by Tracey Ward
If his mom comes out now, she’ll kill me. She’ll drown me in the pool without hesitation because this is exactly what she’s afraid of. Kyle and me and the bond between us that’s growing by the day. By the hour. By the minutes that slip by with the slow setting of the sun.
She can take him to Florida if she wants to, but he’s taking me with him. In his heart and in his arms, and the way he whispers my name like a promise of what’s to come.
“You’re my girl, Grace. You’ll always be my girl. Nothing and no one can ever change that. Not even God himself can take you from me.”
chapter twenty-five
I fall against the couch in our empty living room. Ashley/me is there, standing with her hands on her hips like a triumphant gladiator.
“See?” she demands. “How creepy was he?”
“He wasn’t being creepy. He was being sweet.”
“Yeah, it seemed sweet at the time but when you look at it knowing what we know now, that he killed us, it doesn’t seem so sweet anymore. Neither does the fact that he changed his schedule a day after meeting us to be in more classes with us. He was obsessed with us from the start.”
I shake my head, avoiding her eyes. I can’t look at her. “No, he liked us from the start. That’s all. You’re twisting it to make it look like something else.”
“He said even God couldn’t take us from him. That is so predatory and possessive. How are you not seeing that? What is it gonna take, Grace? Why won’t you admit it?”
“Why do I have to?” I snarl at her. “What does it matter if I don’t believe it and you do? We’re dead, right? We can’t change it. It’s over.” I sink into the couch, curling up into a small, sad ball. I can still taste the chlorine on Kyle’s lips. I can still feel the strength of his arms around my waist, holding me up. Holding me together. I wish he was here now. I wish I could conjure him the way she does, but I don’t want her to go with me. She’ll see something else to make her case against him and I won’t give her that kind of ammo.
He didn’t do it. I know he didn’t. He would never hurt me.
“It’s not over,” Ashley admits quietly. “Not yet.”
I frown up at her. “What are you talking about?”
“God, you really didn’t pay any attention in Biology, did you? Why do I have to do all of the heavy lifting? All you’re doing is running around making a mess of memories.”
“What do you mean it’s not over?” I repeat sharply.
“Mr. Nyan said that when we die, our brain stays active for seven minutes.”
“Yeah. So?”
“I think these are our seven minutes.”
“Wait, so . . .” I frown, totally confused. “Wait. We’re not dead yet?”
“No, Grace, we are, not that you actually believe it.”
“I believe it!”
“No, you don’t. You’re not dealing with it at all. You saw us die, you saw who killed us, and you’re in total denial about it. I told you that we’re dead and you didn’t even cry.”
“Did you cry?”
Ashley pauses. She crosses her arms over her chest defensively. “No, but I didn’t need to. I understand what’s happening. I’ve accepted it.”
“Good for you, but I’m not going to be sorry for not falling apart about this. I think Kyle can save us.”
“Oh my God, are you serious?” she laughs in amazement. “He. Killed. Us. He’s not going to turn around and save us.”
I shake my head stubbornly. “If that’s what you think, then you don’t know anything.”
Ashley rolls her eyes. “I’m not arguing this with you. You’re impossible. You sound like Makena, you know that? Obsessed with the romantic and totally blind to reality.”
“Don’t talk about Makena like that.”
“I’ll do whatever I want. Thanks. And what I was trying to tell you is that all of this that we’re seeing and reliving is memory. It’s just our brain firing every synapse it can before the lights go out forever.”
“So, this isn’t heaven or hell or purgatory? This is literally all in our mind?”
“I think so.”
“And the minutes, they’ll run out?”
“Definitely.”
I leap up off the couch excitedly. “Okay, then we have to use these minutes to find out who killed us.”
“Kyle did it,” she replies blandly. “There. Done.”
“Shut up. I’m serious.”
“So am I. It’s an easy mystery to solve. He was angry at us—”
“Disappointed,” I correct sharply.
“—and he was possessive.”
“Deeply in love.”
“He didn’t want to lose us so he killed us so he never would.” She throws her arms open wide in a macabre triumph. “Boom. Solved it. You’re welcome.”
“No. I don’t believe it. Someone else had to be there. Someone else who was angry with us.”
“Like who?”
“Mrs. Rixton!” I cry like it’s obvious, because, duh, it is. “She hates us.”
“Enough to kill? You really think that’s probable?” Ashley asks skeptically.
“As probable as Kyle killing us because he just couldn’t deal.”
She hesitates, taking my words to heart for the first time. “Maybe.”
“I’ll show you. Help me show you.”
“Show me what?”
“I have a million memories of Mrs. Rixton hating on us. Help me go into them. Let’s look and see if there’s something there that can prove she did it.”
“You can’t even place her at the scene? How would she have known we were at the cabin with Kyle?”
“Because she tracks his phone, remember? She always knows where Kyle is.”
Ashley is reluctant, but she mutters, “That’s true.”
“Come on. I’ll prove it to you. She totally did it.”
I’m surprised when Ashley stands. I thought it was going to take a lot more convincing, but what else does she have going on right now?
I take her hands eagerly in mine. “How do I do it?”
