by Meg Cabot
“No, Suze.” The crinkles deepened and I could tell he was more serious than he’d been in a long time. “Not for me. I’d give anything to live again”—and now I saw that, along with the crinkles, there was moisture there, as well— “but not if it means anything bad might happen to you.”
I gazed up at him, my eyes as bright with tears as his own. “Oh, Dad,” I said, unable to keep the throb from my throat.
He reached up to lay a hand on either side of my wet face. “And I wouldn’t presume to speak for Jesse,” he said, tilting my head so that we were looking straight into each other’s eyes. “But I think I can safely say that he’s not going to like the idea of you risking your life to save his any more than I do. Knowing him, in fact, he’ll probably like it even less.”
I reached up and placed my hands over his own. Then I said, “I get it, Dad. Really, I do. And I won’t go back for you if you really don’t want me to. But… I still can’t let him do it, Dad. Paul, I mean.”
“Can’t let him save the life of the guy you supposedly love,” Dad said, not looking too happy to hear it. “Something’s very wrong with that picture, Suze.”
“I know, Dad,” I said, “but I love him. You know it. You can’t ask me to just sit back and let Paul do this. If he succeeds I won’t even remember having met Jesse.”
“Right,” my dad said reasonably. “So it won’t hurt.”
“It will,” I insisted, “It will hurt, Dad. Because deep down, I’ll know. I’ll know there was someone… someone I was supposed to have met. Only I’ll never meet him. I’ll go through my whole life waiting for him to come along, only he never will. What kind of life is that, Dad, huh? What kind of life is that?”
“And what kind of life,” my dad asked gently, “is it for Jesse to spend all of eternity as a ghost—especially if something goes wrong and you end up dead right along with him?”
“Then,” I said with a feeble attempt at humor, “at least we’ll be able to haunt people together for the rest of eternity.”
“With Jesse having to live forever with the guilt of knowing he’s the reason you died in the first place? I don’t think so, Suze.”
He had me there. I stared up at him, unable to think of a single thing to say in reply.
“Suze, your whole life,” my dad went on, not without sympathy, “you’ve always made the right decisions. Not necessarily the easiest ones. The right ones. Don’t mess that up now, when you’re facing what’s probably the most important decision you’ll ever have to make.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong… that I was making the right decision… that I was doing what I knew Jesse would want…
Only I knew there was no point.
So instead I said, “All right, Dad. But there’s just one thing I don’t understand.”
He nodded. “Why Maroon 5 is so popular?”
“Um,” I said, grinning in spite of myself. “No. I don’t understand why, if you feel that way… that you had a good life and that you’ve learned so much since you died… If you really feel that way, then why are you still here?”
“You should know,” he said.
I blinked at him. “I should? How?”
“Because you said it yourself.”
“When did I—”
“Um… Suze?”
I whirled around and found myself looking not into my dad’s gentle brown eyes but David’s anxious blue ones.
“Are you okay?” David’s pale face was pinched with concern. “Were you… were you just crying?”
“Of course not,” I said, hastily snatching up a dish towel—seeing, as I did so, that my dad had vanished—and scrubbing my cheeks with it. “I’m fine. What’s up?”
“Um… “ David looked around the kitchen, his eyes wide. “Are you… are you not alone?”
Outside of my dad, David is the only one in my family who knows the truth about me… or at least, most of the truth. If I had told him all of it… well, he’d probably be able to handle it, with his scientific, orderly mind.
But I don’t think he’d have liked it.
“I am now,” I said, knowing what he meant.
“I just came in for dessert,” David said. “Dad said… Dad said he made a fruit tart.”
“Right,” I said. “Well. I’m through here. I’ll just be going upstairs.”
I turned to go, but David’s voice—it had changed lately, gone from squeaky to deep in the course of a few months— stopped me by the door. “Suze. Are you sure you’re all right? You seem… sad.”
