Evie sat outside, surrounded by moonlight, from above and reflected in the water below. She pretended to perch on the diving board of an outdoor pool, in what looked like someone’s backyard. No need to worry about her socks getting wet as she let her feet swing through the water, unable to touch it. She stroked the tails of her headscarf, tied like a ribbon around a low, loose bun.
Once again, she yelped at the sight of me, clutching her chest.
“Come on,” I said, with a laugh.
She gave a sheepish smile. “I know, I know.”
Maybe she wasn’t used to visitors, especially at this hour.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to be alone,” I said.
“Well, I don’t dance.”
“And everyone else does?”
I wanted to give her a nudge—tell her to live a little, so to speak. But then she might wonder what held me back, so I didn’t mention it.
“Where are we?” I asked, settling down by her side with my legs hanging.
“It used to be my best friend’s,” she said. “Have you ever been reminiscing, thinking back on someplace, or someone, and found yourself accidentally there?”
Perhaps I had. It surprised me too much to admit it.
“Ren gives his condolences,” I said.
She beamed. “See, he really is a sweetie.”
“He mentioned you were in a coma.”
That upended her smile. Her eyes widened with more alarm than I would’ve expected, like she didn’t want me to know. It only stoked my curiosity.
“If you don’t mind me asking… how’d that happen?”
Her voice remained steady, as if she were repeating a story she’d heard, rather than one she’d lived. Though she couldn’t look at me. “My friends and I were drinking. We didn’t, usually, we were—you know—good kids. But it would be our last chance for a high school party, sort of, after graduating, before we all split up and had to behave again in college. And I hoped my crush would be there, that it wouldn’t be too late for me to get my first kiss.”
She looked a couple of years older than a kid between high school and college. But I didn’t want to interrupt. Not when she began wiping her eyes, struggling to keep her voice steady.
“None of us were good to drive. I should’ve said something, but… it’s so stupid. I didn’t want to spend our last night together being the lame, responsible one, you know? For just one night, I wanted to be cool.”
Her voice collapsed with the vacuum of a coming sob. I looked away, feeling bad for cringing, but I’d never gotten much practice comforting anyone. If she were my little sister, I’d brush her hair behind her ear, but that would be totally out of line now.
As I considered putting a hand on her shoulder, she spoke again, her voice evening out until it went flat.
“Nobody made it out. Two went on impact. Another on the way to the hospital. And my best friend after three days in a coma. Mine… it lasted years.”
Finally, she looked up at me. No wonder she seemed so shy for a young adult. She’d lost a few years, sleeping them away. At her real age, I’d long passed all teenage milestones, rushing through them as fast as I could.
I let out a sigh, trying to ease the weight on my chest. “You’re just a baby.”
That made her bristle. “I don’t know about that. I had a lot of time to think in there.”
I tried not to gape. “You were awake?”
Her eyes clouded, with what I could only imagine was the memory of darkness. “I’ve read some patients dream, but not me.”
I definitely got it now, why she didn’t want to party.
“How long’s it been?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. It’s hard to keep track, on this side. I think I’ve been on this side a year or so?”
If she was eighteen at the time of the accident, and had spent a few years in a coma, that put her in her early twenties, at least physically. Though she probably didn’t feel that way when she hadn’t been able to live those years.
After a moment, she asked, “How about you?”
“It’s been a week or two.”
“And how’d you die?”
She’d already opened up so much. I’d look like such an asshole if I refused to share in turn. But as I sat there in awkward silence, I couldn’t even begin putting it into words, tongue-tied with shame. It had been such a stupid way to go.
I’d been perched exactly like this, smoking up on the roof of my apartment building. Too far for a good view of the skyline, much less the shore, but it felt good to let my legs swing in the cool air. Except instead of water, below me loomed a five-story drop.
Beneath us, something splashed.
“Whoa,” said Evie.
I might’ve wobbled off the diving board in surprise if I were really balanced on it. Beneath us, the pool lapped like something had fallen in. But nothing floated in the clear water.
“It’s all right if you can’t talk about it yet,” she said. I let out a pretend exhale. “I know, it’s so much fresher for you. Plenty of us here act all nonchalant, but they’ve had a long, long time to get used to it.”
