3

I LOOK DOWN AT MY HAND, blinking when I realize the red cup is gone and I’m holding someone else’s hand instead. But it’s not Madison’s or Caleb’s. These fingers fit snugly twined between mine, like they were meant to puzzle together. Only one person’s hand fits in mine so perfectly.

Ethan’s.

I want to wrap my arms around him and pull him close so I can see his gorgeous face, but sharp stabs burn through me when I move. As the pain slowly subsides, I realize I’m not outside anymore and it’s not last night. I’m back to reality—or, I guess, the present would be more accurate. And my mind is full of impossible questions that keep me from him.

Did I have a flashback? Blackout? Out-of-body experience? I guess, technically, everything is out-of-body for me now, but how did that happen? It’s like I dissolved into a parallel dimension where Saturday night is still running on a constant loop and I relived a small portion of it. It didn’t feel like a repeat while it was happening though. I wasn’t even aware this reality—the one where I’m dead—existed. I was in that moment, seeing it through my own eyes as if it was the first time I’d experienced any of it.

I look down at my legs to see if they’re wet like they were before whatever just happened to me happened. From what I can see in the dim room, they’re not. I’m wearing the cream-colored corduroy miniskirt and leggings topped with my puffy lavender coat with silky faux-fur trim around the hood that I wore to Aimée’s last night. My rhinestone horseshoe necklace is even around my neck still. Lot of luck that brought me. If I’d known this was going to be my outfit for eternity, I wouldn’t have worn leggings. At least I have on my favorite black suede Mary Janes.

My eyes move to the familiar blue-on-blue striped wallpaper and pictures of me taped to a square mirror over a dresser that holds a fish tank I helped set up. A sense of calm fills me, washing away the confusion.

I’m in Ethan’s bedroom. He’s sleeping with his arm hanging over the edge of the mattress, and I’m sitting on the floor next to his bed playing with his fingers.

“I can still touch you!” I let out a tiny squeal of joy. I squeeze his hand tighter, just because I can, but my moment of relief disappears when I realize he would’ve woken up by now if he could hear me or feel me. He doesn’t seem to notice when I walk my fingers up the inside of his forearm, a gesture that would have him doubled over with ticklish laughter if he could feel me. I drop my head.

Being here is a cruel joke. One second I’m walking through doors and invisible to everyone and the next I get to feel Ethan’s warm hand again only to realize it’s a one-way street. I’m not real to him or anyone anymore. I know that has to be true, but I don’t go through him like I did my dad, and there’s no pain. Maybe it’s foolish, but I can’t help thinking there’s a chance he can see me. Maybe I’m not alone after all.

I weave my fingers between Ethan’s again and squeeze even harder, hoping he’ll respond this time. My skin looks like porcelain, almost iridescent, compared to his.

Sadness swells in me. I wish I could dismiss this as a dream, but seeing my body like that—mangled on the rocks and crushed and gray (a person should never look gray)—was way too macabre to be one of my dreams. My subconscious is more along the lines of I’m-in-class-and-have-no-idea-what-the-assignment-is, nothing freaky. Crushed, gray death stuff didn’t come from my subconscious, it came from another place entirely—a place I have no control over: the past.

Every inch of me seems poised to realize my purpose here, but I have no idea what it is. It’s like I’m wandering through a thick mist on a cliff, rushing toward the inevitable drop-off, at a complete standstill. And the memory of those girls talking about me at the party was so real. Can I do that with any moment from my life? Is that what happened before, when I came to in the river; was I remembering my first kiss with Ethan? Can I go back and see how I died?

As terrified as I am to relive that moment, I have to know. I close my eyes and cross my fingers behind my back: HD memory machine, please show me last night when I drowned.

Nothing happens.

I shake my head, frustrated. I shouldn’t be here. I should be inside Other Me at the morgue, passing on to heaven or merging with Mother Earth—whatever it is that’s supposed to happen when you die. But I’m not.

Why?

Am I a ghost, a spirit, a lost soul? I’m certainly not human anymore. Humans breathe.

Something still pulses inside me though, something new I didn’t feel at the morgue, not quite a heartbeat, but something that connects me to this world, to this place. To Ethan. It anchors me to the dark blue carpet under my Mary Janes, holds me unsubstantially to Earth. It has to mean something, me being here, not moving on.

I search my mind for a reason why I fell into that specific memory and magically transported to Ethan’s bedroom afterward. I mean, I get that seeing Aimée’s house might have sparked the memory and since I was on my way to find Ethan in it I ended up here with him, but I’m not accomplishing anything. Aren’t ghosts supposed to have some sort of agenda? I really hope mine isn’t to haunt my boyfriend’s bedroom. That is way too clichéd.

Ethan rolls to his side, bringing his face inches from mine. The pulsing in my chest speeds up to a staccato beat and my mouth curls into a smile. It’s faint but my bones and flesh seem to solidify, and I don’t feel floaty or cold next to him.

He makes me believe I’m … almost … alive.

I cast away that dangerously hopeful thought and look up at Ethan, deciding to take advantage of what time I have left with him.

His lashes bat against the sunlight breaking through the curtains. He yawns, then tucks his free arm under his pillow. I press my fingertips to his eyelids and wish that I could hold them shut forever so this moment would stay with me. Or better, that I could fall into a deep sleep with him and awaken to reality because this cannot be it.

I pull my hand back and close my eyes so I don’t have to see him stare straight through me when he wakes. Then a gentle whisper of a touch brushes my wrist and moves my hands away from his face. The pulsing hiccups into my throat and pounds behind my ears the way I remember my heartbeat doing when I was alive.

He can’t actually be touching me. Can he?

I squeeze my eyes more tightly shut because I’m sure I’ll slide right through him if I open them. His thumb draws circles on my palm, and my skin vibrates under his touch. The sensation travels across my shoulders and down through my chest. His other hand finds my neck and I let out a quiet sigh. When he encloses his hands around mine and presses my fingertips to his cheek, my eyes fly open and I see him. Asleep.

I pull my hands away and slump against the foot of his bed. He’ll never touch me for real again. I’m not even sure what I felt was real.

I back away from his bed and tuck myself between his desk and the wall, forehead rested on my knees, eyes shut. I should leave before I plummet into full wallow mode, but I literally can’t think of anywhere else to go. It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Maybe Ethan’s bedroom is my afterlife prison—no, prison isn’t the right word. I want to be here with him, but I feel like there’s no way out, no choice.

I listen to him get out of bed, leave the room, return five minutes later, and climb back into bed. His cell phone rings. He doesn’t answer it. Finally, after ten solid minutes of it ringing, he picks up and Mica’s deep voice comes through the line so clear that it’s like he’s in the room. Mica says, “Don’t hang up.”

Ethan hangs up without a word and curls his legs close to his chest, then starts to cry. I’ve seen Ethan cry before—unlike my dad. I know I have, but … the memory of when I did is missing. Watching him fall apart like this, reminding me of what I’ve lost, is unbearable. I pull the first happy memory I can grasp to the front of my mind.

I’m in my driveway, on a chilly spring afternoon, prancing through the steps from my first ballet recital. My pigtails are swooshing back and forth against my cheeks, whipping me in the eyes with each pirouette. That was the year my mom made me cut my hair up to my chin because I got Bubblicious stuck in it. I refused to stop wearing it up even though the ends were too short.

I squeeze my eyes shut at the memory of my four-year-old self’s pigtails whipping me again, holding tight to the moment, savoring the simple ability I always took for granted: being able to remember. When the air shifts and coldness rolls over me, I know I’m no longer with Ethan.