Touching the Surface

by Sabatini, Kimberly

  I could feel myself reverting from warm and open Elliot, to the more familiar prickly defensive one.

  “What are you saying?” I snipped, touching my finger to my lips. I’d thought the kiss had been pretty good.

  “You’re so easy to read,” Trevor said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, first it means that you always jump to the worst conclusions, like thinking that I stopped because I didn’t like kissing you.”

  I hated being easy to read.

  “You said first. What’s the rest?” I demanded.

  He pointed to his shirt. “ ‘Boldly going nowhere’ is what will happen if we don’t finish this. I know you well enough to know you’re not going to want to Delve any further. Can’t you feel how close we are?”

  That was the second thing? What about . . . Secondly, Turner, you jumped to the conclusion that I was saying our relationship was going nowhere. The reality is that I am falling in love with you. . . . Apparently, I had a vivid imagination to go with my chickenshit personality. The truth of it was like a scab being ripped off. The ripping didn’t hurt, but the throbbing afterward seemed to go on forever. The worst part was to be your PassengerguhibI that I didn’t think I could help being in love with him anymore. Maybe if we hadn’t Delved I would’ve been able to focus on his crabby, mean side. But after falling in love with him in the past, I couldn’t help but see the softer side of his soul.

  “Elliot? Am I right? Or are you going to surprise me and tell me you’re willing to Delve further?”

  “It hurts,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself. I had no intention of ever Delving again. Maybe I could run away. I didn’t know what was beyond the beyond, but maybe I could hide from it. I got a sudden chill picturing the Obmil like a giant snow globe, a beautiful place with no escape.

  “There’s nowhere else to go,” Trevor said. I hated how he seemed to get inside my head.

  “I can’t find out the rest,” I said. I felt the knot of terror in my gut and realized that subconsciously I’d been worrying about this long before I’d even understood it. “I can’t watch myself commit suicide. I don’t want to go back there anymore.” I was bottomless in my capacity to fail.

  “You don’t know for sure that’s what happens.” His fingers running through his hair gave away his uncertainty.

  “It’s pretty damn likely, don’t you think?”

  Trevor admitted nothing, but his T-shirt went blank.

  “So what if you did commit suicide? What would be the worst thing that could happen?”

  I could barely speak. “I believe that maybe the stories are true. I think that taking your own life is unforgivable. The taboo around it is so strong and there must be a reason for that. I’ll be sent to . . .”

  My voice broke and I was unable to finish. Trevor’s face was stone. It seemed so cruel, to struggle through my issues and to come out on the other side, only to figure out that I’d screwed up royally from the start and now I was going to pay the price.

  “We have no proof that there even is a hell,” he said.

  “You also can’t prove that there isn’t one,” I countered.

  His face softened ever so slightly, yet it caused a painful tightening in my chest. What if I was doomed one way or another, but Trevor needed me in order to find his way out of the Obmil? And what if Oliver was depending on me to finish what I’d started so he could have his own life back? I loved them both. Could I really let them down like that?

  “Have you been carrying this around with you the whole time?” Trevor asked, pulling me away from my thoughts.

  “No, not originally.” I thought back to those early Delves. “It was a likely outcome in the beginning. How do you survive after doing what I did to Oliver? But I was so distracted at first that I just didn’t think it through. Then, when I remembered meeting you and saw what you meant to Elliot, I became hopeful. But things have been going downhill rapidly since we went back to school. Cari was sort of the tipping point. I think she just pushed me over the edge.”

  “Hate her,” Trevor said.

  Was it wrong that I wanted to hug him for that?

  “What do you think it’s like? Hell, I mean. I can’t get past the image of heat and flames. Or the absence of fluffy white clouds in a perfect blue sky. to be your PassengerJulia hibI ” I could feel myself choking up again.

  “You’re not going to hell, Elliot,” Trevor said. His teeth were clenched tightly together. Under his breath he mloors, but in

  25

  falling

  or

  flying?

