On the Fringe

by Courtney King Walker

  What?

  “What?” Addie wailed. “No!” she pleaded, pounding her fists into her lap. “No, NO!” she screamed, hurling with precision the same words I was thinking, but couldn’t find a way to release them.

  Daniel.

  How could he be gone?

  A numbing blackness invaded my vision. Even with my eyes squeezed shut, everything inside me felt broken into pieces. I tried holding my breath to stop myself from crying, but it didn’t work.Nothing worked. Never again would I see or hear or touch Daniel. Ever. It hurt like a knife carving into me, ripping out my insides, twisting and cutting. I wanted to scream out loud but could only seem to scream in my head.

  Not knowing what else to do, I reached for Addie and squeezed her hand as she lay in my lap, sobbing all the way to her house. I could barely watch as Addie’s grandfather gathered her into his arms and closed the door behind them.

  If only they had come with us to the movie, I kept repeating in my mind. But no, Matthew and Daniel had gone to the party instead. Everyone was going to be there, I had whined. Now all the what-ifs were starting to eat at me, and the more I thought about it, the faster I seemed to fall.

  Mom was still talking and driving, but I didn’t hear most of what she was saying… something about the party and a fight…and a gun. Why was there a gun? We lived in Hidden Lake. It was a safe place. Now all I knew was that Matthew was really hurt. But he would eventually get better. Daniel wouldn’t.

  My brother watched his best friend die.

  At some point I ended up in Matthew’s hospital room, though I couldn’t remember how. His head was wrapped up like a mummy with a pair of purplish, puffy eyelids peeking out through the bandages. There was swelling, pressure, and a concussion; but my brain was drowning in a confusion of medical terms that meant nothing to me. Peering out of the rain-spotted window, I listened to the voices outside Matthew’s stuffy room while Dad stood next to Mom. She was slumped over in a chair next to Matthew, humming a consoling, but unfamiliar tune. The silver ring Daniel had given me kept me company as I twisted it around my finger over and over again.

  Matthew stirred then went still again. Around him, loud machines beeped and blinked, rhythmically dripping liquid through the IV tube into his hand. I had no idea how he would be able to wake to this nightmare.

  How would I?

  Daniel

  I didn’t die instantly, though it probably looked that way. I heard myself screaming, but now wonder if the sound ever left my throat. Matthew was strangely quiet, the outrage of it all probably shocking him into silence. I remember trying to look around, being unable to tell the ground from the walls or my hand from the background. Everything was melted together into a muddy blur, faded color dripping all over the place like a messed-up painting.

  The pain. Was there even a word or a way to describe it?

  It felt like a vise compressing my head. I could no longer think or move, unable to see or hear anything. Somehow I managed to scream out until everything around me shut down to black. I searched through the dark in my mind, trying to find a way out. Just when I thought I found it, the pain stopped.

  At last.

  Finally I was free from pain and confusion. In fact, I was numb−then the realization of what that meant hit: the bullet in my brain had killed me.

  I turned to look at Matthew holding a bleeding head in his lap, and wanted to look away. I didn’t want to see the bright red soaking into my best friend’s shirt, or listen to his familiar voice begging for me to wake up.

  “Matt—” I yelled, trying to touch his shoulder. But my hand passed right through him.

  The screaming erupted a few seconds later. Instinctively, I put my hands to my ears to block out the noise, but the voices only seemed to get louder. I turned to the left, then to the right, and then leapt over the couch, ran down the hall, and was out the door in half a second.

  I knew I was dead and that the body back there was mine. That part was easy. But I wanted to know why I was still here, wherever this was? Where was my life after death?

  Where was heaven?

  Trying to avoid the parked cars scattered haphazardly along the curb, I ran down the driveway into the dark street, and realized my legs were moving along clumsily like I was still alive. I jerked to a stop in front of the next empty car, as if someone had hit pause. Everything instantly stalled as I waited there gazing into the dark windows, wondering….

