I think that I should be upset, but I don’t really feel anything.
Clearly Wade is not connected to me anymore, either. He’s connected to Sophie now. Which is fine. Honestly.
I hope they’re very happy together.
Personally, I have a date with Anthony to go on.
Except Anthony isn’t here.
I’m standing outside the main hall, freezing. I’m the only one here. Everyone else’s dates have come along and escorted them inside.
But not mine.
Maybe this is it. He’s paying me back for the way I’ve treated him. Maybe he’s not coming at all. Maybe this is his idea of revenge.
I stand there and stress myself into a bleeding ulcer for ten more minutes, debating whether to just go back to the dorm room or go inside and enjoy the party without him, and then I spot Anthony. He is running towards me, looking all flushed and panting.
Bless him, he must have been worried about being late. He wasn’t trying to stand me up after all.
“Riley,” he pants, coming to a stop next to me. “I found it.”
“Found what?” I ask.
“It, Riley,” He waits for realisation to dawn in my eyes. “It.”
“It? You mean… the way out?”
“Come on.” He grabs my hand and pulls me. “You have to see this.”
“So where is it?” I ask, running to keep up with him.
I look behind me to make sure that no one has seen us go, but the place is empty. Everyone is inside having a whale of a time.
“Under the chemistry lab floor.”
“I knew you’d come in handy,” I tell him. “It must have taken a real maths-geek-science-type formula to uncover it.”
“Er, no,” he says. “There’s trapdoor.”
“Seriously? How’d you find it?”
“I was walking through the room and one of the floorboards creaked, but it sounded weird and hollow. So I pulled the floorboard out and there’s this trapdoor. I opened it and went in, and there’s a door with exit written on it.”
“Did you look inside?”
“No, I just came to get you.”
“What are you even doing in the chemistry lab at this time of night?” I ask.
“I left my bag in there this afternoon when I went for an extra-credit lesson.”
I roll my eyes. Some things never change.
We’re lucky that the whole school is preoccupied with this ball and we’re able to sneak into the lab unnoticed.
We leave all the lights off and Anthony points the way. Sure enough, there’s a floorboard up, revealing a trapdoor.
“Come on,” he says, leading the way.
I follow him down and we’re standing in a dark basement area.
At the far end is a door with a little “EXIT” sign on it.
“Whoa,” I say, surprised. “If it’s so easy to find, how come no one’s ever found it before?”
“Chemistry is an optional extra here,” Anthony says. “How many people do you think actually want to take chemistry? No one comes in here.”
I stare at the door for a moment, then walk up to it and pull it. I’m surprised when it opens easily because I was half expecting it to be locked.
Inside is a swirling vortex, just as Caydi thought there would be. It fills up the whole doorway. It looks scary. And kind of cool.
“So…” I say.
“So…” Anthony says.
“This is it.”
“We have no idea if that’s the exit back to home,” Anthony says. “It just says ‘exit’. It could lead to anywhere.”
I stare at the vortex in front of me.
He has a point.
But… It’s right there. Right in front of me.
The way home. Probably the way home.
“Everyone said this is what it would be like,” I say quietly. “Besides, where else would they need an exit to?”
“The bowels of hell?” Anthony offers.
“Don’t be silly.” I’m drawn to the vortex. I can’t take my eyes off it.
“What are you thinking?” Anthony asks.
I stare at it. “I’m thinking this is our only chance. If we don’t go now, we never will. The teachers will find the floorboard. Or they’ll read our minds or something. They’ll make sure we never get near this place again.”
“I thought you were settling in here,” he says. “I thought you weren’t trying to get out anymore.”
“I stopped actively trying to get myself expelled, but to find the secret exit literally handed to us on a plate and the opportunity to use it… We’d be stupid not to.”
I reach my fingers out and gingerly touch the vortex.
“Riley, don’t,” Anthony warns.
My fingers slide into it, but I’m careful not to go any farther.
It feels cold to the touch. I expected it to be made of liquid, but it’s just air.
I pull my hand back and look at him.
“You’re thinking about going,” he surmises.
“Aren’t you?” I ask.
He shrugs.
“Anthony, come on,” I say angrily. “This is a one-time deal. We have to go now and you know it.”
“What about us?” he asks. “What about everything here? What about the friends you’ve made? Caydi? And Narcissa?”
“They’ll live,” I say, even though his words make my stomach sink. “You know, in a manner of speaking. I’d given up on going home. I was resigned to staying here, but this… This is the only opportunity I’ll ever have. I can go home. I can fix things. I can stop things between Wade and Sophie. I’ll stop everyone being so nasty to you. You can be part of our gang.”
“What happened between Wade and Sophie?” he asks.
Oh crap. I knew I’d forgotten to mention that.
“They’re cheating on me,” I mumble. “I saw them in Visualisation class. But it was probably just the once. For comfort because I’m dead, obviously.”
“Oh, Riley, why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrug. “Because you hate Wade anyway. What’s the point in giving you further ammunition?”
“You don’t think I have a right to hate the guy?” he shouts, suddenly angry. “You don’t think that what he did gives us a right to hate him? I don’t know how you can still give him the time of day considering what he’s done to you!”
“It was an accident,” I shout back at him. “Ac. Ci. Dent.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Anthony says.
I stare at him. “What?”
“It wasn’t an accident,” he says finally. “You, maybe. He didn’t mean to kill you, but he did mean to kill me.”
“What?” I ask in disbelief.
