“What?” Jazz asks.
“I don’t care how deep the snow is on either side, none of you are walking on the actual track. Okay?”
“Safety first,” Max chuckles.
“Laugh all you want. Trains can’t stop like cars. And in the storm, we won’t hear them coming.”
“You’re being ridiculous. Let’s just go.”
The four of us squeeze together across the sidewalk, with Max trailing half on, half off. The wind moans high and then low like a siren as it flings snow in our faces. I hook one arm around Max’s elbow, the other around Jasmine’s. Together we stumble through it.
Before even reaching the intersection, we turn off the block, and I have to let go of them so they can climb over the chain-link fence.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I say.
“C’mon, just do it.” Max takes my backpack from me, but it’s impossible to jam my toe in the diamond of wire to start the climb.
“Here.” Max bends a little, cupping his hands to provide a ladder step for me.
I step on his palms quickly, and he lifts as I fling one leg, then the other, over the top. Then I let go and drop hard on the ground.
Jazz lands an instant after, and the guys throw the backpacks to us. Cameron scrambles over, no problem, but Max with his wide feet has the same trouble as I did.
“Take your boots off,” I suggest.
“Or you’ll have to go around,” Jazz says.
Max shakes his head but pitches his boots over to us. He winces as he squeezes his toes in the wire holes, foot by foot. Then he’s over, too, shoving his wet feet back into his boots.
We pick up our backpacks and start the hike along the snowbank, two of us at either side of the tracks. I keep looking back and trying to make out sounds, even though we should be perfectly safe on these banks. A few steps along, Jazz sinks up to her knees and, when she hoists her foot up, her boot comes off. “This is ridiculous; we’re walking there. It’s been plowed.” Cameron helps her get out of the snow and, with her boot back on, they start to walk down the center of the track.
“No, no, you can’t!” Despite the cold, my face heats up like it’s on fire. I hold my head in my hands.
“Why are you so worried?” Max asks gently, taking one hand away.
I can’t say anything for a moment. Even if the rules didn’t forbid me from warning anyone based on knowledge gained from the last take of this week, no one would believe me. I take a breath. “Because I had a nightmare about this.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll keep walking with you here, then.” He speaks softly as though he’s trying to calm a little kid.
Whatever. I want Jazz and Cameron off the track, too. I came back this week to stand up for her, to save her, and I thought we had a deal. But they’re already too far ahead for me to argue with them. As we trudge on, hoisting our feet up and over the snow, I feel my body get hotter and my energy drain. We’re a warehouse building away from the overpass when I get stuck right up to mid-thigh. I fling myself backward and blow the bangs from my eyes. I want to melt into the cold snow.
Max grabs my arm and pulls, up and up. He forces me to climb out. “Look. We’ll walk on the track; it will be fine. Dreams are just dreams,” he says.
“You don’t understand. We won’t be able to get off in time.”
“I’ll walk backward. I’ll watch out for the rest of us,” Max says.
“No. That won’t work.” He does have a good idea, though. “It has to be me. I won’t be able to walk unless I personally know at all times that there is no train coming.”
“Okay.”
Both of us step up to the snow-covered gravel between the two metal rails. I look toward the overpass. A short walk home that is going to take forever, if I even make it home at all.
Max holds my hand as I stumble sideways, always squinting to make out that all-important train headlight, always listening to identify random sounds.
“I think that’s them!” Jazz calls back to us.
I face forward and peer in the direction she points. Five bodies shuffle up the overpass. Five against four, way better odds than ten against one or even two. Will they really wait there in the storm for us? Maybe that’s why there are only five of them. Five on first watch, while the others hang around in the doughnut shop warming up for the next shift.
“Just keep going. Hurry!” I tell her.
Cameron and Jazz run, and the figures climbing the overpass don’t seem to notice us.
But then I feel the rumble under my feet, thunder from the ground. I hear the long and short wail of the horn. Through the falling white, I make out the lone round headlight.
The train catches the attention of the figures on the top of the overpass, too, and when they look down to see the train, they also spot us.
“There they are!” Kierstead’s voice yells. “Let’s get ’em!”
Four of them begin running down the overpass, but one person stays at the top. Her hands grab the railing.
“Get off the track, Jazz. Cameron. Max!” I wave my arm and they jump to one side instantly. I step back into the high snow with Max. Deep snow and all, we begin running.
The person on the overpass hoists herself up, one leg over, then the other.
No!
The figure drops down like a sack of cement. She lands on her feet but falls to her side across the track.
“Vanessa, get up!” I scream.
The train howls short and long again.
All she has to do is roll over a couple of times. She raises her head. I see her hazel eyes. They look dead.
Vanessa doesn’t move.
There are only a couple of heartbeats of time in which you get to decide to do things and then you can regret what you don’t do for an eternity. I think I can change my fate but maybe I just can’t, not without taking out someone else instead of me.
I scramble back onto the track and reach for Vanessa. My hands connect with her back and I shove as hard as I can, which means her body moves. Far enough? I have about a second to wonder. Mine has moved, too, though. I feel the hot wind from the engine and scream as I try to throw myself to the side. Something impacts with my head. Hard. Like a rocket. Everything in front of me shatters into white and gold shards. Nothing hurts, though. There is no blackness.
Back at the Beach
I blink a few times, clearing my eyes of the excess liquid. I inhale deeply and make out the white snow. Strangely, it feels hot against my face. I roll to my feet and stand up.
“You’re back.” It’s Kim’s voice. My sister. The sun glows around her silhouette.
