A Soul's Kiss (14 page)

Jessica

Monday, mid-morning to noon

I can feel Hannah’s body shaking with my sobs. We are connected. We’re at her locker and Brittany is talking, “Give it a break. I’ll see ya later.” And then the next instant I hear Michael’s voice. