As Dead as It Gets

by Katie Alender

  After all, weren’t we after the same thing? Didn’t I wish I could leave ghosts behind and be normal again? But there was “normal,” and then there was…this.

  I hushed my traitorous inner voice and watched Megan for any sign of a reaction.

  Finally she gave me a small, sad smile. “Okay, then.”

  I followed her back inside, feeling like a hostage. Brother Ben’s curious eyes were all over us. And when the kid who was speaking sat down, Ben looked directly at me. “Anyone else?”

  Megan sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching the podium expectantly.

  I stood up.

  When I got to the front of the room, I was surprised to find that my heart was pounding like a drum. “My name is Alexis.” My voice trembled. “I’ve had some…issues.”

  The whole room was silent. Everyone was listening raptly.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “My problem is that…even though I want a normal life, I can’t…get away from certain things. I’m not looking for them. The things—they come to me.”

  Ben’s baby-blue eyes pounced on me. “Alexis, what I’m sensing in you is a lack of commitment.”

  I was about to protest, but I saw the look on Megan’s face and stopped myself.

  “Only you can take responsibility for the things you do and the forces you let into your life. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘garbage in, garbage out’?”

  I nodded dumbly.

  “Well, it sounds like you’re letting plenty of garbage in.”

  I stared down at the wood surface of the podium. Someone had taped an index card to it that read do noT lean on me. i will Collapse!

  “So instead of saying, ‘Trouble finds me, it’s not my fault,’ ask yourself, ‘What am I doing to invite this garbage into my life? How can I improve myself and be stronger?’” He took a step toward me, and I had to fight not to flinch. “Do you have any ideas?”

  It took a moment for me to realize he actually wanted me to come up with something. And I would totally have fed him a line of BS, except I couldn’t even think of one.

  “Nope,” I said, feeling my cheeks redden. “Fresh out of ideas, I guess.”

  “Maybe you could start,” Ben said gently, “by admitting that you’re not strong enough.”

  I glanced up in surprise.

  “Alexis, you are a weak person,” he said. “We all are. And you’ve got to accept your weakness or you’ll never be free.”

  Well, he did kind of have a point. This had all started because I’d had a moment of utter spinelessness. If I hadn’t been so terrified of being blind, I wouldn’t have taken the oath to Aralt again. And maybe I could have focused on finding some other way to stop Lydia, instead of just thinking about myself and my own well-being.

  “Try saying it,” Ben coaxed. “Admit it.”

  Accept your weakness. And suddenly I felt weak. I felt helpless. After all, wasn’t my whole life proof that there was something fundamentally wrong with me?

  “I’m…” The letters on the index card blurred, and I found myself leaning on the podium, my breath catching in my chest, desperate not to cry in front of a room full of people. “I’m…weak?”

  Ben started applauding. Most of the kids slapped their hands together once or twice out of obligation.

  And Megan sat forward in her seat, clapping like her life depended on it.

  ASHLEEN PULLED THE DOOR OPEN, and the thudding beat of music spilled out around her. Her face lit up. “Hi, you guys!”

  Being addressed as “you guys” or “you two” instead of “Alexis” was something I was getting pretty used to. It had been almost a month since Jared and I started showing up at parties together, and people at school had stopped thinking of me as single. I even stopped thinking of me as single.

  “Hey,” I said, trying (but failing) to match her enthusiasm.

  “Come in, come in,” Ashleen said, moving out of the way so Jared and I could pass. “It’s cold tonight, isn’t it? I think the hedgehog’s going to say six more weeks of winter tomorrow.”

  Jared coughed to cover his laugh. I could only shake my head and smile. “I don’t know,” I managed to say.

  “Coats in the dining room, people and food in the game room,” she said. “The pizzas just got here.”

  Jared realized he’d left his phone in the car, so I waited for him while Ashleen straightened out the welcome mat and stood up.

  “Jared’s really nice,” she said, looking after him wistfully. “You’re soooo lucky.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Does he have any friends?” She lowered her voice and patted her dark wavy hair. “Single ones?”

  Every unattached girl, I was learning, wanted what I had—a boy whose eyes always traced her movements in a crowd, who would leave any conversation to stand silently at her side. And most of them seemed to think I was covered in magical boyfriend dust that would rub off on them if they talked to me.

  Yeah, seeing Carter and Zoe together was still a shock, every single time.

  But at least I could turn to Jared and lose myself in his presence—let him nuzzle my neck, talk quietly into my ear, wrap his arms around my waist and rest his head on my shoulder. We were one of those couples—the kind that are always irritatingly wrapped up in each other. Who never have much to say to anyone else.

  Life was good. I’d wanted to be average, and that was what I got. My grades were better. I slept more. I saw Megan every week—even if I did have to sit through Brighter Path meetings to earn the privilege. Instead of worrying about Kasey and me making pacts with the devil, my parents were starting to worry that Jared and I were getting too serious too fast. I’d done some shoots for the yearbook, and I went to the weekly meetings. I wasn’t sure if any of the other staffers liked me, but I enjoyed being part of it—part of something bigger than myself.