“You don’t. You’re the creative. You’ll take us into some nightmare or dream that doesn’t make any sense and you’ll burn through whatever time we have left.”
“How much time do you think we have?”
She shrugs helplessly. “No idea, but it can’t be much.”
“Then we have to hurry.”
“It doesn’t matter, remember?” she asks me delicately, her eyes painfully sad. “We’re dead no matter what we do.”
I hold her eye sternly. “It matters to me. I need to know who did it before I go. It’s the only way I’ll be able to rest or whatever. Do you want me to be a ghost? Because I will totally haunt the hell out of everyone if we don’t figure this out.”
She looks at me with uncertainty and a big dose of suspicion. “Are you sure you understand that we can’t change anything? We can’t save ourselves, no matter what we do. And Kyle . . . Kyle probably can’t save us either. Even if he wanted to.”
“I get it. I get it. You’re a broken record with the dead stuff. I understand.” I shake her hands impatiently. “I still want to know. I need to find out.”
Ashley doesn’t believe me. She’s hesitant to go ahead with this because she understands that I’m not resigned to the idea that we’re dead. I never will be. Even if the lights go out forever and my soul is lost in the endless nothing of death, I will believe in Kyle.
He’s not the villain of my story. He’s the hero.
He has been from the very start.
“Where are we going?” Ashley asks.
“The basketball tryouts the first week Kyle came to school. It’s the first time we saw Mrs. Rixton.”
“And what are we looking for exactly?”
“Anything incriminating. A threat. A glare. Something that shows how much she hated us and how badly we threatened The Mission.”
Ashley snorts. “Shouldn’t be hard to find.”
&nb
sp; chapter twenty-six
Makena comes with me to the basketball tryouts. She’s one hundred percent on board the Grace-and-Kyle train. So on board, in fact, that I have to remind her over and over again that it hasn’t left the station yet.
“Don’t get crazy,” I remind her for the tenth time today. “I’ve known Kyle for a grand total of five days. We are not dating. You have to be chill.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “I am chill.”
“You are not. You’re crazy.”
“I’m just so excited for you!”
“That right there,” I whisper vehemently, pulling her to a private corner of the gymnasium. “That’s what I need you to lock down. No yelling. Please don’t shout his name and pretend it was me. You absolutely cannot tell anyone that he wanted me to be here today.”
“But he did!”
“Quiet!”
“Fine,” she hisses in a vicious whisper. “I’ll keep quiet, but you have to admit that he invited you to this.”
“He did. So what?”
“So everything. He likes you, Grace. He really likes you.”
“Maybe he does, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to lose our minds, okay?”
She crosses her heart, silently promising to be good.
I don’t believe a single unspoken word of it.
Before I can turn around, Makena’s eyes go huge. She’s staring behind me.
“What?” I ask, but I think I already know.
She shifts excitedly from foot to foot. “He’s coming.”
“No, he’s not.”
“Yeah, he is,” she laughs. “He started running over here the second he spotted you.”
“Grace!”
I turn slowly, willing my heart to match pace. I smile at Kyle as he jogs to a stop in front of me. “Hey.”
“Hey. You made it.”
“Well, you are my ride,” I remind him.
He nods over my shoulder. “Looks like you could get a lift with Makena.” He smiles at her. “What’s up, girl?”
“Hey,” she laughs.
“I could,” I agree. “That’s a good point. I didn’t think of that. I guess we’ll head home. Good luck.”
“Not so fast,” he laughs. “You’re already here. Might as well stay, right? Besides, Makena can’t go.”
“I can’t?” she asks.
“Nope. My boy Scott would be crushed.”
I frown at him, wincing at the thunder of basketballs being bounced against the floor. It sounds like there are a million of them hitting all at once. Boom! Boom! Boom! Like a giant knocking at the door.
I’m not sure whether or not to believe Kyle about Scott. He asks me about Makena all the time, but I think that’s just guilt. He never talks directly to her so I never took it to mean that he likes her. If Kyle is lying, he’s making trouble for me. Makena doesn’t take male interest lightly. She’ll latch onto this hard, and if it’s not true, she’ll be let down even harder. I wish there was a way to explain that to Kyle but I can’t. Not with her right here. I just have to go on faith that he’s honest and not messing with us.
It’s a leap. One that makes me as nervous as the pounding of the giant on the door.
Grace, Kyle says quietly, his voice muffled.
Only his mouth didn’t move. His voice is in my ear, pushing through the pounding, but he sounds a million miles away. Even standing right here in front of me.
My left hand aches sharply, nearly bringing me to tears.
Grace!
Suddenly, the bouncing falls out of sync. The natural sound of a few basketballs being dribbled fills my ears, soft and muted. Nothing like before. Even my hand stops hurting.
I blink, disoriented even though I haven’t moved.
“You guys should take that front row,” Kyle suggests, nodding to the bleachers that have been rolled out on one side of the court. “You’ll be able to see everything from there.”
“Uh, I . . .” I stutter. I feel like I’m floundering. “I don’t know what we’re watching for. I don’t even know why we’re here.”
