―this is bad! I don’t even know which part to panic about first. “But I’m having trouble finding him. Do you know where he is?”
Chrissy gives me her famous what-do-I-care-I’m-not-his-mother-look. “No.”
I scurry off again, but the only one I find is Abby.
She isn’t her usual smiling self. Naturally, she found Jake before I did.
“Sam acted so strangely today.” Abby sighs. “I must’ve been a fool to think he might be The One who could make everything better. That was stupid of me. It must’ve been my pregnancy hormones surging out of control. Hey, Emma, do you want to have a girls’ night on Friday? We could rent chick flicks and order pizza.”
“That sounds good.” I don’t think Jake will hang around me much anyway.
I attend all my classes, struggling to pay attention. I have a test the next day and wonder when I will be able to study. It’s so irresponsible of Jake to run off. I miss Sam already. He always stuck around. I always knew what to expect from him.
After my last class of the day, I wolf down an unbalanced cafeteria supper before lumbering back to my room. Searching for Jake all day makes me exhausted and ornery.
Definitely not in the mood for company.
As I swing open my dorm room door, I discover Jake lounging on my futon, reading my diary.
“You have some nerve!” I grab the closest thing I can find, which happens to be my purple hairbrush, and launch it at him.
“I knew it!” Jake deflects the brush, laughing. “I heard about Mike’s accident, and I figured you had a gigantic crush on him, following him into the river like that. And then he drowned right next to you. No wonder you flipped out and turned witchy.”
“That’s private! You shouldn’t have read it! Those are my personal thoughts in there!” Grasping for anything in reach, I throw clothes, a comb, and finally a pair of shoes at him.
He catches it all with a satisfied smirk on his face. “That’s exactly why I read it. You went on and on this morning, bossing me around, but never once did you inform me it’s your fault I’m here.” Jake picks up the Book of Shadows and gestures with it.
“You never gave me a chance. You ran off.”
“Yes, I did, and you should thank me for that, Witchy Woman.”
“Thank you? You must be crazy! I searched all day for you. I’m so stressed out. Everyone seems to know you now. You have no idea how much damage you’ve done. You hurt Abby’s feelings, for one.”
“Why? Was she in love with the dead guy?”
“Well, she might have had a tiny crush on him.” As I confess it, I realize how stupid it sounds.
“Then I’m glad I hurt her feelings.”
“Why would you say that? It’s just mean.”
“It’s not mean. What good can come of her being in love with a dead guy? There’s no future in that. It’s better for her this way.”
I open my mouth to protest, then close it. He’s right.
“And while you were frantically running around, I made myself a presence on this campus,” Jake brags.
“And you think that’s a good thing?”
“Yes, I do. Now I belong here, not like that Sam guy, always slinking around on the edges. People like me, even that policeman Charlie Walker. I’m a big hero. Everyone thinks they had me in class last year or lived by me in the dorm. I fit in here perfectly. So you don’t need to worry.”
“Except for the fact that you’re not really a big hero. Sam’s the one who saved Lisa.”
“And you want me to tell everybody that? Trust me, it’s better my way. Even your cute little ex-roommate likes me now. I guess Chrissy really disliked poor old Sam.” Jake raises his eyebrows. “Read about that in your diary. Exciting stuff.”
I glare at him. “I can’t believe you read it.”
“I can’t believe you’re a witch.”
I shake a finger at him. “I wish I could turn you into a toad.”
He laughs. “By the way, you should refer to me as ‘Jake’ at all times now.”
“Yes, I heard you changed your name. What were you thinking?”
“Relax, girl. It’s fine. All day I’ve been telling everyone my name is Sam
uel Jacob. So they can call me either Sam or Jake.”
“What?”
“I tell them they can call me whatever they like, just as long as they call me to dinner.”
“So, why can’t I call you whatever I like?”
Jake snorts. “Yeah, I can just imagine what you’d like to call me, and goody-two-shoes girls like you shouldn’t use bad words like that.”
