I was still exhausted when I woke the next morning. We had to do something different today. I was starting to resent this cabin, this bed, and these sheets. The only thing that changed here was the dwindling number of roommates I had. I didn’t want to go downstairs and face Noah and Mason. The thought of having to tell Noah I no longer had feelings for him all over again was excruciating. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that when I opened them again I’d be somewhere else. Anywhere else. I lay in bed like that for an hour, maybe more. And I didn’t get up until I’d convinced myself that I could at least change something today. Something small. Today, I’d leave Baylor.
I got out of bed, and shouted down the hall, “Emma, Scarlett May, Kimber, get ready! We’re going out!” I yelled.
I went back to my bedroom, excited for something new. On the opposite side of the lake, there was a train station. We were going to ride it as far as it would take us. We wouldn’t get far, of course, and at the end of the day, we’d be back here eating leftover pizza. But at least I would feel free momentarily, like a dog with its head out the window of a car and its jowls flapping in the wind. I needed this for me. And the girls? They probably needed it just as much.
“Where are we going, Kins?” Emma asked.
“We’re getting train tickets. We can eat lunch on the train. It will be fun.”
“But, I mean . . . where are we going?”
“Well, I figured we’ll get tickets to San Pearson, and we’ll see how far we can get,” I said.
Emma shrugged. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what’s the point of that?”
“Emma, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. You know that.” I smirked.
“Okay. You’re right. Let’s go explore.”
Scarlett May never asked where we were going. She was just happy to get out of the cabin. She’d been spending a lot of time with Sampson and his friends, but he was busy today. And after spending the previous day with Asher berating her about the EpiPen stabbing, Kimber was also eager to get out. I wanted to talk to Walker about what Mason had told him last night, but he wasn’t answering my texts, and I figured it would be best to give him a little space as well. If he didn’t answer me by tomorrow, I’d march over there myself and bang on his door.
The taxi dropped us at the train station. It was busy for a Wednesday, but most days were buzzing like this during summer. It was always easy to tell who was coming, who was going, and who the locals were. Some families were sunburned; the ones who were heading back home from a stay at the lake. The newly arriving families had a polished look, like they’d just stepped out of air conditioning. The humidity hadn’t frizzed their hair yet, and their skin wasn’t yet scorched by long hours in the sun. The ones in flip-flops with brightly colored bathing suit straps peeking out from under their tank tops were the ones who lived here or had been here for at least a couple of days.
The four of us sat down on a bench and waited for the train while I profiled every person who walked through the station. I liked to imagine who they were and who they strove to be. Sometimes I wondered what their love life was like. Were they lonely? Were they happy? Creative? Disciplined? A secret genius? Were they even human . . . ?
I watched a girl dig through her backpack looking for something. She was most likely a student. Studious and high-strung. I wondered what she was trying to find. A snack? ChapStick? Or perhaps she had lost her cell phone? She pulled out a book, and the title stunned me. Waking Dreams. I sucked in a quick breath as the stranger’s hair grew long and lustrous, bounding over her shoulders and stretching to her waist. Her button nose morphed in her sunlit profile, and the shadows shifted on her cheeks, making her jawline sharp and angular. Before I knew it, I was sitting one row over from Layla Barns. I couldn’t help but stare, wondering if she knew I sat before her. Or had she bought a ticket for the train today because she knew I’d be here?
I glanced over at Emma, trying not to cause alarm, but it was clear she hadn’t seen Layla yet. Kimber and Scarlett May had no idea who she was because they’d never seen her before, but if Emma spotted her, all of this would be over. If I could somehow hide her, there was a possibility that Layla wouldn’t show herself to them. Just like she’d hidden in plain sight at the coffee shop as we’d passed by searching for her. She opened the book to a dog-eared page and began reading.
“Kinsley? Are you listening?” Kimber asked. I tried my best to engage, but all I could do was worry that my name had been called out loud.
“What? What? What did you say?” I peeked back at Layla, who was still reading her book.
“Are you feeling okay? You look a little pale.” Emma said.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I swallowed a lump in my throat.
“So? When do you think we’ll get back home?” Kimber asked.
“Oh, Kai said that he made it as far as Pacer Bay, and I figured we would probably do the same. I’m not really sure, but there’s no harm in trying, right? Plus, it’s probably best to know our boundaries.”