  Without moving my feet, I tried willing myself to go forward.

  It’s all in my head, I kept telling myself when nothing happened, even after some intense concentration. Still, I kept at it, trying to make my mind conquer my legs—again, and again, almost giving up, until the slight pull of something gently nudged me forward.

  I could feel it…like a gasp of air being sucked out of me, followed by a kind of pressure squeezing my body (or spirit, or soul—whatever I was now). Next thing I knew, I was floating in the middle of a grey pickup truck, my neck and head sticking out above the roof, my torso and legs right near the stick shift.

  I told myself to move again, this time away from the truck. It was jerky at first, and then I was traveling smoothly, floating…drifting away from the house…down the road…through a thick cement wall, across a muddy field as the distant sound of sirens and haunting echoes of human voices screaming bloody murder followed my retreat, permeating my mind.

  Claire

  Even though Addie was my best friend, it was torture being around her because of how much she reminded me of Daniel. At first, just looking at her was like another knife digging deeper into my heart. But the day of the funeral changed all that. I had to step it up no matter how much it hurt because Addie was on the verge of losing it any second. Not that I was doing any better, but at least I still had a brother.

  It was a calm, sunny morning at the cemetery, and everyone sat quietly in orderly rows of metal chairs facing a mahogany casket topped with a hundred and one colorful flowers. The air smelled clean and new, like the beginning of a perfect summer day, which it was not. We were all trying to listen to words that were supposed to comfort us, all squinting in the morning sun that could care less we were wearing black. I thought it was supposed to rain at funerals, anyway. That was how it seemed to work in the movies.

  Addie suddenly reached for my hand and gripped it tightly. I had known her long enough to tell it was not a regular squeeze. Not this time.

  Her dad was standing at a makeshift pulpit in front of the crowd. It was his turn to speak. He looked like he was trying to be brave. We were all trying to be brave, but let’s face it—courage does not count if you feel like you’re dying inside. Right then, not crying would have been pointless…and impossible.

  “…was such a good son,” he was saying. “Daniel would always drop everything to help someone out…always put everyone else first…to his own detriment–”

  Matthew suddenly jumped up as a strangled sob tore from his throat. His chair fell forward, its folding legs trying to latch onto his feet. But he took off down the grassy hill, into the road, through a line of cars.

  Addie really lost it then. Another gasp escaped her mouth, and she stood, too, like she wanted to follow Matthew. But I wouldn’t let her. I was afraid she wouldn’t come back. Instead, I held onto her sweaty palm like my life depended on it, and pulled her back to me.

  “Addie,” I whispered in her ear, pulling her head close to mine. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was shaking.

  Her dad had already stopped mid-sentence at Matthew’s departure—confused, conflicted, not sure what to do or say while her mom leaned forward in her chair, her body bent in half, her back and shoulders shaking up and down as nearby hands rested on them, attempting to soothe her. More crying erupted left and right, in front and in back of me, surrounding me.

  It was a disaster.

  Addie’s eyes popped open and looked around when she realized everyone was watching her. I nudged her head back down to mine and told her to close h
er eyes. Her hand still squeezed mine. My fingers felt numb as I wrapped my arm around her, whispering into her ear everything I was sure she needed to hear, even though it felt like a lie. I almost felt guilty about how easily those words came out of my mouth.

  “Addie, it’s going to be all right. Some day it will. I promise, like we used to make pinky promises when we were ten. Remember that? It’s okay Ads…”

  She sobbed. Her dad sank down on the ground. No one could do or say anything. I rubbed her back, smoothed her hair, told her lies. “He’s not gone forever, Addie. We’ll see him again, we will,” I said, trying to convince us both. Of course that was when my voice caught, her dad’s words repeating themselves in my mind over and over again, “He was such a good son…would drop everything to help someone out…always put everyone else first…”

  Every word was true, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I had lost by losing him. Not just Daniel, but all that made him Daniel. All that made Matthew and Addie love him and whatever it was inside him that made his eyes light up every morning. I felt like I’d just discovered a massive iceberg beneath the tip of Daniel Holland, yet, I hadn’t even come close to knowing who he was. Now I would never have the chance.