“Sad?” I looked back at him over my shoulder. “I’m not sad. Well, not that sad. Just… there’s just something I have to do.” Because I had already decided that, despite my dad’s concerns, I wasn’t giving Jesse up just yet. Not without a fight. “Something I’m not exactly looking forward to.”
“Oh,” David said. Then his face brightened. “Then just do it quick. You know, like pulling off a Band-Aid.”
Do it quick. I’d have loved to. But I had no way of knowing when Paul was going to make his trip back through time. For all I knew, I could wake up tomorrow with no memory of Jesse whatsoever.
“Thanks,” I said to David, managing a semblance of a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
But I wasn’t smiling a half hour later, when I finally managed to get Father Dominic—my last hope—on the phone.
Father Dom wasn’t exactly as sympathetic to my plight as I’d hoped he be. I’d thought the information I had to impart—about Paul buying Felix Diego’s belt buckle, and then possibly drugging his own grandfather—would spark a little righteous indignation in the old guy.
But Father Dominic’s sentiments seemed right in line with my dad’s. Jesse had died too young, too violently. He had a right to a second chance at life. It was morally reprehensible of me to stand in the way of that.
Maybe Father D. had other reasons to be feeling upbeat. The monsignor had come out of his coma and seemed to be recuperating nicely.
“Huh,” I said as Father D. imparted this supposedly joyous news. “That’s great, Father D. Now, about Paul—”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Susannah,” he said. “I’ll admit it was wrong, what he did to his grand-father—if, indeed, he really did—”
“He said he did, Father D.,” I interrupted. “Well, almost.”
“Yes,” Father Dominic said. “Well, the two of you do have a tendency to, er, exaggerate the truth somewhat—”
“Father Dom,” I said, my fingers tightening on the receiver. “I called the ambulance myself.”
“So you said. Still, Susannah, for Paul to do this thing— this time-travel thing you spoke of—I understand he’d have to put himself in the exact spot where the person he wishes to see was once standing during the exact time he wishes to travel back to.”
“Yeah,” I said. “So?” I wasn’t usually so rude to Father Dom, but this was, you have to admit, an extenuating circumstance.
“So wouldn’t that mean Paul would have to travel from your bedroom?” Father Dominic sounded a bit distracted. That’s because he was. He was packing to come back home. He was planning on driving back to Carmel that very night. “Isn’t that where Diego killed Jesse? Your room? It’s rather unlikely Paul is going to be able to get into your bedroom, Susannah,” he went on. “Not without your permission.”
I nearly dropped the phone. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe this hadn’t occurred to me before.
Because Father Dominic was right. There was no way Paul was traveling back to the night Jesse died… not unless he did a little breaking and entering. Because that was the only way he was getting into my room. The only way.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said with a growing feeling of relief. “But you’re right. Oh my God, you’re totally right. Father Dominic, you’re a genius!”
“Er,” Father Dominic said. “Thank you, Susannah. I suppose. Although if you were to do the right thing, you’d allow Paul in and let Jesse live out his lif
e naturally, as he was meant to—”
“Um,” I said. I’d heard this tune before, one too many times. Fortunately, the call-waiting went off at that very moment. Perfect timing.
“Oops, that’s my other line, Father D.,” I said. “Gotta go. See you when you get back.”
I hung up the phone, feeling better than I had since… well, since the auction that afternoon. Jesse was safe. Paul couldn’t make him disappear, because to do so, he’d have to have access to my bedroom. How else was he going to find his way back to 1850?
He needed to have a place to stand, somewhere that existed in both 1850 and the present. Somewhere Felix Diego had once stood. Where was he going to go? The mall?
“Hello?” I said, clicking over to the other call.
“Suze?” It was CeeCee, sounding breathless with excitement. “Oh my God, you’ll never believe what just happened.”
“What?” I asked, not actually paying attention. Because, really, where else could Paul go, if not my bedroom?