“I can make a map,” Emma said in a rush. She seemed really excited about the geography project, and I didn’t see anyone else fighting for the job.
“Yeah, that’s a great idea. You should do that,” I said, peeking back at Layla, who was now staring directly at me. I froze. My breath stalled and my chest tightened. I couldn’t pry my eyes away. Staring into Layla’s eyes did weird, unexplainable things to my insides. The seconds stretched by until somebody walked between us, breaking the eye contact. I looked down at my hands in my lap and fidgeted with my fingers. Had my nails always been this shape? They seemed more square than normal.
“All boarding, San Pearson, Monroe, and Yearsgold. You may now take your seats,” a voice called out over the speaker.
“Is that us?” Kimber asked.
“Yes!” Emma said, jumping to her feet. She scooped up her backpack and tucked her book under her arm. “Pacer Bay is about halfway to San Pearson, but we’ll just ride it as far as we can.”
I fell into step behind the girls, and I didn’t dare lift my head. I didn’t want to meet Layla’s brown, piercing eyes again. It felt like she was looking into my soul, like she could see things in there that nobody else could. Things I didn’t want to look at myself. Things . . . I didn’t even know existed. I guess being dead did that to you. It was like that with Walker, too. He saw me like nobody else did. And I liked the way he looked at me—really looked at me. But when Layla did it, it was intrusive. Rude.
“Where should we sit?” Kimber asked Scarlett May.
“Try to get one of those little cubbies where the two benches face each other. That way we can all fit together. I think they’re in the back,” Scarlett May said, pointing to the rear of the train.
I shuffled my feet behind Emma, and once we stepped into the train, I lifted my gaze. The carriage was long, and the aisle seemed to go on forever. Some sort of optical illusion. I squinted to see if it would help and then recoiled when I saw Layla. She was sitting in the first row, and she was staring up at me.
I let out a shutter and jolted back, stepping on the stranger’s toes behind me. I whirled around to apologize, but stopped cold as I met her soul-piercing eyes. Standing behind me with a scowl was another Layla. I looked down at my feet and muttered something like an apology.
When I turned around again, the line had moved forward, and Layla was back in the first row. Still staring. My head pounded. I couldn’t take the tricks she was playing on me. I felt weak, incapable of defending myself against her power. As I scurried to catch up to my friends, I passed a third Layla sitting on the opposite side of the train.
I winced at the throbbing in my head. I searched row after row. More Laylas. There must have been dozens. And each of them was staring at me with those god-awful eyes. I hooked my gaze over my shoulder, and all the Layla’s had turned around, watching my every move. I was the entertainment, center stage in a sea of brown eyes.
Emma, Kimber, and Scarlett May hadn’t noticed that all the passengers had looked like a clone of one another. They chatted easily among themselves.
“There! There’s one in the back. Hurry, grab it!” Scarlett May said. Emma slid into the seat, tossing her backpack to the ground.
“This is perfect,” Kimber said.
Had the illusion been curated for my eyes only? Could they not see her? Them?
“They have food on these things, right?” Emma asked.
“You’ve never been on a train?” Scarlett May asked.
I sat down slowly on the open bench, my gaze fixed on the Layla to my left and the book at which she held. She must be the real one, if she has the book . . .
“When would I have gone on a train? We live in Clover,” Emma said.
I leaned into Emma, nudging her with my elbow. When I had her full attention, I discreetly tilted my head toward the Layla on my left. Emma pretended to need something in her backpack. She kicked it to her feet and leaned forward, looking discreetly. Layla’s eyes never left mine in a menacing glare. Emma grabbed a ChapStick and put it up to her lips, smearing on a sweet summer watermelon scent, as she whispered in my ear. “What about him?”
Him? I looked back at Layla, and a slow, lazy smile crossed her eyes.
“Well, don’t look at him!” Emma hissed in my ear.
“Yeah. You’re right. I thought I knew her. Him. But I was mistaken.” I glanced over one more time, unable to stop. I was drawn to her, like an endangered specimen that might only be seen once in a lifetime. She was rare, and as equally ethereal as she was terrifying. She scribbled something frantically inside the book.
