13

I’M FROZEN IN PLACE EVEN though the memory has faded. I don’t try to abate the sting attacking every inch of me because I deserve the pain. I kissed someone who wasn’t Ethan—had been kissing him for three whole weeks. I can’t hide this from him. I have no idea how I rationalized hiding it—or doing it!—when I was alive, but now that I’m, well, not, it seems utterly impossible.

The events of that day—my last ever birthday—are hazy and slow. Shaw had hurried home after his last class of the week for dinner, and he and Joules hung streamers across the archway into the living room. I remember feeling bad for making him wait to see me because I was late for dinner. They’d held off eating; the veggie lasagna was cold and the ice cream cake puddled around the edges of my dessert plate like a mint-green moat while Mom asked me over and over why I was being so quiet. I wish there was a dial I could adjust to bring things into focus.

I blink my eyes a few times and see Ethan sitting cross-legged in his desk chair, right where I left him. When he pushes his hand through his unwashed but still completely adorable spiky hair and rubs the back of his neck the way he always does when he sees me walking toward him between classes, I know I have no choice. I have to tell him. Besides, what’s the worst that can happen? I’m already dead.

He uncrosses his legs and leans toward me. My resolve to tell the truth cracks around the edges.

“Ethan,” I start. This is the part where I would take a deep breath if I were alive. But I’m not, and right about now, that police ruling on my death sounds pretty accurate. If I’d felt this deplorable on Saturday, I might have jumped. Maybe after I tell him I’ll be gone for good. Maybe this is what I’m back to do: to tell Ethan the truth. I push forward before the consequences of that possibility can sink in.

“I have to tell you something,” I start again.

“You already told me about your parents. Do you remember?”

I don’t answer.

He rolls across the room in his desk chair and pulls me closer so I’m standing between his legs with his arms warm around my waist. “You’re upset, I know. I’m sorry about what I said about your mom and dad. You’re right, I don’t know what it’s like to have parents who fight, but—”

I interrupt him. “Ethan, that’s not it.” Closing my eyes, I press my hand over the spot where my horseshoe necklace rests on my chest. “I … I lied to you.”

He drops his arms and waits for me to continue. The warmth from his touch slowly wicks away, leaving me cold and exposed.

“Do you remember our first kiss?” The words are out before I know I’m speaking. Ethan nods slowly. “That was my first kiss. I told you it wasn’t, but I lied.”

He leans back so I can see his confused face. “Why are you telling me this?”

I hold my tongue even though I know exactly why I told him. I told him because I feel like I need to rectify every lie I’ve ever breathed. Even more, I want him to think back to that kiss on the covered bridge the summer before our freshman year and remember how we’ve been together ever since and realize that if he was my first kiss it means he was my only kiss. Ever. I want him to believe it no matter what it costs. I want that to be the one memory about me he never forgets his entire life and after. Even if it’s not true.

“I know,” he says.

“But how?”

“I know your tell, Cassi.” He tugs on my bottom lip and offers me a small smile, then twines his fingers between mine. We both sigh at the rush of heat. “I was on my way to scrape together a late lunch. Want to come?”

I’m a little embarrassed to admit I don’t eat anymore, so I nod instead.

From my perch on his kitchen counter, I watch him pour a bowl of Froot Loops. It’s the closest thing to a multiple-food-group meal I’ve seen him eat in days. I keep trying to find lulls in his activity so I can tell him about Caleb, but there’s a lightness to his movements that I haven’t seen since before the party and he keeps smiling at me.

How am I going to do this?

He sets his bowl next to my crisscrossed legs and scoops up a bite. He hesitates between spoonfuls, lost in some thought I don’t try to figure out because I’m lost in him. I’m lost in the deepness of his eyes, the natural shine of his golden-brown hair, the casual slant of his hips as he stands in front of me.

It’s easy to get used to a beautiful painting hanging in a hallway after you’ve walked by it a few hundred times. The colors lose their vibrancy and the impact of the composition lessens, but I never thought that could be true for a person. Looking at him now, noticing how smooth his jawline is and how perfectly balanced his height is with his sort of smallish muscles that you wouldn’t notice unless you were lucky enough to touch his arms or chest, I realize I let myself get used to his beauty. I was the lucky one, and I let myself forget.

