I NEVER DROVE LIKE A grandma until I saw someone get plowed into by a speeding car. I should be shaking. My brain should be flooding my body with adrenaline or whatever chemicals it spews out during a crisis, but it’s not. Add freaking out to the list of things I can’t do since I woke up at DeLuca and Son’s. Alive, not-dead, or whatever the hell I am, I still can’t get the accident out of my mind. I should have tried harder to reach the guy. Assuming for a nanosecond that Dino’s remotely right, it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been hit by a car. If I’m dead, I can’t get deader. But what if I broke some bones? Would those knit back together?
No. It’s pointless thinking about this because I’m not dead. I may not have the answers, but I know “July’s dead” isn’t one of them.
Dino’s phone is blowing up, and he’s texting replies furiously. “Rafi?”
“My mom.”
“You need to go home?”
He shakes his head. “She’s checking on me and reminding me that your funeral is tomorrow—like I could forget—and telling me that she’s set my suit out.”
“Oh.”
I don’t know where to go, so I drive on muscle memory and we wind up at Walmart, which is where we used to go after Monty’s, seeing as it was the only place open near Palm Shores late at night. Dino gives me a curious look, and I shrug.
“You got a better idea?”
“No,” he says. “It just seems like we should be trying to work out why you’re a walking corpse, not killing time at Walmart.”
“Where should we go, Dino? To the shadowy secret science base at the edge of town that doesn’t exist because this isn’t a movie and some helpful dweeb isn’t going to come along and enlighten us about our situation with a lengthy expository monologue seconds before he tragically dies a meaningless but horribly graphic death?”
Dino frowns. “I was thinking more like the cops or to talk to my sister, but Walmart’s fine.”
The upside about Walmart in the middle of the night is that everyone kind of looks dead, so I blend in. We stroll up and down each and every aisle and manage to go ten whole minutes without arguing or freaking out, which is nice.
“Hey,” Dino says. “Did you know they have a water bottle with a filter built in?”
I turn around and he’s standing in the middle of the aisle pointing at the bottle, wearing a shit-eating grin. “No way!” I say, and we both crack up.
“Remember the first time you saw that thing?” Dino says.
“It was cool!”
“It’s a water bottle.”
“With a filter built in!”
Dino’s smile grows. “No? For real? Tell me more!”
For one second, all is forgotten. All is forgiven. We’re a couple of friends going on about something that no one else in the world would understand. I might have been a little over-enthusiastic the first time I saw the bottle, and every time we went to Walmart after that, Dino made certain to point it out to me. It’s stupid, right? But that, and a million other stupid things, are the threads of a friendship. They’re the threads of my friendship with Dino.
And then he’s gotta ruin it by talking.
“We should go back to your house.”
The smile and laughter and the good feelings vanish. “Why?”
“To tell your mom you’re still alive.”
“So now I’m alive? Make up your mind.”
“You’re something,” he says. “Don’t you think your parents deserve to know?”
“Are you serious?” Is he serious? I search his eyes, I check the size of his nostrils and the angle of his head for some sign that he’s messing with me, but he’s not.
He stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks to the end of the magic water bottle aisle and turns down the next, leaving me to chase him, which I make a mental note of to remember the next time he says he’s the one always doing the chasing.
“Dino?”
“Tell me this is real.” Dino looks at the items on the shelves and the ceiling and his hands held out in front of him. And at me. He looks directly at me, and there’s a moment where I’m not sure he sees me. Like I’m not a person anymore but a burden he’s carrying.
“What?” I ask. “You think maybe my death hit you so hard that it sent you into some kind of dissociative state and that you’re actually in a psychiatric hospital, drugged and drooling, instead of at Walmart with your best friend who, until a few hours ago, you believed was dead?”
“I wouldn’t have put it like that.”
I snort. “This is real. It’s happening.”
Dino’s chin dips to his chest like that’s what he feared. “You’re not-dead,” he says. “Other people aren’t dying—”
“Allegedly,” I say. “According to one paramedic.”
“Still, this is a thing that’s happening. It’s not a Christmas miracle—”
“Because it’s the middle of summer?”
“July . . .”
“What?”
“Don’t you want to tell your mom and Joëlle that you’re alive?”
An older woman rolls around the corner in her motorized cart and glares at us like she was expecting to have the entire store to herself. I grab Dino’s hand and drag him toward the toy aisle, which is where we used to spend most of our time. I liked the action figures, and Dino couldn’t help buying LEGOs. When we’re clear of anyone who might be listening, I turn to him.