“Seriously, you gotta stop staring at him. You’re going to make him anxious,” Emma said. “Either that, or he’s going to think you like him.”
“Oh my god, Kinsley, do you have the hots for that old man?” Scarlett May asked. They were all looking at Layla now. My cheeks flushed and I felt faint.
“No. I thought I knew him from somewhere. That’s all.”
“Did you ever tell Walter that you liked him?” Scarlett May asked, absentmindedly.
“Who’s Walter?” asked Kimber.
“Walker . . . And no,” I said.
“Did you chicken out? You’re such a chicken-shit!” Scarlett May threw her hands in the air.
“No, I was going to, honestly. But when I got outside to tell him, he was gone. Mason told him not to come around anymore. They told him that Noah was my boyfriend,” I said.
“Nooo!” Emma gasped.
“Boys will be boys,” Kimber said with a shrug.
“More like assholes will be assholes,” Scarlett May said.
“Whatever. I just needed a day away from it all. I didn’t want to see them after last night. I was glad they were still sleeping off their hangovers this morning when we left. Um, thanks for coming out with me today. I’m glad we’re doing this.” I kept my voice quiet, conscious of listening ears. I knew Layla would have my head if she knew I was after her man—but what sat next to me wasn’t Layla, it was just my fear. An apparition of self-judgment, tucked in the deepest parts of my mind. I tried to ignore it.
“Oh yeah, anytime. We should do it more often. I mean, we are stuck here after all, right? Better make the best of it,” Emma said.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. How about you figure out how we can win the lottery, and then every day we’ll win,” Scarlett May said. I raised my brows, pretending to entertain the thought, but I couldn’t help myself from glancing over at Layla. I watched as she tore a page out of Waking Dreams.
“No, how about you figure out how to reverse time? And then we can reset the day every twenty-four hours like a loop,” Kimber said.
“Why? Why would we want to do that?” Emma asked.
The sound of the page being folded in half and creased between running fingertips was louder than the train barreling down the tracks.
“Well, because then we could rob the bank every day, or do whatever the hell we wanted, and there would be no consequences. They’d simply never catch up to us,” Kimber said.
I liked the idea of no consequences, but if I were ever to reverse time, it wouldn’t be to rob a bank. It would be to get Lainey back.
Layla placed the folded note on her table and stood. When she walked away, it fluttered down to the aisle. She didn’t look back as she disappeared down the seemingly infinitely long carriage. My eyes fixed on the piece of paper she’d left behind.
“I’m headed to the restroom,” I said, pushing to my feet. I swiped the note from the ground and hurried down the aisle. I could hardly wait to open it. It felt like the note was burning a hole in my hand as I passed row after row of Laylas. When I reached the narrow bathroom door, I hurried inside and slid the lock into place. I took my first full breath since first seeing Layla at the train station. The cabin was tiny, but within these four tight walls, I was free from judgment. I opened the note with trembling hands.
Layla’s handwriting was a scribble between paragraphs: you don’t belong here. I closed my eyes to the throbbing pain at the top of my head.
I know. That was the first thought that came into my head. I knew this wasn’t my world, just a temporary holding cell. I couldn’t stay here long. But Walker’s world was the afterlife, and that belonged to everybody at some point or another. That would be my new home once my transition had completed.
I opened my eyes and faced myself in the mirror. I didn’t like the girl staring back at me. You don’t belong here. I belonged with Walker, though. Our souls were intertwined. How else could he have saved me? How could he have come from an entirely different realm and met me between the living and the dead if we weren’t meant to be?
Layla just felt threatened. That’s all. She was jealous of me, in the same way I was jealous of her. We were both fighting for Walker’s attention. The only difference between us, was that she’d had the chance to be with him all this time, and she’d never taken it. I would not let that happen to me. I would not let her scare me away from Baylor with her stolen books and her red cloaks. I looked away from my reflection. I wouldn’t let her deter me either.
I flipped the ripped page over and skimmed through the labyrinth of words. It spoke of dreamwork and how our minds use symbols. This was the exact kind of thing that Walker wanted to read up on. The thing he couldn’t find on the internet. I wondered if she’d ripped out this particular page for a reason. I folded it back up and stuffed it in my back pocket. I’d show Walker the next time I saw him. Right after I apologized for Mason and Noah’s prank.
