Evie must’ve been feeling nostalgic. We were in a sports field, full of school kids shouting over the blaring music from the bleachers. Probably a spirit rally, because rather than tossing a ball around, all the athletes were doing dance routines, or something like it. Back in the day, I’d always skipped this shit to go smoke.
I found her sitting off by herself in midair before the front row, near the teachers. Her hair peeked in two thick braids from under her loosely tied headscarf.
My breath caught sharp in my throat. All the second thoughts I’d worried might catch up with me simply turned back and left, because something told me she shouldn’t be left alone.
I sank down beside her. It made her recoil, hands flying to her chest.
“My bad,” I said. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”
Her eyes were hard again. It made me writhe in place, as if I could shift in such a way to make that piercing glance hurt less as it dug into me.
“What do you want?” she asked, quiet and resigned, like I’d only come because I needed information, as usual, not companionship.
It came out violent and a touch resentful, but I coughed it up, all the same. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
She closed her eyes, bowing over halfway to her knees. When she pulled back up, her eyes were soft, if still wary. As relieved as she looked, she tensed too, for her turn.
“You shouldn’t have to be,” she said, thick and throaty, more like her singing than speaking voice.
“I had a feeling,” I said. “I just ignored it.”
“It’s not like I’ve got dibs.”
“But I should’ve thought about you.”
“It’s never going to happen between us,” she said. “So you may as well have your fun with him. I can’t.”
“You sure about that?” I asked. “He can’t see you as a kid forever.”
“Why not, if I never get to do any of the things you’re supposed to do when you grow up?”
There were so many milestones she’d missed. Of course she felt confused.
After the last team wrapped up their barely coordinated routines, and some theatre kids were generously given thirty seconds to announce the spring musical, the principal stepped up on the field with a microphone in hand. He started with some standard call-and-response about how the night was going so far, whether the kids were excited for the rally, and if the seniors were looking forward to graduating. I started tuning his speech out on instinct.
Suddenly I realized how quiet some of the kids had gotten. On the field floated a white screen, revealed by a sudden projection of light, like they were about to show a movie.
“Now, not to be a downer,” said the principal. “But imagine, for a moment, that it’s the first day of summer after your graduation. You’re about to start the rest of your life. How would you feel if your life stopped right there?”
He allowed for a moment of comparative silence, considering his audience.
“What I’ve just described to you happened to four students on graduation night, three years ago.”
On the screen appeared their young, awkward, beaming faces. Evie hadn’t changed much. In most of the pictures, she had braces, like she’d barely gotten them off before it happened. There were mostly group photos, like the four of them had been inseparable, at least one of them always caught with their eyes closed or looking away, laughing and clutching each other and pulling silly faces, all dressed up for every school event and dance, no dates but each other. I wondered what it must’ve been like having friends like that, not spending those years alone. No wonder she’d attached herself to me, casting out a lifesaver, looking for anyone to help weather the storm.
“They do this every year,” she said.
The principal went on to name each of them, praise their good grades, list all their clubs and activities, reveal the colleges where they’d been accepted, everything short of naming the churches they’d attended with their parents every weekend as he extolled their virtues. Then he turned on them, because they’d touched alcohol, just once. Their karma had been instant. They were the perfect cautionary tale, putting a face on all those statistics about underage drinking and drunk driving. Sign this pledge: If not for yourself, for them.
None of the kids on the bleachers were about to stop drinking, if they had started already, or wait until they were of age. You couldn’t tell them these were the best years of their lives and then expect them to behave, especially if they’d been having some shitty years so far. They hadn’t even started living yet. But from the way the principal talked about graduation, their lives would be coming to a literal end after high school.
“I can’t wake up,” she said.
I put my hand over hers, partly to check if she was on the verge of going geist. She shrugged me off and shot up.
She didn’t make it far under the bleachers before I caught up. This spot gave me much more nostalgia. It felt like I ought to pass her a cigarette, or dare her to kiss me; it didn’t count if we were only practicing for boys.
But then she peered up at me just long enough to betray the glint of tears.
“It’s not fair,” I said, on the verge of choking up myself. “I can’t lie to you and say you didn’t miss much. You barely even got to start your life before it ended.”
“It didn’t.”
I didn’t even register what she said next, convincing myself I’d misheard. She sounded so flat, almost nonchalant.
“What’s that?”
“I’m not dead.”
She looked up in time to see me staring like an idiot, unable to form a response. Above us, the kids broke the silence with screams, music flaring up again. There must’ve been some sports or something starting.
“I’m still in a coma,” she said. “My soul is here, but my body is alive.”
“No way,” I said. I couldn’t conceive that she’d lie to me, but even that seemed more likely. “That’s not how it works. You were trapped. I felt it, in your memory. You were trying so hard to wake up, but you couldn’t.”
“I got help,” she said.
I shook my head, still in shock. If she was telling the truth, then it hurt. It stung and ached and I didn’t know why, when it should have been good news, light at the end of the tunnel. At least, for her.
