Alive

by Chandler Baker

  “Yeah.” His lips press together.

  I remember the moment at Pike Place and his unreadable expression. Not everything or everyone lasts. I feel like this is something I should know even if whatever-we-are is new. But when he doesn’t volunteer more, I satisfy myself with a curt nod. This isn’t the time to play detective. Dead people are strictly off limits, even for me.

  He shoulder-bumps me playfully. “And played basketball,” he adds, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

  I can’t help it, though. I’m intrigued.

  I grab my books and Levi takes them from me, cradling them as we walk together. Rain thunders against the windows and the musky smell of a storm percolates through the walls. Levi cuts across my path and leans against the door to the quad. Droplets explode on the glass and dribble down in zigzag lines. The picnic tables and red brick of the courtyard are soaking as though they’ve been set under one big faucet turned all the way left.

  He grins. “Shortcut?”

  I lift an eyebrow, craning around him for a view of the torrential downpour that has built to a crescendo from its trickle not fifteen minutes earlier. For an instant, I worry about my curls, about the time I spent this morning arranging them perfectly. Then suddenly I couldn’t care less, because Levi’s tugging at my hand and we’re making our way directly across the quadrangle, water flipping up on our pants.

  “You’re crazy,” I yell up at him, because he’s a few steps ahead. I realize that if it weren’t for him escorting me to my class, he probably wouldn’t have had to get wet at all.

  On the other side of the quad, once under the cover of the east building, Levi rumples his hair with his hand, sending droplets flying everywhere. I squint against them while trying to run fingers through my own tangled mane.

  We both laugh and out of the corner of my eye, I see Tess standing there staring at us, her hair freshly coifed and slicked back in her signature Burberry headband. She probably has the umbrella to match. Levi hands me my books and tells me he’ll see me at lunch; then, when I’m not expecting it, he leans down and plants a kiss on my lips for everyone to see.

  I die.

  I mean, almost.

  When our lips part, I can feel my face flush with embarrassment and pride, two things I never knew went together until this instant. There’s a brief fraction of a moment when I try to feel a pinch of guilt—over Henry—but I can’t. I’m too happy. I wander into class, soaked, and by lunchtime, we’re a couple. Everybody’s talking about it. That’s what Brynn tells me, anyhow, as we walk to lunch. And it’s as if my transformation is nearly complete. Nearly.

  “I’ve never seen a guy without any commitment issues,” Brynn remarks. “He’s like an endangered species or something.” The rain’s stopped but our hair’s still wet. In true Brynn fashion, she’d volunteered to ignore our previous argument in exchange for the details of my date with Levi. I considered this more than fair.

  “I know.” I hug my textbook to my chest. It’s throbbing again and I’m wondering at this point if I should call Dr. Belkin. “Something has to be wrong with him, right?”

  “Maybe he’s older than we are. He looks mature. Have you asked him?” We pass the portables and I skip my usual bathroom trip at the math building.

  “No, but he hasn’t said he was held back or anything. I’m thinking maybe he’s just more evolved?”

  “Evolved, huh?” Brynn twists the metal barb in her eyebrow. “How very Darwinian of you.”

  “He said he was at the cemetery this weekend, Brynn.” I’ve been waiting to confide in her about this particular tidbit.

  Brynn’s face screws up like she’s just mixed toothpaste with orange juice. “The cemetery? Who died?”

  “Don’t know that part yet.” I frown. “Maybe that’s why he’s in school here, though.”

  Brynn grabs my arm. “Oh! What if he, like, lost his girlfriend or something? How tragic would that be?”

  “Brynn!” My heart sinks. “I hadn’t thought of that. How the hell would I ever live up to a dead girlfriend?”

  Brynn opens the door to the cafeteria for me since my hands are full. “Don’t worry. It’s probably his mom.”

  I crack a smile and pray that I’m not risking eternal damnation for preferring a dead mother over a dead girlfriend. Our table comes into view and at it is a new addition. There, at the spot usually next to mine, Levi sits chatting with Lydia, who’s busy belly-laughing, apparently at something he said.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter either way.” My pace quickens as I hurry to close the distance between me and Levi. Is he flirting? I shake the thought from my head, writing it off at once as either pathetic or paranoid. Most likely both.

