7 Minutes in Heaven

by Tracey Ward

  She smiles kindly. “Welcome back, Grace.”

  “Yeah,” I laugh awkwardly.

  Mom and Dad go out into the hall to talk to her more. They’ll hear things I’m not ready for. They don’t think I’m strong enough. And I’m probably not. I feel weaker than I’ve ever been in my life. I feel drained and sick and tired. I’m dizzy. My eyelids are drooping. My stomach is churning. I wish I could get my hands on my cell phone so I could text Kyle and tell him I’m alright, but it’s nowhere in sight. It’s probably at the cabin.

  No. It was in my pocket. It’s probably at the bottom of the lake.

  ***

  I fell asleep. I didn’t mean to. I was actually kind of scared to. I worry that every time I close my eyes, I’ll wake up dead. I’ll be in my head in a memory and the cycle will start all over again.

  Whoosh!

  Bam!

  Kyle.

  Love.

  Death.

  Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

  When I wake up, the room is still dark. The light outside the window has faded. It’s been a whole day since I died but I don’t feel any stronger. If anything, I feel small and scared. I feel fear. I feel pain.

  My hands ache the way they did in the dream. They burn as though I’ve dipped them in flames. “Ahh,” I groan, wincing against the pain.

  A shadow by the window stirs. Mom’s face comes into view, pinched with worry. “What’s wrong, Grace?”

  “My hands. What’s wrong with them?”

  Mom grimaces. “You got frostbite. It’s mild. You’ll be okay, but it’s going to hurt for a while. They said that’s a good thing. That’s your nerves talking and that means they’re not dead.”

  “Will it always hurt this much?”

  “No, and I can ask the nurse for something for the pain if you want it. You don’t have to suffer, Grace.”

  I’m crying. I don’t know what I’m crying about, but it’s probably everything. It’s all too much to handle.

  Mom doesn’t ask what my tears are for. She hits the call button by my bed before sitting down next to me, hugging me tightly. “Shhh,” she coos. She runs her hand through my hair soothingly. “I’m here, Grace. Shhhh.”

  “I’m sorry,” I sob uncontrollably.

  “No. No. You don’t have to be sorry. You’re alright. Everything is going to be alright. I promise.”

  “I’m so scared.”

  “I know. That’s okay. I’ve got you now. I’ve got you, baby.”

  I’m crying against her shoulder when the nurse comes in. Mom explains the problem. She holds me as the nurse checks my hands. Through the tears and the pain, I see my left ring finger when she pulls back the bandages.

  It’s empty. Kyle’s ring is gone.

  I cry harder against my mother.

  “Shhhh,” she whispers.

  The nurse puts something in my IV. She says it will help soon. She says I’ll sleep and that I shouldn’t fight it.

  I close my eyes as the drugs flood my system. I feel warm again. I feel like I’m floating.

  “It’s alright,” Mom promises. “You’re okay. Everything will be okay.”

  chapter thirty-seven

  The next time I wake up, I know I’m not alone. I also know the person in the room is not my mom. It’s not my dad. The fine hairs on my arms stand up straight as I rise from the fog I’ve been put under. The drugs are still doing their job. It can’t be that long ago that they gave them to me. It’s still dark outside. It’s dark inside the room. It’s warm, almost stifling.

  It smells of oranges.

  “You’re awake.”

  I roll my head to the side. He’s standing there, tall and dark. Handsome.

  “Mr. Rixton,” I mumble with effort.

  “How are you feeling, Grace?” he asks me quietly, like he’s trying not to wake me too much.

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s probably for the best.”

  My stomach churns. “Where’s Kyle?”

  “He’s home. For now.”

  “For now?”

  “They have a lot of questions for him. They’ll have a lot for you too.” He pauses, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. “Or have you already talked to the police?”

  “No. I haven’t talked to anyone.” I lick my lips. They’re cracked and bleeding. “I’ve been too tired.”

  “Are you tired now? Did they give you something for pain?”

  I nod sluggishly.

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “What’s going to happen to Kyle?”