When I left the bathroom, I was relieved to see that all the Laylas had reverted to the unique individuals they once were. I smiled at the old man sitting next to us. He looked nothing like Layla, and I was embarrassed to think he may have heard me and the girls talking about him.
“Where did Scarlett May go?” I asked.
“She’s getting a snack from the bar. I told her to grab something for you, too,” Emma said.
“Thanks.”
“Honestly, though, what are we going to do all summer? Are our lives going to be one long endless summer in Baylor Lake? Will I have a perpetual tan, year-round?” Kimber rambled.
“Yeah, Kinsley, we gotta find a way out of here. I mean, I need to go home at some point. My mom’s going to start to worry. And I have college in the fall,” Emma said.
“I know. I know. I’m working on it,” I said, feeling the full weight of the message burning a hole in my back pocket. You don’t belong here.
I’d made my choice. I wanted to stay. But it was they who didn’t belong here. Emma shouldn’t have to miss college, and Kimber could have a year-round tan anywhere she lived—even if she had to pay for it. But she didn’t have to be trapped in Baylor for that. And Asher, he may never become a famous athlete, but he was going to play football in college. And he had many years ahead of him to do whatever he pleased. It was my responsibility to get my friends home. The ones who survived, anyway.
The train jerked violently, and the passenger car seemed to jump beneath us. Scarlett May came crashing into our cubby, and a variety of snacks flew to the floor as she fell on her hands and knees.
“Whoa, what was that?” Kimber asked, hands pressed against the walls.
The train continued to jerk and jump, as we slid helplessly on the benches, unable to catch ourselves. The horizon jumped by in a zig-zagged motion. A sapling tree slapped the window and scraped alongside the car making a screeching sound like nails on a chalkboard.
“We’re off the tracks!” Emma yelled.
I leaned over, trying to get a good look out the window, but everything was moving too fast for me to focus. It was a blur of bushes and trees, and it was clear we were off the rails and still traveling at alarming speeds. The train’s whistle sounded, two long cries for help.
Scarlett May climbed onto the seat, and we tried to hold on to anything we could. My hands were spread wide across the bench, and I had one foot pressed against the adjacent seat, pinning me in place. Emma tried to hold on to the walls, but her hands continued to slip.
“No, no, no. Not again,” Kimber cried.
“Holy shit! We’re going to go off the cliff if we don’t stop!” Scarlett May yelled, her face as white as a ghost.
“We have to jump. We have to jump!” Emma screamed, scrambling to her feet, and looking for an exit.
Panic ensued. Screams sounded throughout the passenger car, and the man sitting beside me was frazzled and pale. He looked like he may be having a heart attack. His lips were gray, and the collar of his shirt was ripped open. I wished they were all Laylas now, but they weren’t. They were families. Children.
“We can’t jump; it will kill us!” Kimber screamed.
“What do you think is going to happen when we plunge off that cliff?” Emma yelled back, trying to open the emergency door.
Scarlett May slipped and was knocked down to her knees again. She scraped my legs trying to pull herself up.
I leaned back in my seat and let it all happen the way it wanted to. I knew we’d be home soon, and this was just the way to get there. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t neat. Or pretty. It certainly wasn’t fair. But the sooner everybody accepted it, the sooner we could move on.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared to plunge off the side of the cliff. I was terrified. And I had an incredible fear of heights. But just like watching a scary movie, I told myself it wasn’t real. If I could just close my eyes, it would all be over soon.
I knew how to fake confidence now, and it was a trick I tried while everyone else panicked. My jaw was clenched tight, and my back went rigid, but I would not run this time.
Emma got the door open, and a small handful of passengers jumped. Their screams lingered briefly in the air like tiny wisps in the wind. Emma leapt, and her scream snuffed like a candle as the train barreled forward. She didn’t even look back.
Kimber wanted to jump, but she stalled for one second too long, and then it was too late.
The bumpy ride stopped as quickly as it started. We glided through the air. The ground beneath us was just a cloud now, and we soared like Levi had. My stomach leapt into my throat.
The ground was getting closer and closer. Bile filled my mouth. I closed my eyes to the chaos. I tried to ignore the screams as I waited for the crash.
But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was when I woke up, tangled in my bed sheets, feeling like a prisoner of my own making.