My eyes narrow. I can think of plenty of “bad words” I’d like to say right now.
“So, Emma…” Jake pauses to point at the roses across the room. “Who are those flowers from… Mike?”
I glare at him hotly. “No!”
“I didn’t think so.” Jake pauses for effect. “Are you pretending they’re from Mike?”
“No! Of course not!” Argh! Would it be so terrible if I beat up a dead guy?
“Cause that would be sick, with the guy being dead and all. I mean, I realize he was super cute and all… Let’s see how you put it in here…” Jake flips through the pages of my diary.
“Don’t you dare!”
He smirks, then reads in a high girly voice: “‘I can still see Mike’s face. Every time he’d look at me, I’d panic and look away. I couldn’t help myself. His eyes held all the colors of a running stream, and his lashes were impossibly dark.”
“Give me that!” I throw my contact lens solution at him, then my mouthwash, followed by a tube of toothpaste.
He continues to deflect my attacks with ease. “Let me give you a little advice, Emma Roberts. Just because someone has dreamy eyes doesn’t mean he’s in love with you.”
“Argh! You must be the most obnoxious guy on the planet!”
“That’s pretty harsh, don’t you think? My little sister only says I’m the most obnoxious guy in the state… Used to say that, anyway…” Jake’s smile disappears, replaced by a sadness so potent it startles me into silence. He shakes it off. “But I don’t want to ever hear you call me Sam. Not even in front of others.”
“Okay, fine. Whatever you say.” I puzzle at what I so clearly saw in his face. “Anything else you need me to do for you, your highness? I live to serve.”
“Maybe…” Jake drums my diary with his fingers. “But I don’t need anything tonight. I’ll let you know when I need you.”
He stands up and heads for the door.
“Are you leaving already? Don’t you think that you should know more about Sam before you go?”
“I know enough about Sam. He’s just like you, and I know all about you.” He slaps the violated journal into my furious hands as he saunters past me out the door.
“How’d you get in my room, anyway?”
He digs in his right front pocket and dangles a key with a bright pink flower charm. “I swiped this.”
“That was Chrissy’s―give it back!” I don’t want him just coming in my room whenever he feels like it.
“Well, it’s mine now.” Jake sticks the key back in his pants and takes off down the hall, calling back over his shoulder, “See you later. Why don’t you go write some more in your journal―give me something good to read the next time I drop by?”
Jerk. I don’t bother answering him.
After he leaves, I carry the charmed roses down the hallway and toss them in the garbage chute.
Good riddance.
The rest of the week follows the same course. Every once in a while, Jake shows up asking for money, his laundry, or simply to harass me. He does quite fine most of the time on his own. Everyone likes him better than Sam, and better than me.
Everyone except Abby.
On Friday night, Abby and I relax alone together in her room, pretending we don’t care it’s only just the two of us. Just as she suggested, we order in a veggie pizza to be healthy for the baby and rent a romantic comedy that would make most guys cringe.
After the movie, Abby has an idea. “We should make a list of things that should happen before falling in love with a guy. This will help us to not make fools of ourselves in the future.”
“Okay.” But I’m not interested in falling in love right now. I’ve got way too many other things to worry about.
When we finish our list, it reads as follows:
We need to meet his family.
He needs to meet our family.
He needs to take us dancing. (It’s romantic.)
He needs to take us grocery shopping and make it fun. (It’s practical.)
We have to be able to talk all night long. (It means we get along well.)
He needs to tell us we’re the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.
Abby comes up with most of the list on her own―except for number six, which is all mine.
“This doesn’t seem like a long enough list,” says Abby. “I think we’re missing something.”
I get up to stretch. “Well, I’m too tired to think anymore. I better go to bed.”
Abby eyes me. “Are you all right, Emma? You seem a little down tonight.”
“I’m fine. Good night.” I wave and exit her room. But I’m not fine. Dragging my feet up the grey cement staircase, I let my tumbling thoughts consume me. I still haven’t brought Mike back. Instead, I’ve brought back an irritating party boy who doesn’t need my help at all. I enter my lonely room, gather up one of the discarded Mexican blankets, and settle down on my futon.