  And best of all by far: in four weeks, there had been no sign of Lydia. No shadows in my car, no disembodied laughter, no yellow roses, no more missing girls. I concluded that I must have dropped the glass bird in the street, where it had been pulverized by a passing car or the blessed, oblivious crunch of a mailman’s boot.

  My days had a slow, steady rhythm. They still had good parts and bad parts, but there were no insanely bad parts, which was a huge improvement over my recent past.

  I’d be lying if I didn’t say that, in some ways—in a lot of ways—it was like finding myself washed ashore after spending five months lost at sea.

  But sometimes when I lay in bed at night, or happened to catch a glimpse of a picture in a magazine or on a wall, and saw a dead woman staring pleadingly from her spot next to a nail polish model, or a burned face in the middle of a family photo taken at somebody’s vacation house, I felt a stab of…

  What was it?

  Fear? Dread? The suspicion that I was just fooling myself and it could never last?

  All of the above?

  The party spilled out of the game room onto the back patio, where a group of kids were huddled around the fire pit. Over the course of the night, I caught a few glimpses of short blond hair and forced myself to ignore the subsequent soul-crunching pang. At one point, I looked up to see Carter watching Jared and me. Did his soul crunch? Did he feel the same pang?

  He didn’t act like he felt it. As always, he was near Zoe, with a hand on her shoulder. I watched his fingers drift across her skin in a way that threatened to hollow me out.

  So I leaned deeper into the crook of Jared’s arm. He pulled me closer and touched his lips to the side of my face, then went on talking to some random kid about a video game. I saw a girl across the room gazing at us with undisguised envy, and reminded myself how lucky I was.

  Jared’s hand slipped around my body, just under my ribs. “Ready to go?” he asked, in a voice only I could hear.

  I nodded. We’d only been there for two hours, but we were never the first to arrive—or the last to leave.

  “Bye, guys,” he said to the whole room, giving
a wave. People waved back, and we started for the dining room, where our coats were slung over a chair.

  I stopped in the kitchen and put my hand on Jared’s chest. “Hang on,” I said. “I need to find Ashleen. She wanted to borrow my Spanish notes from yesterday, and I need her e-mail address.”

  Jared took a deep, impatient breath. “Does it have to be now?”

  “It’ll only take thirty seconds.”

  “We already said good-bye.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I know those girls, Alexis. You go back to say one thing, and fifteen minutes later you’ll still be talking about some idiotic reality show.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but then I looked up at Jared’s face.

  “Please,” he said. “I’m just not in the mood to be here right now.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Let me help you with your coat,” he said, standing behind me to slide it over my arms.

  I heard the sound of a throat being cleared, and looked up to see Carter at the door to the dining room, watching us.

  How long had he been there? How much had he heard?

  Even though I knew Jared had seen him, he took a second to straighten the collar of my coat, like I was a little girl, before seeming to notice Carter and asking, “What’s up?”

  They’d crossed paths at several parties, but they’d never been formally introduced. And I got the distinct feeling tonight wasn’t the night to do it.

  Jared put his arm around my waist and shepherded me out, not waiting for Carter’s reply.

  It bugged me in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. As we made our way down the sidewalk, I thought about saying something, but glanced over at Jared and saw that his expression hadn’t softened.

  Whatever, I thought. Not like Carter and I had anything to say to each other anyway.

  The car was silent except for the sounds of other cars passing by—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Jared’s fingers drummed noiselessly on the steering wheel.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  He glanced at me. “If it weren’t, don’t you think I’d tell you?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He took his right hand off the wheel and rested it gently on my knee. A few more quiet minutes passed.

  “So,” he said suddenly, “these parties.”

  “What about them?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure how many more I can take.” He was smiling, but his smile was tight, forced. “You don’t really like them, do you?”

  “Them? You mean the kids or the parties?”

  He shrugged. “Either?”

  “The kids are fine,” I said. “The parties are…okay. Good pizza, right?”

  He didn’t laugh.

  I sighed.

  “You’re just so different from those people.” He glanced at me. “They’re not like you at all.”

  No they’re not. They’re all decent people who haven’t messed up their lives.

  “It’s so shallow, you know?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think people just like to have fun at parties. How are the kids from your school?”

  “Not like that.”

  “Kasey’s not shallow. Her boyfriend’s not shallow.” Another name rose to the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it. Carter might not be shallow, but that wasn’t what Jared was looking to hear.

  “Two people out of fifty?” he asked.

  “Never mind, then,” I said. “We don’t have to go to every party. We don’t have to go to any of them, for all I care.”

  He was silent again, and I wondered what I’d said wrong.

  “Look,” I said, trying to sound reasonable. “I thought you had a good time, but if you don’t, I—”

  “No,” Jared said. “Forget it. You’re right. I’m wrong.”

  I sighed and sat back. “I don’t have to be right. I just don’t think they’re that bad.”

  He slowed for a yellow light and glanced over at me. “It’s not about the shallowness, okay? It’s about you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shook his head. “I just get the feeling that we’re—that you’re being…watched.”

  The hairs pricked up at the back of my neck. I always felt like I was being watched.