  When I felt the sob making its way out, I tried holding it in, but every bit of strength I’d counted on had evaporated. Addie somehow found the frame of mind to hug me. I hugged her back, not caring about all the people who were staring at us. By then, we were just trying to hold each other up. And failing miserably.

  Daniel

  After wandering around for days, or maybe it was weeks, trying to figure out why I was still here, I finally found my way back to Hidden Lake and stretched out inside a canoe. Drifting around beneath the black sky, counting each star over and over again, I wondered about the whys that wouldn’t leave me alone.

  I should’ve been somewhere else by now—in some quiet, perfect place, relaxed and forgetting all my problems. I certainly hadn’t done anything in my life that would banish me to that other place. I was a standup kid, and rightfully had high expectations.

  It seemed like I had insomnia, like hordes of ants were tunneling through my head, making it impossible for my mind to be still. Where was the dark tunnel or bright light? That’s what they teach you to expect when you die, right? Instead, I found myself back at Hidden Lake, like it was my own personal waiting room.

  Problem was, I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to get away from here and move on to someplace else. Especially since I couldn’t shake the notion I had left something behind and couldn’t go any further without it.

  Whatever it was.

  Cue the ants.

  At around star number 2,002, I began to have an idea of what it was, despite trying to shake the feeling it had something to do with Claire.

  What was that about?

  No matter what I did, her image, voice and scent seemed to attach themselves to me. She crept up around me, swirling and floating her way into every inch of me until nothing remained untouched. I even attempted fighting thoughts of her with logic. I mean, it wasn’t like I was in love with the girl. Can someone really be in love at seventeen anyway?

  I vowed to stay put in the canoe until all thoughts of Claire vanished, hoping by then to have found the dark tunnel and bright light, or at least some place with an ‘up’ button. My plan failed almost immediately, though, because the more I tried pushing the vision of her away, the more I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was a vicious cycle.

  Maybe Claire had a message for me. Something to give me closure so I could move on. Time to find out. I got my sorry butt out of the canoe, and went to look for her. But when I saw the date on a newspaper and realized I’d been dead for two weeks, I wanted to cry. Seriously. I can admit that now, I’m man enough. Two weeks had felt like only hours to me. Next week was graduation! It was terrifying to realize life goes on without you.

  As I drifted unnoticed through the crowded halls of my school, everything looked just like I remembered. Rows of dented, metal lockers faced each other, lining the narrow hallways as all the kids, some my friends and some not, pushed through each other to make it to their next class. They all passed through me while I stood in the center of the commotion, staring out at everyone, trying not to care.

  It was strange how all the noise seemed so much more distracting now that I wasn’t part of it—the clanging locker doors, the shuffling of feet, the ringing bells, the buzz of conversations all trying to be heard; it was jarring. I had to remind myself that none of it mattered anymore because as soon as I found Claire, I was never coming back here. Ever.

  The first bell rang and all the kids filed into class. I looked for Claire by poking my head through the classroom walls. At first it felt weird, a little bit like losing your breath when someone socks you in the gut…but after twenty or so times, I finally got used to it.

  When the tardy bell stopped ringing and the last door swung shut, I exited B-Hall and floated across the empty quad toward the gym. The giant octagon was surrounded by a bunch of old benches and sorry-looking planters holding a couple of half-dead bushes. I wasn’t used to seeing the place look so empty. I should’ve been stuck behind Matthew in first period economics, not floating around out here like a cloud taking note of all the bad landscaping.