I miss Sam. I liked him a lot better than Jake. But what if Jake is right about Sam and me being too much the same? Does that mean I only like people exactly like me? Ha! That’s ridiculous! I spend half my time wondering what’s wrong with me! On the other hand, Jake certainly has an oversized ego, but he makes friends everywhere he goes.
It makes me grumpy that Jake’s right about fitting in so easily. I’ve heard snippets of conversations all across campus. People insist that “the guy who saved the sleepwalker” was in their Chemistry class, PhyEd class, or whatever last semester. Everyone wants to have known him. Everyone wants to be Jake’s friend.
Maybe this is my payback. My own personal Rule of Three: Whatever you do, be it good or ill, will be returned to you threefold. I may have raised Sam and Jake from the dead, but I couldn’t make Sam happy and Jake annoys me more than anyone else on the planet.
Poor Sam. Destined to be miserable.
I erase my board and write:
“When I was five years old,
my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life.
When I went to school,
they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I wrote down ‘happy’.
They told me I didn’t understand the assignment,
and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
―John Lennon
Time passes, and my irritation with Jake grows.
He always shows up at the worst times and camps out for the night. I learn to throw the bolt whenever I change clothes, to pick up any stray underwear or bras off the floor, and to never write in my journal again.
“Hey! Where’d it go?” Jake yelps from the top bunk five minutes before my alarm rings one Monday morning.
“What are you talking about?” I grumble as he rustles around up there, the bed coils creaking under his weight.
“No worries,” he calls down. “False alarm. It was just a dream.”
“What dream?” Lately, I dread my dreams. Too many scary things live in them.
“It was so strange. In my dream I woke up and someone else was here in bed with me.”
“No way, Jake. You better not be trying to tell me about some sex dream of yours.”
He snorts. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
“Good!”
“No, it wasn’t like that, anyway. It was that other body from my second image in the mirror.”
“What? Now you’re telling me there’s two bodies living with me?”
Jake shifts in the bed above me. “Don’t worry, Emma, it was just a dream. It’s not like it really happened.”
“What do you think that
means?”
“You’re asking me? Hell, I don’t know. How come you don’t know? You’re always the one with all the answers.”
“Well, I don’t know what it means.” I burrow further under the covers.
“Me neither. But I never thought my dreams meant too much anyway.”
“I used to think that.” I shudder, remembering my nightmares about the bridge and all the dead bodies lining the river. “But now I’m worried my dreams mean more than I want them to.”
“I’d be worried if I were you, too.”
“Thanks a lot, jerk.”
“No, really, it’s kind of freaky that all of a sudden you became this super powerful witch. I mean, how did you know you could do all this stuff? You know, raise the dead, for example.”
“Well… I’m not sure if this matters…” Don’t tell him. Don’t tell anybody. The words spill out on their own. “When I was in eighth grade, I met this girl in the woods. Her name was Elsie. She wasn’t a normal girl. I mean, she was dead. But she was nice, so we hung out for a while. When I went home and told Mom about her, she made me promise to stop ‘pretending’ as she put it. But she wasn’t pretend. Elsie was real.”
“Whoa. That’s crazy.”
I’ve held back my secrets for so long, that once I start I can’t stop. “And Elsie isn’t the only dead person I’ve seen, before you guys, I mean. But I never really talked to the other ones like I did with her. Do you think I should’ve? I didn’t know what to do.”
The room falls silent for a moment before Jake speaks. “I’m not sure what you should’ve done, but I understand why your mom told you to stop. She probably just wanted to protect you.”
My eyes fill with unwelcome tears. “From what? Myself?”
Jake shifts in the bed above me. “Maybe. Or from other people. Kids, especially girls for whatever reason, can be so cruel to one another. She just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
I know better than Jake just how mean girls can be. “No. I think Mom wanted everything to be a certain way, and I just didn’t fit into her definition of perfect.”
“Harsh.”