  He takes a step toward my bed. “Grace, I’m wondering . . . what do you remember from yesterday?”

  I shake my head, trying to frown but I don’t think I make it. “Kyle didn’t push me.”

  “I know that. I’m glad you do too. He loves you very much. He would never want to hurt you.”

  “That’s what I told her.”

  “Told who?”

  “Ashley.”

  “Your sister? You talked to her about what happened?”

  “No. Not . . . it was me. I told myself. In my head. But I looked like Ashley.”

  “Hmm,” he hums pensively. “But you haven’t spoken to your sister today?”

  “No. I haven’t seen her. Is she here?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh,” I mutter, feeling disappointed. I wish she was here. I wish she’d come in and lay down on my bed with me to keep me warm. She could put on whatever show she wanted. I don’t care. I just want to curl up next to her and feel her breathing. Living.

  A large hand takes hold of my shoulder, shaking me gently. “Grace.”

  I struggle to reopen my eyes. I don’t remember closing them. “What?”

  Mr. Rixton is next to my bed. He’s looming over me. “You fell asleep.”

  “I’m tired,” I complain.

  “I know. And I’m going to let you rest, but I have to ask you something first. Can you listen to me for a minute? It’s important.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me what you remember from the cabin. What did you see?”

  “Nothing,” I insist petulantly. I just want to sleep. Why won’t he let me sleep? “I was watching the lake and the sunset. I heard footsteps. There was a squirrel. He was going crazy. A twig snapped and I turned to talk to Kyle, to give him his ring back, but—”

  “Why were you giving the ring back?” he demands suddenly.

  “Because I can’t marry him.”

  Mr. Rixton is quiet for what feels like forever. I worry I’ve dozed off again. I’m nervous that he’ll shake me awake. I don’t like the feeling. I don’t want him to touch me.

  “You turned down his proposal,” he finally whispers to himself.

  I blink up at him, trying to keep my heavy eyelids up. “I’m too young. He’s too young. I’m not an anchor.”

  “Did my wife call you that?”

  “She said I’ll ruin him. I’ll ruin The Mission.”

  “She’s right,” he replies heavily. “You will, if we’re not very careful.”

  “Where’s my mom?”

  “What else do you remember, Grace?”

  I swallow hard. It’s not easy to do. My throat is bone dry. “Can I have some water?”

  “You can. When you tell me what happened on that hillside.”

  I blink up at him. “I told you. I don’t remember.”

  “You didn’t tell me that. You said there was a squirrel. A branch snapped.”

  “A twig. I said a twig.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  Mr. Rixton’s phone rings. The sound is shrill inside the quiet room.

  “Is that Kyle?” My heart pounds in my chest. I put my hand out to him. “Can I talk to him?”

  He shakes his head, stowing his phone. “It’s Melissa. I’ll call her back.”

  “They won’t arrest him, will they?”

  “I think that all depends on what you say when they talk to you.”

&nb
sp; “I’ll tell them he didn’t do it.”

  “That’s good,” he replies, but his voice is strange. He doesn’t sound happy or relieved. He sounds tired. Sad.

  I shift on the bed. I try to sit up. “Where’s my mom?” I ask again.

  Mr. Rixton takes a step closer. Half of his face comes into the light. He looks pale and exhausted. I wonder if he’s sick. Kyle says he has trouble sleeping. He must be having an episode or something.

  I reach for the call button to get a nurse. I want them to take a look at him, make sure he’s okay.

  He grabs my hand before I can push the button. He grabs it hard.

  “Mr. Rixton,” I gasp. “You’re hurting me.”

  “I’m sorry, Grace,” he replies, but he doesn’t let me go.

  I try to pull away. I can’t. He’s stronger than I am. He holds me tightly. “What are you doing?”

  His phone vibrates in his pocket. It beeps with a new text message.

  It sounds exactly like a bicycle bell.

  The blood in my body runs cold, freezing me in place. My hand goes slack in his as my strength leaves me. Every ounce of warmth and strength I have left is inside my brain, screaming at me. Sounding every alarm bell it can find.