“Why do you think I went home before? Clothes?”
“Kinda.”
It takes all my strength not to smack him. “I was sitting in my room planning to stay there until Momma and Jo came home, but then I started wondering how long this is going to last.” I close my eyes and wish I could breathe so that I could suck in a lungful of air and let it out and feel the relief that comes from it, but I can’t. “You think I’m avoiding what’s happening, but the truth is that I have to keep moving or the reality of my situation will crush me. You want answers? I want them too! But I have no idea where to start, and I’m not going to give my folks hope until I know it’s real.”
Dino rakes his hand through his hair, pulling it off his face. “I understand that; I really do, but we can’t wander aimlessly and hope we stumble on the answers. Your funeral is tomorrow. Your parents are expecting to see your body in a casket. To bury you. We have to tell them or you have to go through with the funeral.”
“Maybe I will,” I say.
“Don’t be stupid.” He keeps shaking his head like he can rattle the bad thoughts of out it, but if it were possible I would’ve done it long ago.
I wander down the aisle and stop in front of the Star Wars toys. Dino’s shadow falls over me as he shuffles nearer.
“What if I’m the cause?” I say.
“Of?”
“This. Me. Of that drunk guy not dying.”
Dino cocks his head to the side. “You think, rather than you being not-dead because something’s stopped people from dying, that people have stopped dying because you’re not dead?”
“You got a better explanation?”
Him losing it laughing isn’t the reaction I expect. I’ve never understood how such a deep, soothing voice could come out of a scarecrow body like his, but his rich laugh carries down the aisle and across the store, and I’m guessing they can hear it in the grocery section. “What?”
Dino bends over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. His face is splotchy red, and there are even tears running down his cheeks.
“What the hell is so funny?” I ask again.
“You,” he says. “Death might have been suspended, and you’ve made it about you.”
I flare my nostrils and stare at him. “You seen any other zombies?”
“No. But it’s typical. Everything’s about July Cooper.”
“Is not.”
Dino straightens up. “Clearly you’ve forgotten about when I came out.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “How could I forget when you made such a big deal about it?”
“When I told my parents I was gay, my mom started leaving condoms in my sock drawer, I couldn’t watch a single TV show with my dad without him asking if I thought whatever guy on-screen was cute, and Dee baked me a chocolate cake and wrote ‘Not a surprise’ on it.”
“So?”
“When I told you, you cried. You decided you’d turned me gay on account of the time in eighth grade we practiced kissing on each other.”
“That’s only because Wesley Sato had just come out, like, a month before, and I’d kissed him too!”
Dino goes on like he’s not listening. “And then, after I consoled you and convinced you that you didn’t cause my raging case of homosexuality, you made it your mission to tell everyone at school.”
“I was proud of you!”
“You stood up in the middle of American history and announced that I liked boys and that anyone who messed with me would face your wrath.”
“Once again,” I say. “So?”
Dino taps his fingers on his thigh and stares at me with nothing but anger. He’s always been the type of person to hold things in, but there’s fury in there that looks like it’s been simmering for longer than we’ve been friends. It’s cold and dark, and I didn’t know he was capable of it.
“Forget it,” he says, and starts to turn away.
“Forget it, my ass!” I say, which stops him. “You think I’m the one who makes everything about them?”
“Me?” he says, all innocent.
I nod furiously. “Hell, look at tonight. I’m the one who’s not-dead, but you’re acting like you should get to make the decisions. Where we go, what we do. Trying to force me to see my parents. The truth is, you don’t know how long this will last. I could be dead again by morning, and you won’t even let me go to a stupid party to meet your stupid boyfriend and your stupid friends. Are you ashamed of me? Is that why you won’t let me meet them?”
“No, July.”
“Then why don’t we go see your parents?”
“Fine! Let’s!”
“I was being sarcastic.”
Dino scrubs his face with his hands. “Why is this happening to me?”
“To you?” I say, incredulously. “Whatever you think, Dino, this isn’t your story; it’s mine. I may die at the end, but I’m still the hero and you ain’t even the villain. You’re nothing but a pathetic unnamed background character who doesn’t make it out of the second act.”
I dig the keys out of my pocket and dangle them in the air in front of him. “We’re going somewhere,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “To your house or mine.”
I try to make a buzzing sound, but it comes out more like a dry fart. “Wrong answer.”
Dino plants his hands on his hips and puffs out his bottom lip. “I’m not taking you to Rafi’s party.”
I shrug. “Fine. Then I’ll go without you.”