“He asked me.” CeeCee’s voice was actually trembling. “Adam. Adam asked me to the Winter Formal. We’re just at the Coffee Clutch, you know, having cappuccinos—we’d have asked you, only I know you were at the auction all day—”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“—and he just asked me. Out of the blue. I had to run outside and call you. He’s still inside. I just… Oh, my God. I had to tell someone. He asked me.”
Besides, it isn’t like Paul is going to be able to do it anytime soon, anyway. Go back through time, I mean. Not with his grandfather in the hospital.
“That is so great, CeeCee,” I said into the phone.
“I guess I should go back in and say yes,” CeeCee said. “I should say yes, right? Or should I play hard to get? I don’t want him to think I’m too eager. And it is next weekend. Technically, he should have asked me a long time ago—”
Suddenly, I focused on what CeeCee was saying.
And laughed.
“CeeCee,” I said. “Are you nuts? Hang up the phone, go inside, and say yes.”
“I should, shouldn’t I? I just… I mean, I’ve been wanting this to happen for so long, and now it is, and I…well, I just can’t believe it….”
“CeeCee.”
“Hanging up now,” CeeCee said. And the line clicked.
He and Kelly had looked pretty… friendly on that couch. Maybe he’d given up. Maybe he was over the whole “us” thing.
Maybe now my life would go back to normal.
Maybe…
Chapter
twelve
“This is by the same director who made Jaws?” Jesse wanted to know. “I don’t believe it.”
Saturday night. Date night.
And, okay, though technically Jesse and I can’t exactly go out (how could we, really?), Jesse does come over most Saturday nights. True, it isn’t as romantic as dinner and a movie. And true, we have to be really quiet, so my family won’t suspect I’m not alone in my room.
But at least we get to be together.
And yeah, on this particular Saturday night, I had a lot on my mind, none of which I had any intention of mentioning to Jesse.
But that didn’t mean we couldn’t spend a couple of hours watching videos. Jesse has a lot of catching up to do, movie-wise, considering the fact that they hadn’t even been invented back when he’d been alive.
His favorite so far is The Godfather. I was hoping to cure him of this weakness by showing him E.T. How could anyone prefer Don Corleone over a six-year-old Drew Barrymore?
But Drew barely managed to hold Jesse’s attention.
“Jaws is much better than this,” Jesse said.
Jaws is another one of Jesse’s favorites. He doesn’t even like the right parts, either. He likes the part where all the men are showing one another their scars. Don’t ask me why. I guess it’s a guy thing.
Finally, I turned E.T. off and went, “Let’s just talk.”
By which, of course, I meant “Let’s make out.”
Which was working out very nicely until Jesse quit kissing me at one point and said, “I almost forgot. What was Paul doing at the Mission tonight? Has he found religion?”
This was so outlandish that I pulled my arms from around his neck and went, “What?”
“Your friend Paul,” Jesse said. I may have let go of him, but he wasn’t letting go of me. While this was nice, it was also just a little distracting. Especially the way his lips were still moving along mine. “I saw him a little while ago in the basilica… which was closed, you know. Why would he be there after hours, do you think? He hardly seems the type to be considering a career in the priesthood. Unless he suddenly received his calling….”
I wrenched myself away from him.
Well, if you’d suddenly been seized by stark white terror, you’d have done the same thing.
“Susannah?” Jesse stared at me, concern filling his dark brown eyes where just a few seconds earlier there’d been… well, not concern. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, God.” How could I have been so stupid? How, how, how? Here I was, watching movies—movies—with my boyfriend, never suspecting a thing. Thinking Paul would have to come here to the house if he wanted to travel back to Jesse’s time. Thinking he wouldn’t be able to go back if he didn’t. Thinking he wouldn’t dream of going back tonight, with his grandfather in the hospital. Thinking he and Kelly were together now, so why would he bother?
Paul didn’t care about his grandfather. He didn’t care about anyone in his family and never had.
And he certainly didn’t care about Kelly. Why should he? Kelly didn’t understand him, Kelly didn’t know what he really was….