  This kiss was an electric shock, but something wasn’t right. We hadn’t Delved. I raggedly pulled away, confused. We were still standing in the same spot. I wriggled myself out of his arms, spun around in disbelief.

  “Am I boring you?” asked Trevor.

  “No. I just thought we were going to Delve. We didn’t go anywhere.” Couldn’t anything about this place be predictable?

  “You trying to get rid of me?”

  “Nah,” I said, still trying to figure out how it was that we could drop into the past without a moment’s notice when I was unprepared and now that I was determined to meet my fate—nothing. Nada.

  Trevor glanced down. “Unbelievable. Is that the best you could come up with?” he asked.

  “What? Best of what?”

  “Your T-shirt. Very romantic. Is that your evor asked slo

  26

  remembering

  blue

  The drop, which should have taken mere seconds, seemed endless, as if we were hanging between earth and sky. We were momentarily suspended between the best and the worst of us. It occurred to me that as scary as this was, falling together was better than falling apart.

  I saw shades of blue beneath me and I angled our bodies to enter the water in a dive. There would be no last-minute change of direction for us. I could feel Trevor’s breath warm in my ear as he whispered the single word remember . . .

  • • •

  I barely noticed the trail or the rain. The only thing that drummed through my head was the need to escape. The calm that had bucked me up moments ago had been replaced by blind panic and rage. I moved along the slippery rocks without a hand to hold, imploding with the realization that I would never be allowed to love Trevor.

  I knew that if I stayed in this life, with these people, I would have no hope.

  More gut-wrenching sobs racked my body as I stumbled and slid back down five feet of loose rock, scraping my knees and cutting the palms of my hands.

  It seemed wrong to welcome the distraction of physical pain, but it also kept me froms playful expr

  27

  frozen

  in

  place

  I could still feel Trevor attached to me when my head broke the water. I instinctively wrapped myself tightly around him as we bobbed in the middle of the lake. No sooner was I curled up against him, than I started to worry that my weight would make it impossible for him to tread water. It was deep here, maybe even bottomless. I tried to break away from him, but his arm was like an iron band around my waist.

  “The dead don’t die, Elliot. When are you going to remember that?” There was a bite to his words.

  “Oh.” The reality of our unreality sank back in. I was still feeling relief that I hadn’t killed myself in a momentous leap, but there’d been consequences for my choices. I’d put myself on the edge, in a place where to be your PassengerlvhiI bit my lipI had very little control. How far can you push chance before it isn’t chance anymore? I swept the thought aside, opting to leave my subconscious out of the thought process. I hadn’t jumped. That was all I needed to know.

  I pulled myself out of my memories. Something wasn’t right. I was suddenly freezing, my teeth chattering. Glancing around I could see why. The Obmil was coated in snow and ice. Everywhere I looked it was as if the White Witch’s Narnia had sprung up. I sucked in a shocked breath and the cold air b
urned my lungs.

  I turned my head to see what Trevor thought of this new development but when I saw his face, I knew. He’d created this winter. The pain was frozen on his face and his eyes were ice. I wondered if he was frozen all the way to his heart.

  “Trevor?” I asked. I reached up to stroke his face.

  “Don’t,” he growled as he pulled me closer to him.

  I didn’t understand his intense reaction. We knew everything now. We had the last of our memories back. We had a chance at a fresh start and yet he seemed to be shutting down, while I only felt relief. I wouldn’t be carted off to hell, ripped from his arms. It was easy to see what had happened now. I had fallen and then he had jumped . . . “Oh my God—NO!” I shouted. “It was an accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident.” He sounded as cold as the icicles hanging like daggers from the surrounding trees. “I went after you.”

  “Then it’s fine,” I said as soothingly as I could manage with my teeth chattering. “You were trying to save me again, like you saved me when I found you at Oliver’s grave. You loved me despite myself. Our time together was short-lived, but it’s all right. Now I have you back again. We can move on together.”