“Thanks,” I said.
But that memory would never get stale enough to casually share. I couldn’t play it all the way through in my mind’s eye before stopping. It was like I’d erased the rest of the tape. Nobody could find out what really happened.
“Wish me luck,” I said. “My wake is coming up.”
“You want some company? It’s not safe alone.”
“I won’t be.”
* * *
Cris slumped at her overflowing kitchen table, clutching a pen as she stared down at a notebook. I longed to poke her, spring her free of the tension in her shoulders. When I leaned over to glance at the page, it glared white and untouched, with a sliver of a fresh rip still clinging to the binding.
I didn’t know what to say, either. Messages across the veil were just as hard to compose as eulogies. I tried practicing, ignoring the way her fancy light fixtures blinked in and out.
“I didn’t kill myself.”
No reaction. Not that I’d expected one. It sounded so strange, saying it aloud. But it wouldn’t be me doing the talking.
I tried again. “She wouldn’t have killed herself.”
Cris closed her eyes, evened her breaths. That sounded worse, somehow. How would anyone else know how I’d felt, what I’d been thinking?
So, pacing back and forth in her kitchen, I bullshitted. Eventually, the lights quit flickering.
“We had concert tickets.”
As if. I’d stopped even listening to the radio, let alone going to shows.
“She got a promotion at work.”
At a job I’d just started a month ago, and also made up.
“I’m pregnant, it’s hers.”
Well, actually… it wouldn’t be too surprising for her to find out that I’d failed to mention seeing somebody. Never mind that I hadn’t been ready for a partner, but if she thought I had that going for me, it could make a compelling case that I hadn’t meant to go anywhere.
Ren did look like boyfriend material. More wide-eyed than my usual type, but even that might go toward convincing her I’d turned over a new leaf. Of course, he’d have to be a good enough actor to pull off an entire pretend relationship. I could coach him, but he’d have to be quick on his feet.
The payoff would be worth the risk. She wouldn’t feel so alone, thinking someone aside from our mother had lost me as well. I had a sudden sappy TV movie vision of her throwing her arms around him and bursting into relieved tears. I’d go into the badly green-screened heavenly light, and the credits would roll.
Cris took a long, deep breath, and started writing. After double-checking a program with my picture on it for the place and time, I left her to it.
* * *
Once again, spiriting to a moving target found me in the middle of a dark street. The car behind me slowed and pulled over. There were rideshare stickers on the windshield.
“Where to?” Ren asked, sticking his head out the window.
I shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
That withered his smile. I hadn’t meant to be such a bummer.
I slipped through the door into the front seat, sitting in midair by his side. He put the car in park and rested an arm on the steering wheel as he turned to face me.
“So,” he said. “I went ahead and looked you up, like you told me.”
Though I didn’t move from my casual position, my whole body seemed to shudder with dread. I hadn’t really thought that suggestion through.
“I got a lot of… weird results.”
Of course, the first to come up wouldn’t be my obit. My voice nearly cracked. “No shit?”
“Were you ever—uh—kind of famous?”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to lie out loud.
“You mentioned you used to play,” he said, but without much conviction, like he still doubted his own perception. As if he might’ve hallucinated the conversation, if not my whole existence. “Am I right?”
“That’s different,” I said.
I shouldn’t have lied. Not to him, with his grasp of reality still so fragile. But I couldn’t stop myself.
Thankfully, he changed the subject. “Have you thought of what you need me to say?”
I gulped around the sudden lump in my throat. He had to know what we were trying to accomplish here. I closed my eyes and pretended to breathe in. “My sister thinks that I—”
We both startled as noise suddenly flooded the car. My hands flew up to cover my ears as the radio blasted an eerie tune, distorted with static. He tried to turn down the volume, but even with the dial at zero, the music didn’t stop. Turning off the radio didn’t work, either. Finally, he just killed the engine.
Even in the silence, my tensed limbs refused to ease up. “Sorry.”
Ren shook with a silent laugh, briefly resting his head on the wheel before looking back up at me. “All good. It’s not my first time dealing with horror-movie bullshit. I don’t scare easy.”