  “Or—not watched, exactly.”

  I gazed out the windshield at the headlights of the cars opposite us. They began to blur into halos. My voice turned brittle. “Then what,” I said, “exactly?”

  He sighed. “Judged.”

  I turned my face toward the window. I didn’t want Jared to see how hard it was for me to hold back the tears that had sprung to my eyes. “Why do you say that?”

  “It bothers me, Alexis. The way they look at you. It’s like you’re some kind of…”

  Murderer?

  He didn’t finish the sentence. He just went on. “You’re too good to be treated that way. So why do you hang around with them?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess because…I don’t know.”

  But I had a pretty good idea, actually.

  Because I’m weak.

  AFTER JARED DROPPED ME OFF, I said good night to my parents and went straight to bed. In spite of my weariness, I didn’t go right to sleep. I lay under the covers, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about what he’d said.

  I felt hotly embarrassed. If Jared, who hardly knew them, had picked up on their judgment, then it must have been completely obvious to everyone but me. When I showed up to a party, did everybody think, Oh, here she is again? Did they all think I was just a freak, trying to wedge myself into their normal social order?

  Did Carter think that?

  Was I the only person who couldn’t see how little they wanted me around?

  My cheeks tingled with shame. My eyes burned with tears. I curled up into a ball and shut my eyes as tightly as I could.

  Finally, I fell asleep.

  * * *

  It was the weirdest dream—almost like being awake.

  I was drawn out of bed so delicately that I didn’t even remember getting out from under the covers. I just found myself standing in front of the mirror. The room was dark, and I couldn’t see myself clearly, but I could tell that I wore some kind of fancy dress, like you’d wear to a dance or a tea party. The fabric was light and flimsy. The room was cold, and my bare feet felt like ice.

  I tried to stare into the reflection of my own eyes, but I couldn’t focus on them.

  I felt restless, as if I had somewhere to go, somewhere to be—but I couldn’t figure out where.

  A wave of helpless loneliness washed through me, and then I burst into tears. I was crying for something…for someone. It was the most desolate emotion I’d ever felt—like half of me had been ripped away.

  From behind me—from some dark corner of the room—came a soft sound: vzzzzzzzzzzz. The sound grew louder until I took my eyes off the mirror and swung around to look for its source.

  That’s when I snapped out of the dream to find that I really was standing in front of the mirror. The dress was gone, but the sense of unendurable solitude still coated me like a terrible second skin.

  I crept back under the covers, convinced that no one would ever again really care about me, or believe in me, or want me around.

  On the nightstand, my phone chirped. The screen lit up with a text message.

  Can’t sleep, Jared wrote. Thinking about you.

  I grabbed the phone like it was a life preserver, and dialed Jared’s cell so quickly that my fingers tripped over themselves.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Hi.”

  I swallowed back tears of relief.

  “Is this a booty call? Because…I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m not that kind of guy.” His voice, low and gentle, filled the emptiness in my heart like honey in a bowl.

  We talked quietly for a while and finally got to the point where we were both dozing off, so we hung up.

  I slept like
a baby.

  That Tuesday, the landline rang at six forty-five in the morning. A few seconds later, there was a knock at my door, and Mom came in holding the phone.

  “Alexis,” she said. “It’s for you.”

  “What? Really?” I sat up, stifled a yawn, and took the phone. “Hello?”

  “Alexis, this is Laurel Evans.”

  I couldn’t place the name.

  “Ashleen’s mother.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Hi.”

  “Sorry if I woke you up. I’m calling everyone who came to her party Saturday. I need to know if you know of anyone she might have wanted to meet or talk to or—”

  “I’m sorry?” I motioned for Mom to flip my light on. Kasey had come to the door, too. “I don’t understand.”

  “Ashleen is missing,” she said. “We think she may have run away.”

  “Run away?” I repeated. “Why?”

  “She’s been having some problems with her stepfather.” Mrs. Evans sighed. “I thought maybe someone would know if there was a place she’d go…maybe with a boy?”

  “No—I don’t know anything,” I said, feeling dazed. “I’m sorry. I hope you find her soon.”

  I stared at the phone for a second until my mother reached down and took it.

  “Laurel? It’s Claire again. I don’t even know what to say. I’m sure she’ll be fine. Have you called the police?” Mom shook her head. “Well, that’s shocking. But it has to be a good sign, right? They would know. I’m sure she’ll turn up. You know how teenagers are.…”

  Mom glanced up at Kasey and me. I got the feeling she might have said more about how teenagers are if we hadn’t been in the room. “Maybe,” she said into the phone. “That sounds highly likely.…All right, I’ll let you go. And if you need any phone numbers, call here. Kasey and Alexis may have them.”

  My sister sank onto the bed next to me.

  “We’ll be thinking about you. Keep us posted.” Mom hung up the phone, then looked down at us, hugging herself. “The police won’t investigate yet, because they think she ran away. But she didn’t take her wallet. It’s just like…”

  She didn’t have to finish her sentence. It was just like Kendra.

  “The police won’t do anything?” Kasey said. “Even after Kendra practically died?”