  “Here, let me help you. Put your hands on the ice.” Trevor cupped his hands around my foot and helped to elevate me out of the water. When I turned around he was still bobbing in the small hole in the quickly thickening frozen lake.

  “Give me your hand.” I kept trying to picture a warm front, but nothing was working. Trevor’s creation was just too powerful. “Come on, I’ll pull you up,” I said as I reached trembling fingers out to him.

  “You don’t get it, Elliot. I didn’t jump after you to save you.”

  “You slipped too?” I whispered.

  “No! I came after you.” His words were painfully slow and deliberate. “I remember.” His voice was bitter. “I jumped knowing full well that you would shatter into a million pieces. I knew that there would be nothing left to save. I jumped anyway.”

  “Then why?” I asked, unable to think straight in the icy cold.

  “Do you really want to know the ugly truth?” he barked at me without waiting for an answer. “In those endless moments when I saw you slip and fall, everything stopped. My life flashed before me. I realized that until I’d let you into my heart, I hadn’t lived at all. Right before your back hit the water, our eyes met and I knew that I would go to hell and back for you.”

  I pressed my fingers into my temples. It was beginning to sink in.

  “And,” he continued, “if everything we suspected is true, I just might be on my way there—without you.”_ shibI

  It was like a dam had burst. Wild ideas, things I hadn’t allowed myself to investigate, came flying at me from every direction. Horrified, I turned away, not wanting Trevor to see my thoughts. I couldn’t make a sound.

  “Elliot, I need to get out of here.”

  I reached for him.

  “Not with you,” he said, his voice heavy.

  My tears burned hot tracks down my frozen face. I tried to suck in enough air to say the words that would keep him here, but I couldn’t breathe.

  “Don’t you realize how hard it is, knowing that I may never . . .”

  “It’s just rumors,” I said. I was shivering uncontrollably now. “That’s what you told me. We don’t know anything. No one knows what comes after here. Let’s go find Mel. She’ll be able to help us. This can’t be as bad as you think.” Prattling on, I tried to keep him close and my fear at bay.

  “You find Mel. I’ve got to get out of here.”

  As I reached for him, he ducked under the dark gray water. My fingers slammed into the ice, as the hole froze solid over his head. My only consolation was that he was already dead, as he so often reminded me. It didn’t make me worry less.

  The top of the lake was a thick sheet of ice. I bent down and ran my hand along the surface, thinking about the walls we build when we’re scared and vulnerable. I concentrated, thinking the warmest thoughts I could—a kiss from Trevor. The memory made my face flush but his flash-frozen anger was untouchable. When I could no longer feel my hand, I stood up and faced the shore. I tried not to think of Mel keeping her distance and of Oliver, so obviously hurt and angry. I needed them now.

  I turned around one more time to see if Trevor had decided to stay with me after all. He hadn’t. He must’ve swum to the other side of the lake, exited the water, and headed up another section of trail. As he moved northward, the previously green landscape was icing over.

  Now I understood. Trevor’s raw feelings were too strong for me to affect them. I couldn’t breach the wall of ice that he’d placed between us. I’d never seen anyone impact the environment so powerfully. It scared me that he was pushing everyone else’s thoughts out of the picture. He was such an emotional force right now that I hadn’t even been able to cocreate with him.

  I moved closer to the shore and felt a subtle thaw. As I ran, the distance between us grew and so did the variation in temperature. The thick ice was now making groaning noises under my weight. Even though I knew nothing would actually happen to me, I shivered at the thought of breaking through the frozen water. Trevor hadn’t needed to come up from underneath the ice to breathe, but I still resisted, unable to shake my innate fear of drowning.

  I placed one foot on the ladder leading up to the dock, when my other hiking boot crashed through the ice, sending frigid shards under my pant leg and into my sock. I yanked my already dry foot out of the water. The last time I’d come up out of the lake, Mel had been there to greet me. It felt strange and lonely to walk up that path alone.

