“Just stop with all the ‘we understand this is hard, adjustment, therapy, more adjustment, more therapy’ bullshit. You have no idea what this is like for me. You have no idea what it’s like to be ripped away from your family when it wasn’t your time. You have no idea what it’s like to sit in class and watch the person you love more than anything in the world in pain.”
“Riley, I do understand,” she says, still calm.
Unlike me.
“This happened to me too. Just because it wasn’t in this decade doesn’t make it any less painful. I didn’t think it was my time to go either. I had a family who I loved dearly, and it did take a while to adjust, but it all worked out for the best in the end. I got to come and work here and help others through the exact same thing that had hurt me so much.”
“You have no idea,” I say again. “Wade is hurt. He has a broken leg and a broken arm and God only knows what else. He needs me. It’s not the same as seeing your family happily enjoying their life without you. It’s not about that. The person I love needs me.”
“Broken bones will heal,” she says. “Wade will no doubt have grief counselling and he will grow to accept what has happened the same way you will.”
“No, I won’t,” I say. “I’ll never accept this. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, and I want to go home, so would you please let me out?”
“I can’t ‘let you out’, Riley,” she says. “Even if it were possible to send you ‘back to your world’ as you call it, don’t you realise that you are dead to all the people in your world? They have buried you. There was a funeral. An obituary in the paper. The people you love have no idea about this dimension. They have no idea that while your body may be dead, your spirit can exist here. Everyone you know thinks you are dead, which you are. The point is that you can’t just pop back up and shout ‘surprise!’ Your parents buried you last week. Your boyfriend was at the funeral. They identified your lifeless body. It is simply impossible for you to return to your home. This is your home now.”
I stop for a moment to take all that in.
I guess I’d never thought of it like that before. Being here, I still feel totally alive. I hadn’t really thought about what had happened at home. I kind of thought I’d just disappeared and turned up here. I’ve thought about the funeral, but not about the body. I guess there must have been a body. Oh God. How am I supposed to go home if my body is six feet under?
“Wait,” I say, thinking. “The funeral was last week? But I’ve only been here a couple of days.”
“Time passes differently here, Riley,” she says. “What seems like a day to you can be a lot longer on Earth.”
I nod like I understand but I don’t.
How had I never thought of this before? A funeral? My funeral. My body. Dead. Dead and gone as far as everyone is concerned.
Except Wade.
Wade knows I’m here. I’m sure he does. He will come for me. He just can’t really do much with a broken leg and arm, so he’s probably biding his time and doing a load of research while he heals up and then he will come.
Although he didn’t look like he was doing much research when I saw him in Visualisation class. He actually looked like he was watching TV.
But who am I to say that he hadn’t been on the Internet all morning and had just stopped for a minute?
My parents think I’m dead.
God, they must have seen my dead body.
How the heck am I going to explain that one when I get back home?
I guess I’ll just tell them the truth and they’ll be so happy I’m back they won’t care about the details.
I wonder how much money my dad wasted on the funeral?
“Riley?” Mrs Carbonell is speaking to me.
I look up at her.
“I can’t just send you home,” she says. “You must understand that.”
I want to tell her that it doesn’t matter either way because I’m getting out somehow, but that would totally blow my plan so I just shrug and don’t answer her.
“Good,” she says. “I’ll set up that appointment with the school counsellor.”
I don’t really know what else to say. Eliza Carbonell has a steely look on her face, and I know that I could beg for the next ten years and she still wouldn’t budge. It sucks. Although I can’t really fault her logic. She’s right about suddenly popping out of the coffin. I’d probably give both my parents a heart attack and then they’d end up dead and that would be no good to anyone.
But if she isn’t going to help me, then I’ll just have to find my own way out.
I stand up and thank her for her time.
It’s almost lunchtime anyway. Maybe I can go and eat myself into a coma until I get out of this godforsaken place.
CHAPTER 15
I’m in the lunch queue, trying to decide what to get Narcissa and the microwave to make for me today, when Anthony jumps in next to me.
“Hi.” He smiles. “Are you okay? You ran out of class pretty quick.”
I nod.
To be honest, I’m still feeling precariously close to bawling my eyes out, but Anthony doesn’t need to know that.
There are a bunch of people waving to him again.
“You know you don’t have to eat with me,” I tell him.
“I like eating with you,” he says. “Besides, the horned woman always gives you extra stuff that I can steal.”
“Her name is Narcissa,” I say.
I almost tell him about the microwave but then remember that I wasn’t even supposed to tell anyone she had a name.
Oops.
We reach the front of the line. Narcissa smiles at me and winks again. It makes me blush. I don’t like Anthony in that way.
I suppose he’s kind of okay.
And no, Sophie, I did not just say that.
But he’s certainly no Wade.
“So, you wanna talk about class this morning?” Anthony asks when we sit down.
I shrug.
“What did you see?”
“Wade,” I admit. I debate whether to tell Anthony at all. He probably doesn’t want to hear about Wade.
“Oh, right. I should have known. How is Prince Charming doing these days?”