I can’t tell him.

I’ve already put him through so much, dying and coming back and all, and he finally seems comfortable with Ghost Me. Telling him would make things so much worse. And I would lose him all over again. A sharp stab of absolute terror cuts through me. I reach out for him, afraid he’s already vanished.

Every time we touch, it’s still this astonishing event. For a split second before I make contact, I always worry I’ll melt right through him. I hesitate inches from his chest with my fingers spread wide. I glance up at his face to see if he notices how I’ve moved. He doesn’t at first, but the second our eyes lock his back stiffens. I’m full of anticipation and fear and about a million other feelings I can’t concentrate on because I can hear his heart beating through his thin T-shirt. He’s holding his breath, but I can feel the slight rise and fall of his chest under the spot where my palm presses against his warm flesh.

He exhales the breath he was holding, and I breathe in his sweet air—really breathe it. The sensation tingles up my neck, out through my veins, to my arms and legs. I dig my fingertips into his muscles, double-checking that I don’t slide through. I can feel my bones solidifying as he encircles me in his arms.

Behind my eyes, I see the time he hugged me in the center of the bleachers at the first football game of freshman year. That was always my favorite hug anyone had ever given me. It was before we were technically together but after our first kiss on the covered bridge. The giddy rush I felt when he picked me up and spun me around while the whole school watched was exactly how I wished every hug I received from that point on would feel.

This is so much better.

Too soon Ethan releases me, but he keeps hold of my hands. We both stare at my pearlescent skin against his. The way it glints in the sinking afternoon sun streaming in through the window makes the moment seem even more unbelievable.

Ethan tilts his head, looks down at me, and says through a crooked smile, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this.”

A smile breaks across my face, too. This is us—how we’re supposed to be, or as close as I can hope to get now. I can’t lose it. No matter what.

I twist my fingers in his unstyled hair. It’s incredibly soft without the pomade he usually puts in it to keep his bangs spiked.

“How hard is that for you to do?” he asks.

“What, this?” I comb my fingers deeper through his hair. “Not one bit. I don’t even have to try.” I give his sideburns a little tweak before pulling my hand back.

“That’s good. That means you have the ability to touch things.”

I shake my head. “Not things, you.”

He lets go of my other hand and holds up his cereal bowl. “Wanna try to put this in the sink for me?” I give him a skeptical look, and he nods. “Too soon.” He sets the bowl in the sink and offers me his hand.

I don’t take it right away. I’m almost certain I’ll never be able to open doors or hold a cereal bowl ever again, but he seems so excited by the prospect. It’s enough for me to simply graze my fingertips along the back of his hand. When his fingers lace with mine, I wonder if I’ll ever get used to the new heat of his skin against mine; if time will desensitize me again; if I’ll have enough time in this afterlife to find out.

I float down from the counter and change the subject. “So we have another hour before your parents get home from work. What should we do?”

“That’s probably one of the only advantages to our … arrangement. It doesn’t matter when my parents come home. They can’t see you.”

“Yeah, but what are they going to say when they see you talking to appliances?” I gesture to the toaster sitting on the counter behind me.

He smiles a wry smile. “I think they’ll give me some leeway for grieving. I should be able to get away with acting mental for a couple more weeks, at least.”

I slip my hand out of his and fold my arms over my chest. “I’m making this harder for you, aren’t I? It was bad enough that I—” He jumps in before I can finish.

“The first day … I didn’t think it could get any harder. And then I saw you in my room that morning and I thought I’d dreamed you, but it felt so real.” He pauses. “That was worse. Having you back for only a moment, then losing you again.”

I look away from him. No matter how any of this turns out, I fear that exact thing will happen: he will lose me again. He smooths his fingertips across my cheekbone and my head lifts like he’s drawn me up to him.

“But I have you back now.”

“For how long?” I ask despite myself. “Neither of us knows what the rules are here, how much time I get. But even if I have forever, it’s going to get real weird real fast being with someone nobody else can see.” Ethan tries to interject, but I press forward. “Think about it. You’ll be showing up at parties and tailgates and prom alone.” I make finger quotes around the last word. “Eventually you’re going to want a real girlfriend.”

“You are real,” Ethan says adamantly. I start to shake my head, but he presses a hand on either side of my face. “I can feel you and see you and smell you.”