  “Not when you look like that it doesn’t,” Brynn finishes.

  I shoot a look at my best friend, who’s ogling my boyfriend. “Amen,” I say, because you can’t blame a girl for good taste.

  I slide in next to Levi, who pats my leg. When he’s not looking, Lydia gives me a thumbs-up, her eyes crinkled and glistening at the corners with tears of laughter. I can’t help it: I beam.

  “Hey, man,” Levi says, mouth full of pizza. I glance up to see Henry, holding his tray, frozen midstride.

  He blinks twice in rapid succession and then seems to reanimate, striding quickly the rest of the way. Brynn and I share a look.

  “Hey,” he responds, setting down his food.

  “Thanks again for those tickets.” Levi reaches across the table and holds out his hand, which Henry stares at a moment before shaking. “Concert was awesome. Really appreciate it. We had a great time.” Levi’s arm wraps around my shoulder and he pulls me into him. Like magic, the aching in my chest vanishes.

  Henry stabs his fork into a Tater Tot. “I heard.”

  “What’d you end up doing?” I ask tentatively. We hadn’t gotten to that in the car and I’m determined to make this whole thing normal.

  Henry pops the tot into his mouth and looks me square in the eyes. “Got drunk with Ty.”

  I shouldn’t care, but the statement jabs at me like a screwdriver. “Okay…” I roll my eyes. “Good for you.”

  He lifts his eyebrows and stabs his fork into another Tater Tot. Two points for my evolution theory, I guess. Levi’s chowing down on a soggy hamburger, oblivious.

  “Awkward,” Brynn sings, as she fiddles with a piercing at the top of her ear. The tension only increases. “Anyway…who’s going to Mitchell’s next week?” she asks, ignoring the ticking atomic bomb that’s set to go off at our table.

  “Me!” Lydia pipes up. “His parents haven’t gone out of town in ages.”

  “Henry…?” Brynn pokes his shoulder as if poking a bear.

  He pulls his hat down lower. “I’ll be there.”

  “Great! It’ll be like Stella’s official-official debut. And I guess Levi’s, too. Are you in?”

  “I assume we’re talking about a party?”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” says Henry.

  Stunned, I feel my mouth clamp shut. I’ve never seen Henry act this way. He’s the resident nice guy, good student, teachers love having him in class. He asks girls on proper dates and I’ve never once heard of him kissing and telling, and, let’s face it, I’m positive he’s had things to kiss and tell about.

  For his part, Levi lets the comment go. Instead, he pulls me closer with the arm that’s already draped around my shoulders. Henry’s eyes disappear under the shadow of his cap.

  Levi must know the choice I’ve made. I only hope it’s worth the cost.

  It’s both comforting and unnerving to learn that the most important person in your life may be someone you haven’t met yet. That alone can make you feel not nearly as balanced or grown-up as you’d previously thought. At seventeen, I’ve already had to learn this twice. The first time was when I received a heart transplant from a stranger. The second was when I met Levi.

  As a girl who loves rules and turning homework in on time, I’ve always reserved special contempt for those ol
d married couples who met and got married five days later, like that’s a reasonable life plan. Since middle school, I’ve had a planner filled with reminders of twice-daily swim practices and school somewhere in between. Then, once I reached high school, I included AP tests, SAT prep, and application deadlines that reached far into the future. There would have been no way I’d fit in a whirlwind romance. Until Levi.

  Ever since the day we met, we’ve stuck together like Bonnie and Clyde. I find an endless number of things to be fascinated by. Like how Levi once rented a van and followed Pearl Jam on tour all the way to the East Coast. Or how he worked at Pike Place one summer and ate fresh fish on the docks as if it were sushi. Or the time he hijacked the microphone and sang onstage at Blacksmith Lounge.

  The guys at Duwamish are into fishing and polo shirts and making varsity lacrosse, all things Levi couldn’t care less about, which is good, because neither do I anymore.