“Riley… I can’t believe I’m telling you this. Sophie’s not the only person Wade’s been cheating on you with. And it isn’t just since you died. Wade has been sleeping with anything that has a pulse since before you two got together. The reason he hates me so much is because I’ve seen him with a few different girls. He sits in our form room texting them. A few weeks ago I caught him with Sophie and I was going to tell you. Wade said he’d kill me. Ever since then he’d been taunting me, telling me he was going to run me down with a car. I didn’t think anything of it until you two came screeching up beside me in a car that night. And I—”
“No way,” I interrupt him. “I don’t believe you.”
Except that I do.
I do believe him. Anthony wouldn’t lie. I know he wouldn’t. Unlike that useless prick I’ve been dating for a year.
Anthony is just about to say something when I stop him.
“I do believe you,” I admit. “I’m sorry. I knew there was something going on between you that night, I just didn’t think it was that.”
“Sorry I had to be the one to tell you.”
“Well, you could have told me earlier, I’ll give you that.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me,” he says. “You’d have just thought I was making it up because I h
ated Wade.”
I think about that for a moment. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“So…” I say.
“So…” Anthony says.
I stroke my fingers over the now-grey rose around my neck.
“So what are you going to do?” Anthony nods towards the vortex.
I stare at it and then back at him.
“I could still go,” I say. “Go back to my life. Tell Wade exactly where to get off. And Sophie. I could apologise to everyone I was horrible to. You and I can start afresh. It’ll be different this time, I promise.”
I reach my fingers out towards the vortex and feel the cold air swirl around them for a moment.
“It’s now or never. Besides, if we don’t like it we could always just off ourselves again,” I say, but my joke goes down like a lead balloon.
“I’m not going,” Anthony says quietly.
He’s so quiet that I almost don’t hear him.
“Oh, come on,” I say just as quietly.
“I don’t want to, Riley. I like it here. I fit in here. This is the only place I’ve ever fitted in, and I don’t want to go.”
“It’ll be different this time,” I repeat. “I’ll make sure it is. I’ll make sure you fit in.”
“I know you want to go,” he says. “I don’t want you to, but I know I can’t stop you. But I’m really, really going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you too…” I can’t say anything else past the lump in my throat.
“Ri…” He steps forward and hugs me.
I sag against him in relief.
“Anthony, I’m so sorry,” I mumble into his shoulder. “For everything.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says against the top of my head. “But be careful, okay? We have no idea where that door actually leads. It could be to anywhere.”
We eventually pull apart from each other and that’s when he leans down and kisses me. It’s just a quick kiss on the lips, but my brain short-circuits and all I want to do is stand here and hold him forever.
“What can I do to change your mind?” he asks, leaning his forehead against mine.
“Unngh,” I mumble.
Then I pull myself together. I push away from him and walk back over to the door. I stare at the swirling vortex.
“Riley…” Anthony says.
I don’t look at him. I can’t. I’m crying. I couldn’t see through the tears in my eyes even if I wanted to.
“Did you ever think that maybe we were supposed to end up here?”
I shrug, still not looking at him.
“I know it was hard to accept at the time, but maybe all this things happen for a reason bullshit isn’t complete nonsense after all. Riley, think about it, please.”
I stare at the vortex swirling in front of me and I do think.
I think about Wade. I think about all the good times before letting some of the bad times that I had steadfastly blocked out filter into my head.
Wade was cheating on me. I had suspected it a few times, but I had never had any proof, and Wade was always so sweet when I confronted him that I told myself he would never do that to me and somehow I believed it.
Then there’s Sophie. Wade and Soph had been going at it long before I ended up dead.
Huh.
Some friend she was.
What was my life even about? Spending time with two cheating best friends and making life miserable for anyone who dared to look or act different.
I think about Caydi and how often we used to make fun of Goth girls. I think of how Sophie came into school dressed up as one of them on a non-uniform day.
We were so cruel.
I can’t go back to that. I don’t want to go back to that.
I turn to look at Anthony. He has tears running down his face too.
I can’t leave him.
He died for me. Because of me. Because he was going to tell me what that prick was doing behind my back, despite the fact that I had been nothing but horrible to him and honestly didn’t deserve him to so much as look in my direction, let alone tell me what the selfish twit was too chicken to tell me himself.
I feel such a surge of love for Anthony that I’m sure he must be able to tell.
I reach my arms up behind my head and unfasten the catch at the back of my neck. Then I tug at the rose necklace, hold it in my hand for a final minute, and hurl it into the vortex with all my strength.
I give it one final glance and kick the door shut.
Anthony is grinning when I walk back over to him. I wrap my arms around his waist and his wrap around mine, and then he leans down and kisses me.
Properly, this time.
“Come on,” he says after a few minutes snogging. “Wouldn’t wanna miss the ball.”
I couldn’t stop the grin that spreads across my face if I tried.
As we emerge from the chemistry lab, it doesn’t feel as cold and misty as it did before and Anthony smiles at me as I squeeze his hand.
For the first time it feels right.
This is where I’m supposed to be.
*x* THE END *x*
About the author:
Jaimie is a 28-year-old English-sounding Welsh girl with an awkward-to-spell name. She lives in South Wales and enjoys writing, gardening, drinking tea and watching horror movies. She hates spiders and cheese & onion crisps.
She has been writing for years but has never before plucked up the courage to tell people.
Afterlife Academy is her third novel and she hopes you enjoyed it. There are plenty more on the way!
Website: http://www.jaimieadmans.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/be_the_spark
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Also by Jaimie Admans:
Kismetology
A feel-good romantic comedy about finding the perfect man… For your mother!
Creepy Christmas
If you listen closely, you can hear the faint sound of screaming over the Jingle Bells... Can Kaity help Santa's daughter save Christmas from being destroyed by Anti-Claus?
A fun, festive, family read!
Afterlife Academy Page 19