He grins, unoffended. “You’re here to watch me be awesome.”
I laugh at his unending arrogance. “Wow. You are so cocky.”
“Have you seen this?” he asks, gesturing to his entire body. He gives me that killer grin. The one with the dimples and a lock of hair draped over his forehead. “What’s not to be cocky about?”
“Wow,” I repeat.
“Kyle!”
It’s amazing how quickly his face falls. How he can go from glowing with conceit to nearly cowering. His eyes swing to the bleachers where a spattering of people are waiting for the tryouts to start. Most of them are students, but one is a woman in her forties. She has Kyle’s black hair and piercing eyes, though hers are lighter. Scarier. I can see their color from here. I can feel their heat, and I’m grateful it’s not directed at me. It’s all focused on Kyle.
“Stop playing around and get your head in the game,” she snaps at him sharply. She points one manicured, red fingernail at the court, her eyebrows high.
Kyle nods at her silently. He casts me one small smile before backing away slowly. “I’ll see you after?”
“Does that mean I have to stay for the whole thing?”
“Every last second of it.”
“Yeah, we’ll see.”
He grins. “You’ll stay,” he predicts accurately.
When he’s gone and we’re making our way to the front row where he told us to sit, Makena casts a quick glance at the woman in the stands. “That must be his mom,” she whispers to me.
“I think so. I’ve only caught a quick glimpse of her across the street but I doubt Kyle would let anyone but his mom talk to him like that.”
“She seems so fun.”
“Yeah, she’s a gem.”
“She’s staring at us.”
I tug at her arm gently. “Stop looking at her.”
“I’m sorry. She just keeps staring.” Makena glances over her shoulder again before she turns to the court with a frown. “More like glaring.”
“Great. My neighbor hates me.”
“Only one of them.” She smiles brightly at Kyle running laps around the gym to warm up. “The other one seems like he’s okay with you.”
“Yeah, his dad’s nice.”
“Shut up. You know I mean Kyle.”
I shake my head stubbornly. “I can’t talk about it.”
“Why not? It’s all anybody else is talking about.”
I pinch my lips together tightly, thinking. “I don’t know if it’s real, you know? Like, am I just hoping he likes me so I’m making all these little things he does into big things? Am I being a freak about it?”
“You mean are you being a Makena about it?” I look at her apologetically, but she’s not mad. She smiles. “You’re not. You’re fine. Even Marcy thinks he’s into you and she hates the idea more than anyone.”
“I guess that’s something.”
“It’s a lot, okay? Be excited about it. It’s awesome. He’s the hottest guy in school and he’s into you.”
“I don’t care that he’s hot.”
Makena looks at me impatiently.
I roll my eyes. “Okay, I do care that he’s hot. It’s a bonus to the fact that he’s funny and nice and—”
“Hot.”
“So hot,” I whisper, watching him run by effortlessly.
He gives me a wink and the dimples, and I nearly melt into a puddle on the floor.
“He’s got serious moves,” Makena warns me weakly.
“I noticed that.”
“Did you hear what he said about Scott? What was that, right?” she laughs.
I smile at her. “I have no idea. You’ll have to ask Scott.”
“No way. I’m not doing that.”
“You could tell him good luck.”
“Nope.”
“He’s right there. Wave at him?”
“Too obvious.”
“What
if you accidentally smile at him and let your eyes linger for a little too long?”
“I could do that.”
Makena spends the next ten minutes ‘accidentally’ smiling in Scott’s direction, but he never looks. He’s too focused on tryouts. Makena is getting increasingly irritated. Meanwhile, I’m blushing so hard I worry I’ll pass out from blood loss to the brain. Kyle checks on me after every play. He smiles when he finds me still there, watching. I give him a thumbs-up after he does a particularly smooth layup. It makes him laugh, dipping his head as he runs down the court. His dark locks fall over his forehead, making my fingers itch to touch them.
He’s really amazing. I don’t know a ton about basketball but even I can tell that he’s blowing the other guys out of the water. No way he doesn’t make Varsity. Or the NBA. Dad says he has to be nineteen to be drafted so he’ll probably spend one year at a top tier college and then bail. It’s a risk. Some guys do it, don’t make it, and then can’t get back into their college. But Kyle’s the kind of talent that makes that play and wins.
My phone pings with a new text message.
I frown when I see who it’s from.
“Mark?” Makena guesses bitterly.
“No,” I mutter, reading the message. “It’s Nate.”
“Your dad’s friend?”
“Yeah.”
“Is everything okay?”
Just got your school photo in the mail. Tell your mom thanks. I’ll add it to my collection.
“Yeah, I guess,” I answer slowly. “Look.”
I show the message to Makena. She reads it quickly, her eyes narrowing at the end.
“What collection? What does that mean?” she asks.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s weird.”
“He’s a weird guy.”
I’ll let her know, I text back quickly.
You look beautiful. So much like your mom it makes me feel like a kid again.
“What does that mean?” I whisper to the screen.
“Tighten up, Kyle!” Mrs. Rixton practically screams from behind me, making me jump. “You’re looking sloppy!”