  In our first week of dating, we go to three concerts and I stay out as late as my parents will allow. Levi takes in music as if each note could be the last he hears. It’s the same way he looks at me. In fact, that’s how he does pretty much everything and this, I realize, is a feeling I understand.

  After the last show, we hang around in his car. He takes out a pack of cigarettes and asks if I’ve tried one. I haven’t, so he shows me how to hold the paper tube in the gummy part of my lips while I cup my hand around the flame to light it. The first time I take a drag, the smoke gets in my lungs and I wind up hunched over, coughing in the front seat. Levi laughs. My eyes sting. I catch a glimpse of them in the side-view mirror, pink and watery. The next time, Levi tells me to suck in my cheeks but not to let the smoke go past the back of my mouth.

  I do. A small rib of embers and ash sinks into the paper at the other end. I pull it a little deeper with the next inhale. It’s satisfying to hear the crinkle of the burning cigarette. I blow out a puff of gray and we talk about heavy things like guilt and dying and what we’d want people to say at our funerals. He’s the only one who’s ever asked, even though it’s something I’ve thought about a lot.

  When we have to separate that night, I get the sense that I’m wrenching something loose, liking pulling an arm out of its socket, and as soon as I do, the pain floods back into what’s left.

  It’s four o’clock on a Tuesday. Reluctantly, I agree to meet Brynn on the stadium bleachers, where she’s basking in the remnants of today’s unexpected sun. Nightfall has been creeping up earlier and earlier, but there’s still a spot in each day where, if the clouds have burned away and the temperature holds steady, you can laze in the sun without a jacket. In the fall, the light takes on a more orange-gold tinge, like the yellow foil on the inside of a candy-bar wrapper. Soon, the foggy winter will take even this away.

  Brynn skipped cross-country practice, claiming she had one of her chronic sore throats. Translation: She wants to work on her tan lines. I don’t get this. When I was a swimmer, I wouldn’t miss practice if you paid me.

  “Um, hi, who are you and what did you do with my friend?” Brynn props herself up on her elbows. Streaks of sunscreen cover her nose and cheeks.

  I run my fingers through my hair, still surprised at how quickly they reach the end. I feel for my long locks as for the ghost of a missing appendage.

  “What do you think?” I get a small charge from her reaction. In all our years of friendship, this is the first time I’ve shocked her rather than the other way around.

  Yesterday, my dad got off work early. A few weeks ago I would have been thrilled, the way a little girl is when her father brings home a present from an out-of-town trip. But this time my parents insisted I stay home for family dinner. For the first time in several days, I watched in horror as the clock turned slowly to 5:08, at which point my brain split open like a coconut and my chest turned into a black box of torture. Levi was the only one who could comfort me, who could keep the pain at bay.

  When my mind cleared, I’d taken a pair of scissors from my desk drawer. I’d worked from one shoulder to the other, hacking it off in one blunt line at first and then retracing my steps to angle the scissors. The blades made the satisfying sound of sharpened metal as I sliced at random to turn the ends jagged. My hair now hung from a center parting and swung even with my chin. By the end, I looked like one of the punk rock chicks Levi and I watched onstage. The moment he saw me he touched the ends delicately, sending my heart into wild thumping as he wrapped the frayed ends around his fingers and pulled me closer.

  Brynn gives me a long look. “I think an alien invaded your body.” The reference reminds me of Henry. I push the thought aside. A small metal stud now adorns the left side of my nose.

  “Well, that’s supportive.” I recline on the bleacher.

  She sighs. “Well, a hot alien.” I roll my eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m supportive, I swear.” She makes a motion of zipping her lips. I cock my head and wait, knowing Brynn can’t possibly keep quiet about anything. A moment passes before she makes a dramatic gesture of unzipping her lips. “I’m sorry it’s just I’m not used to—what I mean is, it just doesn’t look like you.”

  “Well, it is me, okay?”

  Brynn’s polo is pulled up to her bra and she’s unzipped the top of her khakis and shimmied the waistline to meet her underwear. From this angle, I can just make out the gothic angel wings that are tattooed on the side of her hip.