I blink again and realize the snow is actually sand. No boots on my feet anymore. I wiggle my toes, and the hot sugary texture feels nice. Of course, this all means that my real body is lying on that hospital bed. “For a little while back there, I thought I could beat death,” I tell her, discouraged.
“You did a great thing back there.” Kim smiles at me. She seems a lot happier than the previous two times I saw her. “You didn’t owe that witch anything.”
I nod. “Vanessa is easy to hate. But I saw her eyes and felt sorry, too, you know?”
“You care about people more.” Kim’s voice sounds warmer than before.
“Did I save her?” I ask.
“From the train, yes.” Kim tilts her head, and I see her bottom lip fold.
“Are you saying Vanessa is just going to commit suicide some other time, when I’m not around?” I ask.
“I can’t tell the future,” Kim says. “But she’s in the hospital with you. She’ll get psychiatric counseling. Mrs. Norr knows about her problems with her mother. She has a way better chance than I did with the E. coli.” Kim’s smile droops.
“Oh, Kimmee, I would have given anything to save you.”
Her head bows so that her chin touches her chest.
“If they had let me, I would have given you my kidney. I would have gone to India to do it. You know I would have.”
I reach out and hug her. Solid flesh, exactly like my own. Her hair on the back of my arm feels silky, her back bony. She is beautiful, though. Am I that beautiful? Uncle Jack and Aunt Bev think so. Max, too.
She hugs me tightly.
I see her tears and feel my own.
“You don’t want to be with me, do you?” she asks gently.
“Why? What is it, Kim? Is Mom never going to let me go? Do you have to go on without me?”
Kim shrugs.
“I told Mom and Dad I wanted them to give away my organs. If I’m brain-dead, they should be taking those away soon.”
Saying nothing, Kim turns and walks toward the ocean.
“What more can I do?” I feel her sorrow, heavy like an anchor. She has been lonely, just like me. For seven years she has missed me, too.
She beckons with her hand to follow.
I walk slowly after her, into the icy water that stings with salt.
“See?” she says as she moves her fingers in the water.
I look down and feel myself drifting and drifting.
Between Two Worlds
When I can focus again, I see four beige cinderblock walls around me. Where am I?
Ahead of me I see my mother sitting hunched over a body on a bed, holding a hand, my hand, and talking. “You listen to me. You need to wake up. You’re too young to die. There’s no reason for this.”
“I’m with Kimberly now,” I say. “I’m with my sister. Let me go. Give away my kidney.” My vision of the room fades and I see Kim.
“Sis?” She holds out her hand. “Come with me. Let’s go exploring.” She smiles, showing those perfect straight teeth I had to wear braces for three years to achieve.
I reach out. But then I hear my mother start to cry. Her pain tears at my heart. I want to do just about anything to comfort her.
“Stop being so stubborn!” I yell at Mom, and the vision of Kim fades to that hospital room again. “I’m dead. We didn’t even try to save Kim. Let’s save somebody else at least!”
Mom sobs harder. I move forward and wrap my arms around her shoulders. “I love you, Mom,” I whisper. “I wish I had been born to you, wish I looked like you. Wish I could grow up to be like you.”
“If you can hear me, squeeze my hand,” she begs.
“It’s no use, Mom. I’m not in there.” I try to pick up her other hand and squeeze it. Nothing.
“All right. You can’t squeeze my hand. At least blink your eyes. If you can blink your eyes, you can come back to me. You just have to want to come back to me, Paige. Paige, try!”
She makes me want to come back more than anything else. I would hold Max’s hand again, enjoy his kisses, watch him grow tall and handsome. I would score more volleyball serves, I would graduate from high school, I would help Jazz reason with her parents so we could study biology in university together. Eat every kind of food in the world. Visit China, maybe even India.
Something starts to pull at me, like some kind of vacuum cleaner inside of me tugging me this way and that. “My best friend, my sister!” I say.
“Go ahead, blink your eyes if you want to,” Kim says sadly from somewhere behind me.
My eyes feel heavy just then, but I struggle. “Kimmee?”
She comes back into focus.
I throw my arms around her. “I love you, Kim, and I’d give anything to have you back in my life.”
“Please, Paige.” Mom’s voice.
“But you don’t have life if you choose to be with me,” Kim interrupts. Her voice drops. “You love your mother more.”
“In an entirely different way.” I shrug my shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Kim. I feel more connected to her.”
Kim’s head hangs down. “But we’re blood related. Our DNA is exactly the same.”
“Will you always be here for me, no matter when I die?” I ask.
She places one hand over her heart and reaches the other hand out to mine. I place my hand over it.
“Blink your eyes, Paige,” my mother calls. “You can do it.”
I let my lids drop and squeeze tightly. “Good-bye, Kim.” I feel everything inside me get sucked away. Suddenly, I can move nothing except my eyelids. I blink them again.
“Good-bye, Paige.” I hear a voice as if from the end of a long passageway in my head.
“Paige, you did it!” Mom yells.
Every muscle, every bone, every pore pulses with pain.
“Doctor, nurse! Come quickly, she’s back! My baby came back to me!”
I try to smile, but don’t think my lips lift. See you later, Kim! I send that thought back to my sister.
Another time, another place, I won’t be able to sidestep death, and then I will be with her again. Will we both be young with smooth skin and long hair? Or will we have gray hair and wrinkles? Will someone be able to use the parts of my body? Who knows? It will depend on the choices I make and the hand fate deals me. For now, I take a deep, labored breath. I need to work on getting better so that I can live out the rest of my life.
THE END
Best Friends Through Eternity Page 13