My expression softens. “Really? You can still smell me?” He nods. “I can’t … not anymore.” He doesn’t say anything. “Do I smell different now?”

He smiles to himself. “It’s you after you get out of your pool and the chlorine’s worn off and you’re wet and clean and the flowery smell from your shampoo and lotion is gone.” He tucks my hair behind my ear and inhales. “It’s you. Completely, purely you.”

The only response I can muster is, “Oh.” How did I ever take him for granted? Never again.

“That’s how I knew you were real,” he continues. “I could never mistake your scent.” He looks down at my feet, positioned in a wide V, and smirks. “And that goofy ballet stance didn’t hurt either.”

I give him a playful shove.

“I have an idea for what we can do while we still have the house to ourselves,” Ethan says with an excited grin. He looks over his shoulder and does one of those two-fingered whistles I’ve always wanted to be able to do. Wendell comes trotting up from the basement.

“Ethan, I’ve already tried to pet Wendell. It didn’t work.” I give the dog an apologetic smile. He shakes his head, leaving one ear flopped the wrong way.

“That’s not what I’m using him for.” He points to the front door and Wendell launches into full retriever mode. “Stand guard, Wend.” Wendell obediently sits on the welcome mat, staring at the door.

I watch his bushy tail swish from side to side, remembering how geeked up the dog gets when Mr. Keys comes home from work. It’s the only time he barks. “Okay. So whatever it is, you need a lookout to let you know when we’re not alone anymore.”

He nods but doesn’t give anything else away. “Do you remember what we did the first time we were alone?”

“You mean like on a date?”

“No, like with no one else around.”

My forehead scrunches up as I try to remember. I think I know, but it can’t be what he has in mind.

“Mrs. Dunam’s English block in eighth grade.” I was right. “She was always late for class for some random reason.”

“She smoked between classes in her car,” I inform him.

“Seriously?” He laughs.

I nod. “I saw her once when my dad came to pick me up for a dentist appointment.”

“Huh.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I was always early because my Social Studies class was right next door and you were early that day because you said you hadn’t finished the homework, so I gave you mine to copy and you wouldn’t use it.”

“I didn’t say no,” I correct him, trying to figure out where he’s going with this.

“Yeah, you took it, but it sat on your desk while you filled in your own answers and you never looked at it once.”

I let out a short laugh. “How do you know that?”

“I thought you didn’t like me or that you thought I was too dumb to copy off or something.”

“I just didn’t want to cheat.” The word stretches between us, pushing us apart.

Cheeeeeat.

“So I did homework,” I say to fill the gap, “and you watched me so we…?”

“That’s not the part I’m thinking about.” I wave my hand for him to go on. “You changed two of my answers to make them correct.”

“No, I didn’t.” He points at my face when the corner of my mouth twitches at the lie. “I thought I never looked at your paper.”

He starts down the back hall, towing me by the hand. I feel unbelievably light knowing he can take my hand on a whim like that. “Before you handed in our assignments you pretended mine was yours and made the changes right on Mrs. Dunam’s desk. It surprised me because you’re usually such a terrible liar, but you made the changes pretty slyly.”

“How did you know I was a bad liar? We didn’t even talk back then.”

He shrugs. “You pretended not to know the answers to a couple of Dunam’s questions that week.”

Luke Newman sat next to me that semester and soon became my “boyfriend,” whatever that means in eighth grade. He was the first boy who said hi to me that wasn’t a friend of a friend or knew my brother, so I said yes when he so eloquently asked me if he could tell his friends we were going out. I didn’t want him to think I was a brain because I’d seen his less-than-stellar test scores, so I dumbed myself down in class. It was stupid. We broke up two weeks later.

Ethan stops in front of the den and turns to face me. “I told my friends I was going to ask you to the spring dance after that, but I knew you were on the dance team and I wasn’t exactly light on my feet.”

I cross my arms. Ethan is an awesome dancer and he never asked me to the eighth-grade dance. “None of this happened,” I protest. There’s a giggle in my voice from the walk down happy memory lane.

“It did,” he says emphatically. “I didn’t want to make a fool of myself so I took lessons from a friend of my mom’s, but you already had a date by the time I was ready to ask you.”

Stupid Luke Newman.