“You weren’t supposed to tell anyone,” Alastair said.
Evie and I both balked at the intrusion.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, showing his teeth, lashing out in his hurt. “Did you really think I’d miss the rally?”
She looked down at her sock-covered feet. Apparently, she thought the better of her guilt, because she put her chin back up. “It’s not like I could talk to you about it. Besides, don’t you trust her?”
He looked at me. “It’s not about trust.”
What did he think I’d do with this information? I still didn’t understand.
I gave up and asked, “What’s going on?”
Evie took my hand and spirited us away.
* * *
Evie’s body had been moved from the hospital to her home. Her room looked like it hadn’t been disturbed since the accident, preserving her late adolescence. All the bright colors were muted by the darkness, band posters and photos of her friends and old stuffed animals that looked as if they should be covered with dust, overgrown with vines, like the towering chamber of a sleeping princess. Machines blinked and whirred around her bed, an oxygen tube under her nose, keeping her body alive without her in it.
She didn’t look alive. That body looked more like the ghost, an eerie echo. Her hair hidden beneath a plain black bonnet, soft curves starved away to nothing.
“What the fuck?” I asked.
“I know, right?”
She didn’t have time to explain further. Alastair spirited before us. “I’m sorry—why exactly can’t you talk to me?”
He tempered the harsh words with gentle fingers reaching under her chin. She closed her eyes, leaning into his warmth, before smacking his hand away. He and I both gaped at her as she raised her voice, like the way she sang.
Except now, she screamed.
“You always tell me the same thing, that death is so much fun, I’m lucky to be here, life sucks, who needs it? But you won’t deliver and do with me what you do to every other foundling you give that speech. You just leave me to rot while you go fuck everyone but me.”
She’d begun to cry, but neither of us moved to comfort her. She might not be done with the screaming and swiping. Then she looked at our faces, and suddenly seemed to shrink back down again, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’ve grown, but you’re still so young.”
Her tone curled up quiet again. “I know.”
That’s when he pounced, nearly growling. “If you’re going to be so careless, why should we even keep this thing around? I might as well finish the job.”
“Please don’t.”
He still turned and reached out, as if to play with the cords and wires twining like vines around her doppelganger. “You’re not in a hospital anymore. They won’t have time to bring you back.”
She tried to shove him away. “You couldn’t!”
Something about their words and gestures felt practiced. Like they’d had this conversation already, going through the motions to see if anything had changed.
“Why not?” he asked. “If you cross, you’d just go to heaven.”
“But there’s so much I’ve never done.”
“So what? There’s plenty I’ve never—”
Alastair’s voice caught in his throat. Not soon enough. He swallowed hard, but he couldn’t take back that start of a confession. It rooted heavy in my phantom heart. He always made such a big show of reveling in his afterlife, it had never occurred to me—he secretly envied the living.
Evie still had a chance to come back. That’s why he’d never pushed her to dance, or drink, or anything else. If she had too much fun on this side, she wouldn’t want to wake up.
I put myself between them, facing him. “If you want her to live again, why don’t you just say so?”
He slipped into his mask and said nothing. As she gaped up at him, he gulped.
“I thought you were in love with death,” she said.
Rather than reply to her, he glared at me instead. “As if you’re not lusting for the life in that body, lying there for the taking. You can’t tell me it’s not tempting. All the things we could never do again, close enough to touch.”
If I had her life, I’d have parents who loved me, another shot at my career, even a chance at love. It wouldn’t even matter how different I’d look. Not to mention, if I filled out that body again, I’d have some curves at last.
“But it’s not possible to get in,” I said. “Is it?”
“Sure it is!” said Alastair. “That’s why we shouldn’t go around telling everyone.”
Evie balled up her fists, shaking. “You think I didn’t try like hell to wake up? Of course I did. I couldn’t. It’s not possible. There’s no coming up for air when you’re drowning in the dark.”
“It’s still worth a try,” he said, turning to me. “Isn’t it?”
Evie watched me, more curious than concerned.
“What’s it going to be?” asked Alastair.
I shook my head, trying to laugh it off. “As if,” I said. “You really think I’d take someone else’s life?”
He didn’t look surprised. “Even if it’ll go to waste?”
“It’s hers. She can do whatever she wants with it.”
Even if that was nothing. I believed her, that she’d been trapped, with no way out. But I couldn’t help but wonder if after all she’d seen and learned, and with friends to give her a hand, whether it might be worth another try. If it didn’t work, we could pull her out again.
And if it did work, then I’d miss her. We all would. It would be worth it.
Maybe she had to want it enough. I didn’t mention it, because she’d started to cry.
“I can’t wake up,” she said.
He went and pulled her in close, pressing a kiss to her brow. She buried herself in his chest.
“I’m sorry for being so hard on you,” he said, murmuring low into her curls. “You know it’s because I love you, right, little one?”
Her sobs came out muffled.
I could wait. They needed a moment. And, after everything, so did I.