18 Things (12 page)

Does Conner see me crying, praying, laughing, and now, singing
?

Water inches over my bare feet. I wake up and check Conner’s Storm Trooper watch. He looks at me, like he’s preparing for something. I smile, and he rips me off the beach towel and plunges me into Lake Michigan, holding me under. I convulse in horror, unable to plea for my life. Finally, my body stops flopping, lifeless now. Conner gathers me in his arms, looking down at my dead eyes. He brushes water from my face and lays me on the towel again.

He scans the horizon and laughs as Sean and Kyle walk toward him on the beach, carrying a poker table. They set it up right at the edge of the water, next to my towel.

Kyle nods at my stiff body. “Will Olga be joining our game?”

Conner deals the cards. “Nope. I’m disappointed in her. She wasn’t able to save herself. I loved her, you know? I just hope she’ll do the right thing now.”

“
Enough with the heavy. It’s Guys Night Out!” Sean reaches behind him and places a bag of potato chips and a container of Heluva Good Dip on the table.

Seagulls circled over us, squawking like maniacs. I blinked a few times and absorbed my surroundings, but all I could think about was the dream. They were really something lately, weird enough to send me into cardiac arrest just thinking about them.

Crap.
We weren’t supposed to fall asleep.

Lifting Nate’s arm, which was strangely draped over me, I noticed the time on his Storm Trooper watch, last night’s initiation gift from the Jedi Order. We gave one to Tammy, too. The tiny display read six-thirty. The sun graced the horizon.

I was supposed to be sleeping in my bed! Frantically, I shook Nate. But then something white and nasty hit my forehead. I looked up and saw three seagulls circling above us before heading for the lake.

Double crap.

“Eww, ewwey, eww, eww!” I touched my finger to my hairline.

“Well, it is all fun and games until some bird poops on your head, and then it’s freakin’ hilarious!” Nate pointed at me and laughed so hard he woke the others.

“Stop it,” I managed through giggles, jumping up and down. “You’re gonna make me pee my pants!”

“Usually number one comes before two, not the other way around,” Sean said, holding out his hand to Nate for a fist bump.

I crossed my arms and grimaced even though I was tempted to smile. “The lame jokes keep on coming today, guys, don’t they?”

“I’m sorry. But really, it’s tomorrow, so I haven’t nearly filled my lame joke quota for the day.” Nate winked at me.

“Seriously, can you go dunk your head in the water?” Kyle asked. “You’re starting to smell stank.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Tammy said.

I kicked off my sneakers and socks, then rolled up my pant legs.

“I swear it’s like I have a bounty on my head from the poop gods.” I raced down the hill toward the water, feeling like Conner had something to do with this. Or maybe getting pooped on was just bad karma for sneaking out. Trudging ankle deep in the cold water, I scrubbed poop off my hair and skin.

“If it’s any consolation, I think a bird pooping on your head symbolizes good luck.” Nate handed me a towel.

I ran a hand through my tangled hair. “I’m pretty sure people just tell you it’s lucky so you’ll feel better.”

Nate shrugged. “Hey, I’m not the one full of crap.”

I splashed water on his face. “Whatever. I’ll take seagull poop over the human variety any day.”

“You need a ride home?” Nicole asked, arriving at the shore with everyone, and every
thing
in tow.

“Yeah, we’re starting to cut things close, so I don’t think walking is an option. I’ll have to crawl through my window as it is.”

When we were a few streets down from mine, we caught sight of Dad too late. He drove his Ford, on the way to get his Sunday morning paper before church, and spotted me passing by in Nicole’s car.

Busted.

“Never take cues from the crowd.”
―Unknown

o, I guess I’ll be ungrounded soon,” I told Dr. Judy. Repeat anxiety attacks over going back to school on Tuesday landed me in her office for an emergency visit… the Saturday before Labor Day!

Dr. Judy’s eyes grew bright as she leaned forward. “How do you feel about that?”

I shrugged. Since Dad busted me for sneaking out, I spent the rest of my summer, a whole two months, grounded from everything except work.