“So why didn’t you cut in at the dance? I would’ve said yes.”

“I didn’t go.” He has this look in his eyes like he wants to tell me something more, but the words won’t come. I look down at our joined hands and try to remember what the answers were to the questions on that homework that I changed for him.

After a long minute he says, “Let’s dance.”

I laugh a little and look behind me down the hall to make sure Wendell is still on watch. Ethan’s parents walking in on a seemingly solo slow dance would be beyond awkward. He lets go of my hand as he steps into the den and sifts through the vinyl collection stacked next to his dad’s old record player.

John Lennon’s raspy coo fills the room and after the first couple of lines a sweet harmony of voices joins him, accompanied by a laid-back drumbeat that triggers my memory.

“Remember this song?” Ethan asks.

“I remember you almost getting us kicked out of homecoming when the DJ refused to play it.”

“I learned a whole routine to this song and I never got to use it.”

As I stare at his outstretched hand a cloud passes in front of the sun, changing the light in the room from whitish yellow to gray. My skin goes cold. I have this vision of stepping onto the taupe carpet and turning around to a bricked-over doorway. No Ethan. No second chance.

He must sense my reluctance because he replaces the cover on the player and walks to me. “Dance with me?” He extends his hand with a slight bow like men do in old black-and-white movies. I lift my hand, then pull it back. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” I’m still terrified I might fall right through your arms, this moment, because I don’t deserve you after what I did.

Ethan takes hold of my right hand. He places his other hand low on my waist and my doubts float away. His feet step in perfect time with the music, guiding me in a loose box step. I think if I close my eyes it might feel like the last time I danced with him, before paper airplanes and basements and éclairs. So I do. I close my eyes and pretend I’m back there, but my muscles don’t respond as effortlessly to music as they used to. When I rise up on my toes to pivot at the corners of his box step, my right shoulder drops, throwing off my balance, and I wobble on unsteady ankles. I grit my teeth at the unsettling feeling of being uncoordinated. It’s an unwelcome reminder that dancer is on the depressingly long list of things I can no longer call myself. Along with alive.

“There are things I don’t remember.” Ethan’s warm breath against my neck pulls me back. “Little details that sorta seemed insignificant at the time, but now I can’t stop thinking about them.” He lifts my arm and dips me backward.

I lean into his hand a little longer than necessary and hope he notices. I hope he feels how much I want to be here with him and no one else. Ever.

“Like the color of those striped shorts you wore the day I got my car,” he continues.

“They were blue,” I say.

“That’s right.” He leans away from me only far enough so that I can see his face. “The blue matched your eyes.” He searches my face as if the color has leaked away and spilled across my cheeks.

“Are they still the same color?” I ask, suddenly nervous. “My eyes?” I glance down at my auburn hair grazing my shoulders. It hasn’t changed color, but my skin has and maybe other things have too.

He locks my gaze. “Yes. They look exactly the same. Nothing has changed.” He says it in a way that sounds like he wishes something had. “Cassi, I really am sorry about your parents.”

“I know,” I say definitively, truncating that line of conversation before it spoils this moment. “I remember the little moments,” I continue. “It’s the big ones that trip me up now.”

Neither of us says anything for a long time. It’s like the memories are so far off that they belong to two different people.

In the quiet, my thoughts drift back to my birthday party, trying to connect the bits of memory I have. I know Caleb was there, and that same week he made it very clear he wanted me to choose him over Ethan. Could he have been the person drinking schnapps with me on the bridge?

“Do you think the police are wrong about how I died?” I whisper to Ethan, thinking of Caleb and the silhouette standing over Other Me in the park.

Ethan’s feet stop moving, but his hands stay on me. “Do you?”

“I know I didn’t jump—I know it—but I’ve never heard a ghost story about a person who died accidentally. And I know I wasn’t alone on the bridge.”

“But you can’t remember who you were with?”

I shake my head. “It’s hazy. I can’t see his face.”

Ethan’s forehead wrinkles. “His? You know it was a guy? Do you have any idea who it could’ve been?”

If I tell him I think I was with Caleb he’ll definitely ask why. I’m not ready to go there with him. It’ll ruin the small piece of us we’ve recaptured, and I can’t bear losing that again.

Instead I say, “I know there has to be more to it than that I slipped.”