  About halfway across the quad, I got the chills—a strange phenomenon when you’re dead. I zoomed back and forth, trying to shake the sensation off, but that didn’t work. Frustrated, I stopped near a tree and hovered above a bench, wondering what the deal was. That’s when I saw her—a crazy-looking lady with unruly hair, leaning against a vending machine by the cafeteria. I could tell she was dead because she was actually looking at me. Plus, she happened to be wearing a ratty pink robe and fuzzy slippers. High school girls aren’t really known for letting something like that slide.

  Still, it wasn’t her outfit or even the crazy hair that had me staring, but my own curiosity of meeting another ghost for the first time. Obviously this being stuck thing didn’t happen to everyone who died, or else there’d be a lot more of us bumping into each other. So what was her deal? Why was she here?

  I gave her a nod, hoping for some sort of response, but she just looked away, disinterested. Fine. I ignored her and kept looking for Claire as the chills faded along with any interest in my fellow ghost.

  After two more classrooms without any luck, I finally found Claire in room E-9 sitting at her desk and looking off in the other direction. But she didn’t look like the Claire I remembered. Something was definitely wrong. She was gazing out through the towering wall of windows reflecting the morning sun, past the bald, blabbering teacher and the ticking clock, beyond the present and off to some other place. She seemed stuck…just like me.

  Her face said it all.

  That was when I understood there was no message for me. At least, not one with some magical spell capable of sending me off to heaven. No, Claire was broken. Lost. Alone. I’d never seen her eyes look so tired. I could feel her emotions like heat from the sun as they bounced across the room toward me and soaked into my soul.

  Outside the classroom, I sunk down beneath the pane of windows next to a yellow rosebush and a busy anthill, wishing to wring out this swelling sadness inside me that had suddenly appeared without warning. But nothing could be purged without a body—no crying, no exertion, no pills to take away the pain or calm me down. Nothing. Instead, something ballooned inside me until I felt like I might explode. All I could do was sit there and drown in it, wondering why Claire affected me so much, wondering if she always would.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE FOG

  Claire

  Matthew, Addie and I tried acting normal around each other, but everything felt strange and different and wrong. How could we have expected anything else? It was like I lost everyone that day, not just Daniel.

  Addie floated away in her own bubble of counterfeit composure, fooling everyone else but me, refusing to let anyone see her in pain.
She seemed unreachable, at least for anything more than the current configuration of the school’s popularity chain. It bothered me to watch her act so alive and unaffected knowing it was just that: an act. I felt much better shut up inside my self-made pity cocoon instead of faking happiness in front of the world. Of course, Mom and Dad were not happy with the way I chose to cope. They kept comparing me to Addie, asking me why I couldn’t turn to them or to my friends for support instead of keeping everything inside. I told them it was none of their business, and to get lost (okay, that part I just said in my head when I was really mad at them).

  Pretty soon, Matthew was hanging around us less and less, until he vanished altogether into a new group of friends who had never even known Daniel—friends who had no idea that the old Matthew had been swallowed up by a new, guarded one, by someone unrecognizable to the rest of us. We all tiptoed around him for months, not sure what to say or do…how could any of us understand what he was going through?

  I had a pretty good idea, because even months after that awful night, I still felt paralyzed. Although I tried not to dwell on Daniel, it was impossible to push him out of my mind. Ever since the funeral, I kept thinking about the Daniel I thought I knew but obviously didn’t. Sure, he was cute—especially with his perfect smile and the way he made everyone else happy just by walking into the room. But I was starting to see that the ache inside me persisted mostly because I was just learning who Daniel really was beneath all that charm.

  Which was worse—regret or grief? Because I could feel both carving themselves into my heart, and the pain only seemed to get worse as the months dragged on.

  Toward the middle of August, Mom and Dad organized one last family outing together before the start of the new school year. Matthew was going off to college in a few weeks, so I guessed it was their way of prolonging his childhood. We both went along with the plan, not really caring where we were going as long as they quit bugging us about life and everything in it.