And, of course, there was another landmark in this century that had existed in Jesse’s as well. A place Felix Diego had probably gone often, during his day.
The Mission. The Junipero Serra Mission, which had been built back in the 1700s.
“I have to go,” I said, stumbling to my feet and diving for my jacket. I felt sick to my stomach. “I’m sorry, Jesse, but I have to—”
“Susannah.” Jesse was on his feet as well, taking hold of my arm in a grip that was as strong as it was gentle. Jesse would never hurt me. On purpose. “What is it? What is this about? Why do you care if Paul is in the basilica?”
“You don’t understand,” I said. I really did think I was going to be sick. I really did. It must have shown on my face because Jesse’s grip on my arm suddenly got a good deal tighter… …just as the expression his face got a lot grimmer.
“Try me, querida,” he said in a voice that was as hard as his grasp.
And then—don’t ask me how or what I was thinking because, truthfully, I don’t think I was—it all came spilling out.
I hadn’t wanted to tell him. Not because I didn’t want to upset him. God, nothing like that. No, I didn’t want him to find out for the most selfish of all reasons: I hadn’t wanted to tell him for fear he’d agree with Father Dominic and my dad—that he’d prefer another chance at life than eternity as a ghost.
But out it poured, everything, from what Dr. Slaski had told me to what Father Dom had said on the phone just a few hours ago. It was a raging flood that couldn’t be stopped, the torrent of words coming from my mouth. I wanted to stuff them back as quickly as they spilled out.
But it was too late. It was way too late.
Jesse listened unflinchingly, not interrupting me, even when I told him the part about my deal with Paul: our secret arrangement in which I endured Wednesday afternoon “mediator lessons” with him in exchange for his not sending my boyfriend to the netherworld.
“Only now he doesn’t want to kill you, Jesse,” I told him bitterly. “He wants to save you, save your life. He’s going back through time to stop Felix Diego from killing you. And if he does that… if he does that… “
“You and I will never meet.” Jesse’s expression was calm, his voice its normal deepness.
Never had any statement sounded as c
hilling to me. It felt like a stab wound to the heart.
“Yes,” I said frantically. “Can’t you see, I’ve got to go down there—now. Right now—and stop him.”
“No, querida,” Jesse said, still in that unhurried voice. “You can’t do that.”
For a second, the terror that was gripping my heart seemed to squeeze it until it stopped. I thought I would die, right there on the spot.
Jesse wanted to live. My dad, Father Dominic, Dr. Slaski, Paul… they had been right. They had all been right, and I was the wrong one, me. Jesse would prefer to live than to have met me, to have known me…
…to have loved me….
I should have known, of course. And I think deep down, I did know. What kind of person—especially one who’d died the age Jesse had been, just twenty—wouldn’t want a chance to go back and live again, if he could? What kind of person wouldn’t be willing to give up everything he had for that chance?
And what did Jesse have? Nothing. Nothing at all. Just me.
My dad had accused me long ago of being the thing that was holding Jesse back, keeping him from moving on. Father Dominic had said it, as well… that if I really loved him, I’d set him free.
And now I knew. Jesse himself would rather be free than be with me.
God. I’d been such a fool. Such a total fool.
Then Jesse let go of my arm.
But instead of saying what I’d expected him to—You can’t go after him, because I want the chance. I want the chance to live again, if I can—he said in a voice gone suddenly as cold as the wind outside, “You can’t go after him. He’s too dangerous. I’ll go. I’ll stop him.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. Had he said—could he possibly have said—what I thought he’d said?
“Jesse,” I said. “I don’t think you understand. He wants to save you. To keep you from… from dying that night.”
“I understand,” Jesse said. “I understand that Paul is a fool who thinks he’s God. I don’t know what makes him think it’s his right to play with my destiny. But I do know he’s not going to succeed. Not if I can stop him.”
My circulation seemed to spring to life. Suddenly, I could breathe again. Relief washed over me in waves.