  “You,” I whisper shakily. I stare up at him with fuzzy, watery eyes. “You pushed me.”

  “I didn’t want to.”

  His admission guts me. It steals the breath from my lungs. I feel faint and afraid. More afraid than I’ve ever been in my life. More afraid than I was when I went under the ice and couldn’t find my way out. This is worse. I’m in his grasp, he’s already tried to kill me once, and Kyle isn’t here to save me this time. I’m not strong enough to fight him off.

  I’m going to die. Again.

  “Please, don’t,” I beg quietly.

  His face is drawn. Sad. He’s honestly sorry for this, but the determination in his eyes says he isn’t going to hesitate. “I have to, Grace. You’re a threat to The Mission.”

  “No.”

  “You always have been.”

  “Kyle and I broke up,” I weep. “He’s going to Villanova. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I know that.”

  My face crumbles. My heart breaks. “Please.”

  His grip on my hand tightens. It’s my bandaged hand. The pressure hurts so bad, I worry I’ll cry out. If I do, they’ll come. The nurses and doctors. They’ll save me.

  I open my mouth to scream, but Mr. Rixton immediately covers it with his free hand. He’s leaning over me, pressing his weight against my lips to smother me. It makes my mouth hurt. My lips cut on my teeth. My neck aches with the pressure he’s putting on me. And when he shifts his hand to pinch down on my nose too, I feel like I’m already gone.

  I scream inside the cavern of my mouth but it’s muffled. It’s useless.

  He shakes his head sadly. “Don’t bother. It’ll be over soon.”

  I reach for his face. I claw at his eyes, but he leans back until his face is out of reach. His arms are longer than mine. He can hold me down without letting me near his eyes, so I claw at his arms instead. I dig my fingernails in deep. I drag them down his skin, pulling his DNA underneath so they’ll know. I’ll be dead, but at least they’ll know that this is the man who killed me.

  “It doesn’t matter, Grace,” he tells me calmly. “I’ll be caught, but Kyle will be released. He’ll go on to do great things. The Mission will be protected with you gone.”

  My head is starting to fog. My eyes roll back, my lids fluttering wildly. My hands fall limply at my sides. I’m going. I’m fading. Will I get another seven minutes? I’m not sure I want them.

  What I want, what I need, is to live.

  Grace!

  Kyle is screaming. He’s still in my head, in my memory, and I’m sinking deeper into it. I’m going under again. At least it’s warm this time. Like I’m drowning in Caribbean waters where it’s so blue it’s almost painful. I’ll be better at getting creative this time. I’ll manufacture memories of days on the beach with him, our toes in the water and our hands full of rough sand that makes my skin feel like silk.

  “Grace!”

  The pressure on my palm disappears. So does the hand on my face. I gasp for air, gulping it down greedily as the world explodes around me. My vision flares bright white before diving to black. In the middle somewhere I see Mr. Rixton up against the wall. Someone is with him. They’ve pinned him there, screaming at him. Hitting him. The sound is thick and wet. It makes me sick to my stomach.

  I lean over the side of my bed and vomit onto the floor.

  I black out immediately after.

  chapter thirty-eight

  “Mom!” I shout down the hall. “I can’t find my shoes!”

  “Did you check under your bed?!”

  I drop to the floor to look. They’re there; white sandals with a thin strap that wraps around my ankle.

  “Are they there?!”

  “Yes!” I yell back. “Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome!”

  “Stop yelling!” Ashley screams.

  I laugh to myself as I pull the shoes on, latching the straps. When I stand, I smooth my yellow dress down flat against my stomach. It’s flipping and dancing with nerves. I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long. I can’t believe it’s finally here.

  “We have to go,” Mom says from inside my doorway. She’s leaning against the frame, her own dress long and bright, screaming summer.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Where’s your gown?”

  “Already in the car.”

  “Your cap?”

  “Same.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Dad put them there last night.”

  Mom makes an apprehensive face. “I’d double check if I were you.”

  I groan, hurrying past her. “I’m sure he did it.”