  Even with my new haircut and piercing, I’m not quite as ballsy, but Brynn wouldn’t be either if she had a scar the length of a yardstick running up her abdomen. I wear my clothes in the way they were designed, taking in the UV rays like a lizard on a rock.

  Brynn turns on her side and peers down at me from one bleacher up. “Yeah, okay, I get it,” she says.

  I stare up at the sky and watch clouds drift by in slow motion. With nothing to obstruct my view, the space above me stretches out into oblivion. I laze back against the warm metal, comforted by the world’s vastness and the feeling of being just another living human being within it.

  The day of my diagnosis, I had passed out at a swim meet. I was soaking wet. My hair was matted with chlorine and all I could think about was how I needed to get back in time for my relay. I was swimming the first leg, the youngest in the lineup. It was a big deal. I’d been poised on the diving block just before the starting beep, when all of a sudden my vision went blurry. I couldn’t tell which way was up or down and the next thing I knew I’d fallen forward into the swimming pool. I remember staring up at the mottled surface like I was in a dream. I couldn’t move.

  Once I’d been fished from the bottom of the pool, I sat in a doctor’s office with my arms folded and legs crossed, huffing about how long it was taking and could we puh-lease get out of there already. It was nothing. I was fine. This was all a colossal waste of time.

  That was the first time I met Dr. Belkin, sitting in the middle chair between my mom and dad in a square office that ought to have belonged to an accountant, not an MD.

  That was the moment when he told me I’d swum my last lap. No more swimming—not now, not ever. I remember he started with that. As if he could ease me in before delivering the kicker. (Oh yeah and you might die, too.) It didn’t help. Instead it was like two tidal waves crashing over me, first the tsunami, then the second groundswell to finish the job. I left the office numb.

  Over the next few months, things got worse. First, I didn’t make The List. Then I did. They issued my Life-pager, only it never beeped. I watched it, stared at it through the night, but still no match. The numbness encased me, becoming a permanent condition. I wouldn’t survive. I would die at sixteen years old. There would be an obituary with nothing to say except how my smile lit up the room or some bullshit like that. Honestly, I’d rather not have one at all.

  But then came the spark of curiosity. What if I was right? What if the pager didn’t ever beep? What if I was never matched with a donor? Then what?

  What happens…when you die?

  The t
hought mesmerized as much as it terrified me. I started doing research. Near-death experiences—what were they and who had them?

  I read stories of tunnel experiences, of the sensation of traveling through a passageway or up a staircase. Others felt a sudden immersion in a powerful light or even an ability to communicate with the light. As for me, I could never imagine a scenario in which I would find myself conversing with a beam of light, but, hey, what did I know?

  In real time, a person experiences near-death in a span of thirty seconds to three minutes. A whole life review can take place in a time shorter than a commercial break. I wondered if I’d see angels or heaven or the members of a boy band singing me into the sky. The one thing I knew was that mine wouldn’t be near-death. It’d be the real deal.

  “Are you dead, Cross?” I spring upright when I feel a pinch on my leg. I’m blinking back the sunlight and trying to shade my face. I rub the spot where my skin is stinging.

  “What the hell, Brynn!” I pinch her back.

  “Guess not.” She shrugs and frowns, closing her eyes again.

  I try to smooth my hair. “You couldn’t have just asked?”

  “Well, I wanted to be sure.” She flashes a grin without opening her eyes. “Plus, I’m bored. And I think you might be mad at me.”

  “What time is it?” I ask, digging my phone out of my pocket.

  “What? You got a hot date?” This time she crunches her shoulders off the bleacher. But I don’t have a date today. Levi said he was busy this afternoon but didn’t give a reason. He doesn’t know he’s the only one who saves me. The mere thought of another afternoon without him leaves me nervy. And why wouldn’t he tell me what he’s doing? My mind has done several tailspins imagining the possibility of other girls. As though I weren’t crazy enough. “God, I hate you,” she says, misreading my silence. “You know that? Henry and Levi? I mean, Christ, Stel, leave some for the rest of us. Preferably Levi.”