“Not very good, you’ll be pleased to know.”
“Not dead yet, I gather?”
“Obviously not,” I snap.
The last thing I need is bloody Anthony making me feel guilty for still loving Wade.
“Okay, okay.” He holds his hands up. “Sorry. How is he?”
“Like you care.”
“I do,” he says. “I genuinely want to know how the guy who killed us both is doing.”
“Really not good,” I admit.
I want someone to talk to. Even if that someone is Anthony. Caydi is nice enough, but I can’t really talk to her. She has her own friends and has made it very obvious that I don’t fit in with them. Plus she didn’t know Wade and she doesn’t understand how I can still be so hung up on a living boy when there’s so much fun to have here.
“Why not good?” Anthony asks.
“He was hurt in the crash.”
“That’s good,” Anthony says.
He stops when I send him my best death glare.
“Sorry,” he says. “But considering that we both got killed, it would be pretty unfair if he had walked away without a scratch. Even you have to admit that.”
“It’s unfair anyway,” I snap.
This whole thing is unfair. Anthony is right. Wade got off with a few injuries, while we’re both dead. This whole thing is Wade’s fault. Yes, the crash was an accident. But it could have been prevented. If Wade hadn’t been tormenting Anthony, none of this would have happened.
It is his fault.
“So what happened to him?” Anthony asks, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Broken leg, broken arm, quite a few nasty looking cuts and bruises…”
“Two broken bones and a few cuts?” Anthony says in disbelief
. “And you feel sorry for him?”
“Broken bones hurt,” I say. “At least we’re not in pain. Not physical pain, anyway.”
“You don’t think that being taken away from our families and stuck in some school for the dead is painful?”
“Of course I do. But Wade didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“So we’re both dead and he walked away with two broken bones and you feel sorry for him.”
“I doubt he did much walking with that broken leg,” I snap at him.
Anthony sighs and throws his hands up in the air.
For a moment I think he is going to get up and walk away—and I wouldn’t blame him if he did—but he doesn’t.
“Forgive me for saying this, Riley,” he says instead. “But Wade is a jerk. He always has been and always will be a jerk. I know you love him and everything, but you could do so much better than him.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I have much choice now, is it?”
“And whose fault is that?” Anthony says. I can tell he’s getting frustrated now, and I can’t deny that he has a point.
“I’m sorry,” I say eventually. “I know what Wade did to you was wrong and you have every right to hate him, but there’s another side to him that you never got to see, and that’s why I loved him.”
We’re quiet for a moment.
“You just said loved,” Anthony says. “With a d on the end. As in, past tense.”
“Slip of the tongue,” I mutter.
And it was. I swear it was.
Wade could be a sadistic git, sure. But he could also be kind and sweet and loving when we were alone.
And we all tormented Anthony. It wasn’t just Wade.
“You really could do so much better, Riley.”
“What, like you?” I growl.
“No,” he says. “I didn’t mean… I mean, I don’t… It wasn’t meant to—”
“Just forget it,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “It’s just that I know Wade. I know a hundred guys like Wade. You weren’t anything special to him. He’s probably already trying to get into some other girl’s pants and you’ve only been gone a little while.”
“That’s not fair,” I protest. “And it’s not true. Wade’s not that kind of guy. We were committed.”
Anthony shrugs.
He’s hiding something. I can tell.
“What?” I demand. “You want to say something, just say it. It’s not like you could make me feel any worse.”
He’s silent for a moment, like he’s thinking about something.
Then the buzzer rings for afternoon class.
“Argh,” I say out loud.
“Sorry,” Anthony says.
“What for?” I demand again as we stand up.
“Nothing. Just think about moving on, Ri. That’s all.”
God, are all boys this frustrating or is it just the ones I’m stuck with?
CHAPTER 16
Group therapy is our lesson that afternoon, and it’s a weird one. I don’t know what I was expecting when I walked into the building that used to be our gym, but it probably wasn’t this.
There are five people sitting on red plastic chairs in a circle. Standing in the centre of the circle is an older man.
“Ah, new arrivals,” he says. “Make room, folks. You two grab a chair from the back and come join us.”
We do as he says and squash into the circle next to each other.
“Don’t worry,” he says to us kindly. “We’re all new here. Except me, obviously. You’d be a bit worried if I was new too, huh?” He laughs like this is the funniest joke he’s ever made.
No one else laughs.
“Well, well,” he says, still spluttering to get himself under control. “My name is Mr Perkins, but you can call me Oscar. As you’ve probably guessed, I am the school counsellor and am here to help you adjust at this difficult time. We all understand what everyone else is going through. Back in the living world, your friends and family will no doubt be receiving grief counselling, so we see no reason why you should not be entitled—and more than entitled, in fact, required—to have the same. No reason to think that you are not just as bereaved as those you’ve left behind.”
I see one girl across the circle roll her eyes.
I look around me while Mr Oscar Perkins twitters on.
Apart from Anthony and me, there are two other girls and three boys. They’re all about our age, maybe a couple of years younger.