  “If you’re so sure, then why are you going outside to check?” she calls after me.

  I don’t answer. I burst out the front door without closing it behind me. The van is unlocked in the driveway, but it doesn’t matter. I can see my green graduation gown hanging from the hook over the back-passenger door.

  “Like I said,” I mutter to myself, spinning on my heel. “Dad put it in the car.”

  I’m on my way back inside when I slow to a stop on the path. Flowers bloom along it. Bees buzz in and out excitedly. The grass is green and in need of mowing. Summer is coming. It’s practically here. Just another few hours and I’ll be on vacation. I’ll be a high school graduate. An adult.

  Inside, I feel like a scared child as I stare across the street from our house. The Rixton’s place is conspicuously empty. A FOR SALE sign is staked in the front yard. It’s been there for two months now. It’s a nice house but this is a small town, and no one wants to buy the house of a convicted murderer.

  I wish they’d burn it to the ground so I never have to see it again.

  Technically, Mr. Rixton wasn’t convicted of my murder because I didn’t actually die. Not long enough for the courts to care. Mr. Rixton pled guilty to Attempted Murder. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but he’s serving his time in a mental institution in Ogden where I heard he rants about The Mission and the girl who will ruin all their lives.

  Me. I’m that girl.

  Dad says Mr. Rixton had a psychotic break. He lost his hold on reality, and it probably wasn’t a recent thing. The way Mr. Rixton tells the story, he’d been planning my murder for nearly a year. He said he knew I was trouble. I had to be dealt with. The fate of The Mission depended on it.

  The Mission in his mind was not the same mission the rest of the family was talking about. It was grander to him. To him, Kyle was like the second coming of Christ. He was going to save the world, and I was going to get in the way of that. Just like Karina tried to do. She wasn’t as lucky as I was. Kyle wasn’t there to save her. Mr. Rixton says he tossed her in the everglades. He fed her to the alligators.

  He said she w
as three months pregnant.

  “Grace?” Dad calls gently.

  I smile on reflex. “Yeah?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I was looking for my gown.”

  He frowns, worried. They do that a lot lately. Anytime I forget something or stumble over a word, everyone looks at me like they’re seeing cracks in my foundation. Fissures signaling brain damage from the repeated oxygen deprivation I was put through. “I told you I put it in the van for you.”

  “I know, but Mom got in my head. She made me wonder if you remembered.”

  His face softens. “She’s stressing. She wants to make sure everything goes perfectly for you today.”

  “Nothing is ever perfect.”

  “She likes to get it as close as possible, though.”

  I gesture to his neck. “Then she should fix your tie. It’s crooked.”

  “That’s the style. Loser,” he jokes, straightening the tie.

  I smile. “I forget sometimes how hip you are.”

  “I’m gonna blend right in in Nevada.”

  “You’re not going with me!” I complain, laughing at his insistence.

  He smiles. “I’m hiding in your suitcase. You’re taking me with you, you little jetsetter.”

  “Flying to Vegas is not jet setting.”

  “It feels like it when your oldest daughter is leaving you behind,” he replies seriously. “It feels like you’re flying to the other side of the galaxy.”

  “I promise not to do that.”

  “You say that now, but space flight is evolving. Did you know—”

  “Dad, I don’t have time for this right now,” I interrupt with a laugh. “We have to go. We’ll be late for my graduation.”

  “Astronauts pee into a funnel on a tube,” he finishes. “That’s all I was going to say.”

  “Super informative.”

  ***

  We’re late. It takes Mom and Ashley another fifteen minutes to get out the door, and by then we’re so late I wonder if I’ll miss the entire thing. I have to run with my gown billowing behind me. I crash through the gymnasium doors in a rush.

  I crash right into Kyle Rixton.

  I don’t have a heart when I see him. It can’t race or skip or flop to the ground like a dead fish pulled from the river. It can do nothing because it’s been missing for the last three months. Now here it stands with beautiful, mossy eyes, thick eyebrows, and the weight of the world on his broad shoulders. He looks older than he should for eighteen. He looks tired the way his dad did when . . .