“Being grounded wasn’t so bad. I still got to work at The Bookman and on newspaper stuff with Nicole, and come here. And the list wasn’t on total hiatus since I was able to watch a lot,
a lot
, of the hundred greatest movies of all time, read
The Lord of the Ring
series, and start my own blog. The only people who read it are Nicole and Nate, but that’s still two more followers than I thought I’d have. Truth is being around Nate is like an escape from my unhappiness, so not being able to see him much was like the only thing that majorly sucked about being grounded. But maybe I don’t deserve him anyways.”

Leaning across her desk, Dr. Judy asked, “Do you really believe that?”

I shrugged again and changed the subject, something she allowed me to do most of the time when I didn’t want to answer a question. “Do you want to hear something weird?” I pulled out my journal. “I never remembered my dreams until now. I mean until after I took that bottle of pills. It’s like the whole experience of almost dying altered my state of mind or something.”

Dr. Judy crossed her arms and gave me a knowing smirk. “In my experience, many patients return to their near-death experiences through their dreams. Maybe it’s your brain’s way of trying to make sense of your memories, or maybe like you said, almost dying altered your state of mind. It could’ve awakened some muscle memory you never used before.”

“But these dreams don’t contain my memories. Well, they kind of do, but they’re altered.” My breath tucked itself away in my chest, refusing to come out until Dr. Judy told me I wasn’t crazy.

She nodded to my journal, then closed her eyes and sat back in her seat. “I assume you wrote it down. Will you read it to me?”

I gripped the black leather-bound book tight enough to cause bruising, but I loosened my fingers and then turned to the last page I’d written on.

Mom tiptoed into my bedroom. The only light came from the setting sun, through a slit in my curtains. She crept closer, nose turning up at the funky smell. She untwisted the zebra blanket clinging to my body and reached out to touch my face. Her hand froze as she muttered, “Oh, God.”

She put her ear to my mouth to listen for breathing. She checked the pulse on my wrist and gasped. I could tell she wanted to scream, but the sound curdled into nothing as she realized I was dead. Finally, she looked around the room, sucked in a deep breath, then let the sound loose.

Dad came running in, then pushed past her. He was the one to dial 9-1-1, tears in his eyes as he reported the empty pill bottle on my nightstand.

In the ambulance, I heard another distress call over the radio, and it was for Nate Barca.

When I arrived at the hospital, every room I passed had the number eighteen on it. I was there, following the dead me on the gurney all the way to the autopsy room in the basement. They stuck me in a refrigerated area, and when the medical examiner left, I unzipped the plastic bag. As I examined my corpse, it rose to life again and fought me. The whole time, I kicked and punched myself, and I heard whispered prayers for my soul. The dead me knocked the other me unconscious and then Conner came in and told me to wake up, and I did.

Cringing, I closed my journal and then hugged it to my chest, praying Dr. Judy could help me decipher what this dream meant.

She gave the office a crisp sweep before returning her gaze to me. “Dreams are about taking the focus off ourselves and taking a break from our every day lives. Sometimes when we have those really weird dreams, it’s simply us taking all the events from our day, or past, throwing them together and then trying to make sense of everything.”

Pulling in a deep, cleansing breath, I said, “Okay, I get that but Conner…”

My voice drifted off as I spotted the Grand Haven Pier photograph behind Dr. Judy’s desk. A small whimper escaped my lips, remembering everything I’d been through. I craved a better explanation than the one she gave me. It almost felt like Conner tried to communicate from the grave through my dreams or something. I also knew how crazy that sounded.

Dr. Judy rolled up her sleeves, then fidgeted, tapping one long fingernail on her chin. “I think Conner keeps popping up in some parts of your dream because of the bond you shared. You were very close over the past twelve years, so you shared many of the same experiences, including the most tragic event of your life. Logic tells me that he would be the one to help you make sense of everything even now, if only through your dream state.” She picked up a pen and twirled it between her fingers. “I don’t know how comfortable you are with spiritual stuff, but maybe you should meditate on these dreams and seek God’s opinion on them. The book of Romans in the Bible speaks of the spirit interceding for us because we don’t know to pray as we should. You said you heard whispered prayers for your soul in your dream. Maybe the Spirit is trying to relay some information to you through your sleep.”