  I stopped short, realizing I wasn’t by myself after all. Julia was perched atop a large boulder, sitting all cross-legged and Zen-like. She hadn’t said a word, but she was watching every move that I made. How long had she been here? What had she seen?

  to be your PassengerI love youhibI “He’s not here.” I bristled, unsure if it was because I suspected she was searching for Trevor or because I didn’t have him.

  Julia opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but before she could mess with my head again, I pointed at her. “Do. Not. Say. It.”

  “But I—” Julia stood up on the boulder. I took a step in her direction.

  “I said, don’t say a word. I’ve had enough of your mixed messages.” My voice took on a high-pitched imitation of hers. “I don’t want to room with you. Or be your friend. But I love you and I’ll make you paper cranes to prove it.” I was so close now that I had to tilt my head backward in order to stay in her face.

  “Is that what you think?” Her face went blank for all of thirty seconds and I expected her to melt into tears. I realized my mistake right as the shock wave of anger hit me, blasting me into a Delve so hard I was blown over on my back.

  • • •

  “Julia, open-this-door-NOW!”

  Julia’s mother. I could hear her banging her fist against the door and swiveling the knob. The only thing I could see was the ceiling. Julia wasn’t moving.

  “Fine, I’ll get the key. I am coming in, aid="SJGSM">I

  28

  choose

  your

  coincidence

  I practically flew to the doors of the school, but when I got there my heart sank. They were exactly as only I’d imagine them. There wasn’t a touch of frozen, urban grime anywhere. Nothing that would tell me Trevor was nearby.

  My steps quickened as I hurried down the vacant hall, hearing only the faint echo of a rubber squeak every time I took a step with my left foot. Each tread announced the return of the prodigal dead girl.

  Mel’s door was ajar. I stood gripping the cool metal of the doorknob, making a half-baked attempt to control my heavy breathing. I was just about to plow through the door and rally Mel and Oliver to help find Trevor when something stopped me. The rest of the class was talking. I froze in place, my ear tuned to the disgruntled sound.

  “I don’t know why we have to
be here when our remaining Third Timers don’t even feel it’s necessary to show up,” said an annoyed guy, possibly a suit. “Now that Lily’s moved on, what are we supposed to do without someone to Delve?”

  There was a chorus of agreement.

  I felt instant relief that I didn’t have to Delve with Lily again, but it was mingled with equal parts shame and regret. I hadn’t made the effort to know her, let alone help her. I didn’t even say good-bye.

  “First of all,” said Mel, “Trevor and Elliot need us here.” I heard bangles jingle and pictured her pointing her finger at the spot where she was standing.

  “Actually, it’s pretty clear they don’t need us. Obviously, they think its easier to figure stuff out on their own,” came another voice filled with indignation.

  “You never know when they’re going to walk through that door,” Mel continued. “There’s also a second important reason for being here.”

  I sensed, without looking, that her eyebrow was in action. Despite my nerves, I had a moment of sympathy for the group. I knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that eyebrow.

  “What’s the second reason?” came an unfamiliar voice.

  “Coincidence, of course.”

  “Coincidence?” It sounded like the whole room was thinking out loud.

  “What about it?” someone asked.

  “I don’t think it exists,” said Mel.

  There was dead silence.

  Mel waited a few beats before continuing. “Everything that is occurring, or in this case not occurring, may be exactly what’s supposed to happen.”

  Someone else quipped back angrily, “That would mean we have no free choice. Should we just sit here passively and let the afterlife just happen to us?”

  “I said there was no coincidence. I didn’t say that everything is predetermined. Life and death unfold and every moment is a mystery to all of us, but the mystery isn’t that it happens, it’s what we do with it,” Mel kept going, not letting anyone interrupt. “Let me give you an example of my thought process.”