At last, I managed to uncoil a bit. I closed my eyes, pretending to draw a deep breath. I tried again.
“She’s got to know I didn’t kill myself.”
His voice went low. “Damn.”
I couldn’t handle meeting his gentle gaze.
“I’m still working on the right words,” I admitted. “This isn’t exactly a conversation I ever thought I’d have in my life. Or, you know, afterwards.”
He leaned over, reaching for my hand. I shrank back in surprise. He curled his fingers and pulled away again.
Instead, he said, “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
I buried my nails in my palms. “Thanks.”
He reached into the pocket of his hoodie, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and holding them up. “You mind?”
Like he hadn’t already smoked around me. Only now he considered me a person, so he had to ask.
“I don’t breathe.”
“But your—um—chest still moves up and down.”
My eyebrows shot up before I could stop them. I had to bite back asking why he’d been looking at my chest. I knew well enough. Even if we weren’t on the same plane of existence, I still looked like a girl, and he still had eyes.
“Just going through the motions,” I said.
I put my hands behind my head, stretching my legs out on the dashboard as I watched him roll down the window, his face glowing gold for a moment as he sparked up.
“Do you think we can pull this off?” I asked.
“Why not?”
“No offense, but it doesn’t seem like you get out much.”
He glowered at me. “What do you think I do for work? Do you have any idea how many people I talk to in a day? I might not be the picture of normal functioning, but I know how to bullshit. It’s just the exact same conversation over and over.”
He whipped out what must’ve been his customer service voice, low and laid-back—the carefree tone of someone who’d never seen a ghost in his life. I didn’t expect it to go right to my spine, making me sit up with interest. “Hey, how’s it going? Do you live here? Where do you work? Are you married? Got kids?”
I knew that conversation well. It went the same at every job, getting to know my coworkers, but not letting them know me. Same with the few dates I’d had the past two years, if you could call them that.
He dropped the voice abruptly. “On top of that, you know how many people I’ve had cry in my backseat? Lots flying home for funerals. Two people that got fired like five minutes before I showed up. This one poor girl leaving a vet’s office with an empty carrier. So… I might not be that unqualified for this.”
“Well, that’s good to know.” I shouldn’t have underestimated him. Now it felt more like the cover story I had in mind for him could work. Especially if he used that voice at the wake. “If anyone asks how you knew me, let’s say we were fucking.”
He choked on his drag, coughing up smoke. I really ought to have put it more delicately. But I couldn’t help but smirk at his rosy cheeks, even as I half expected him to reject me, set up some boundaries.
“I guess that works,” he said. “I mean, aside from the part where I’m going to have to talk to your family about it.”
“We could call it dating. Let’s say I tried doing right by you, for a change. That’s even better. If I show my sister I had something going for me, it might be easier to convince her… you know.”
He sighed. “I’m gonna need a tie. And, well, the rest of the suit.”
For once, I tried mentally dressing him, rather than the other way around. No doubt he’d clean up nicely.
“You’re going so far out of your way for me,” I said.
His quick little exhale might’ve been a laugh. “Where’s my way? For all I know, I’m closer to it, thanks to you.”
We grew quiet. I fidgeted, readying for another abrupt exit. While I was wondering where to go, he spoke up.
“You have any clue what’ll happen, once I get your message across?”
I shrugged, throwing my palms out wide to indicate the enormity of my ignorance about the universe.
“If it’s your last night—you know, on Earth—what are you gonna do?”
I shook my head in confusion. “Last night on Earth?”
“I mean, if this is your unfinished business, won’t you cross over once it’s done?”
I hadn’t seriously considered that. My last night on Earth. Too bad I couldn’t do much, in my state. Not to mention, my tour days were a hard act to follow. I’d already had a couple of nights that could’ve easily been my last.
“So how are you going to spend it?” asked Ren.
That sounded like an invitation. I couldn’t help but smile. I would’ve loved to spend my last night on Earth with him, except we wouldn’t be able to do any of the things I really wanted to.
But I knew somebody else who could.
“See you tomorrow,” I said, hoping it wouldn’t be a lie.