Chapter 16: : Chapter 16

LUCY HOVERS ON THE EDGE of a dream when the air seems to change around her. Behind her eyes it’s been wonderfully dark, but it’s so simple to lift her lids, let in the dull sunrise that creeps into the room. Colin is there, sleeping and warm. Somehow in the night they’ve changed places. She’s behind him with arms wrapped around his ribs.

“Are you working breakfast?” She glances at the clock. It’s already seven. “You’re going to be late.”

He rolls over so fast it’s jarring, his eyes full of terror and relief. And fury.

“Lucy.”

Fury?

He grabs her, pulling her to him so fast that she gasps as he presses his face into her neck. She closes her eyes, and the rapid beat of his heart moves through him and into her, vibrating her silent chest, and she feels so full, almost carbonated. He makes a sound of frustration, almost a howl, as if he can’t hold her tight enough, can’t wrap enough of himself around her. She laughs and urges him onto his back, but when she looks down, she realizes he’s not laughing.

“What’s wrong? And what happened to you?” She reaches for a scrape on his forehead, an angry bruise on his chin. Those weren’t there before.

He sits up abruptly, and she slides from his lap onto the foot of the bed, landing a few feet away from him. His fury is bigger now. There’s more fire than affection in his hazel eyes.

“Where have you been?”

“What are you talking about?” she asks, reaching for him again. “You’ve been asleep. Last night was . . .” She stops, terrified now that what they did was only a strange, dark dream. “Last night you touched me and . . . I thought . . .”

“Last night? Last night, Lucy? Last night you weren’t here. You’ve been gone for almost two weeks.”

Cold fingers slip up inside her chest and curl around where her heart used to beat. “What?”

We just have to wait for you to vanish.

Thankfully, most do.

“Where have you been?”

She can see it now, the subtle changes that happen to the living in only a few short days: His hair is the tiniest bit longer. A cut on his knuckle has healed over, and new ones surround the fading mark. “I didn’t know I was gone!”

He yanks at his hair before standing and walking to his closet. He’s in a different pair of boxers and begins pulling on clothing as if he doesn’t want to be seen. A wrinkled dress shirt and blazer. His school tie left open around the very neck she finally kissed. Layer upon layer that separates him from her. “Luce, I last saw you ten days ago. It was December seventh, today is the seventeenth.”

Her stomach drops into an abyss. “I don’t understand,” she says.

“I looked for you—at school, the trail, the shed—” He stops and presses his knuckles into his chest roughly, as if it hurts the same way hers does. “One minute you were here and then you were just gone. Where did you go?”

He steps closer and then away, making a fist. He seems torn between wanting to come to her and wanting to punch the wall.

“You fell asleep. And for the first time, I was able to close my eyes and dream. . . . It didn’t even seem that long. I . . . saw this dark trail underwater. I walked to the end, where it was dark and . . . calm. And then I woke up just now.”

“Well,” he says, picking something up from the corner of the room and placing it on the bed. Her clothes, from that night. She hadn’t even realized she was wearing nothing but underwear. She crosses her arms over her bare chest, suddenly self-conscious. She sees him wince, but he says, “I’m glad you felt supercalm on the black underwater supertrail. I was freaking out, thinking I’d never see you again.”

“Colin, I’m so—”

“I have class.”

The walk across campus is excruciating. He won’t talk; he won’t look at her. Worse, he won’t touch her.

She reaches over, tentatively putting her hand on his, and he pulls back, like he’s surprised all over again by how it feels. She’d hoped her touch would be familiar, comforting even. But maybe the quiet buzz of sensation only reminds him how impermanent she is.

“I had no idea I would disappear.” Her steps slow, then falter, widening the space between them.

He exhales slowly before stopping, turning to face her. “I know.”

Is this how break-ups happen? Someone disappears—literally or metaphorically—and the rhythm is forever ruined? “I would have been a mess if the situation were reversed.”

He reaches for her but then shoves his hand into his hair. “I’m not trying to be a dick. I seriously thought you were gone for good. I’m just really freaked.”

Apparently, there will be no comforting touch in this reconciliation, and this thought leaves her overwhelmingly sad. She hates having no answers. She died, she’s back, and she wants to be near him with every particle of her strange body. And still, there is absolutely no meaning to any of it. “I’m here,” she says lamely.

His eyebrows pull together and his eyes darken a shade. “For how long? I mean, how can we know?”

Shrugging, she looks past him at the trees rooted so firmly in the frozen ground, at the buildings that have been there for more than a century. Ghosts have haunted the world since the beginning of time, and suddenly, she’s plagued with the desire to know how to do it right.