Mr Perkins is still talking. “Let’s all go around the circle an introduce ourselves. Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to all stand up and say ‘My name is Oscar and I have a problem’. This is just a bit of getting to know each other. We all know how difficult it can be to make friends in a new place, especially a place like this that can be so far from what you’re used to. Just tell us a little bit about yourself. Share how you died, if you like. At least it’s one thing we all have in common. Here, I’ll start.”
He stands up and says, “Hello, my name is Mr Oscar Perkins. I’ve been working her for thirty years. I died before any of you were even born. I have a bad relationship with my pancreas.”
He points to the boy sitting next to the girl who rolled her eyes earlier. “See? Easy. Let’s start with you, William.”
“It’s Will, actually,” William says, standing up. “I’m sixteen and I died about three weeks ago. I was killed by an egg beater. Switched off.” He sits down again.
I stare at him. How on earth do you kill someone with an egg beater?
Apparently I’m not the only one thinking that because the girl who rolled her eyes says, “How the fuck do you die from an egg beater?” in a rather incredulous tone.
“That’s enough, Jody,” Mr Perkins says. “We’ll have none of that language in here, thank you. And it’s not polite to question other people’s deaths.”
“Yeah, well, death by egg beater is pretty fucking stupid,” Jody mutters.
“Would you like to go next please, Jody?” Mr Perkins asks.
“Fine,” she grouches, standing up. “I’m Jody, I’m dead. Don’t piss me off. I’m running out of places to hide the bodies.” She thumps back down in her seat. “Happy now?”
Note to self: Avoid Jody at all costs.
The boy sitting next to her stands up. “Hi.” He waves happily at everyone. “I’m Tom. Also sixteen, and I choked to death.”
“On what?” William asks.
“Four pounds and twenty pence,” Tom says.
It’s my turn next. I stand up and look around the circle. “I’m Riley. I was in a car accident.”
“How come you’re so colourful?” Jody asks.
“I’m not colourful,” I snap. “I just have normal hair.”
“And nice fleshy skin,” Tom interjects. “You look like you’d taste delicious.”
Ew.
Note to self: Avoid Tom at all costs.
“God, what is it with you and eating shit?” Jody looks at Tom disgustedly.
I sit down again and Anthony stands up. “Hi everyone, I’m Anthony. I’m sixteen, and I was also in a car accident. I like maths, science, and musical theatre.”
Jody rolls her eyes again.
I suddenly feel like going over and punching her. How dare she roll her eyes at what Anthony likes?
Er, not that I have ever done that or anything.
I didn’t know Anthony likes musical theatre. I like musical theatre too.
Wade hates it.
“Ah, so you two are the pair that came together?” Mr Perkins interrupts my train of thought.
I nod.
“How very unusual,” he says.
“Everything about this place is pretty unusual,” I say, but I don’t mean it in a nasty way for once.
The other girl is next to stand up. “I’m Shanna. I was supposed to be taking my GCSEs next year, but I was killed by the fluffy slippers of doom.”
With that she sits back down.
Jeez,
these people are weird. Fluffy slippers of doom? Really?
“And that just leaves you, Jason.” Mr Perkins points to the other boy.
“Isn’t this exciting,” the other boy says as he stands. “Yay, we’re all dead! Shall we sing a song?” He starts clapping his hands like we’re all going to join him.
We all stare at him like he has three heads.
“What? I’m just trying to lighten the moment,” he says before sitting down with a defeated huff.
They think I need therapy?
Mr Perkins is chortling away. “Now this is the sort of thing we need in group therapy sessions. Jolly good idea, Jason.”
It takes him a full minute to stop giggling.
“Now then,” he says. “I’m sure you’ve all heard the spiel from multiple teachers about how much we understand what you’re going through, et cetera, am I right?”
Everyone mumbles in agreement.
“Well, the truth is, we do. We are all dead. We do know what it’s like to suddenly and unceremoniously leave your family and friends behind. We do know how hard it is to adjust. We know that you’ve gone from a school where you were happy and comfortable to a school that you don’t know at all, full of people you don’t know, and many things you probably never believed in. Am I right?”
Again, everyone mumbles in agreement.
“Wonderful. Let’s start with what you’re finding hardest about being here. Jody, you go first.”
Jody shrugs. “I dunno. You people are bloody stupid. I ain’t met one person I like yet.”
I think about that. She’d probably like Gloria, the bitchy girl who tripped me up in the canteen.
“There are plenty of social events you can attend,” Mr Perkins says. “Have a chat with your resident advisor to get a schedule. If there’s something you like that isn’t on the schedule, you can start up an after-school club yourself and see if other people turn up. That might be a good way to meet some like-minded souls.”
Yeah, I wonder what that would be. Stabbing class or something.
“How about you, Riley?” Mr Perkins asks.
“Er… I miss my boyfriend,” I say eventually. “And my best friend. And my parents. And I’m not used to being treated like an outsider because I’m not grey like everyone else is here.”
Afterlife Academy Page 10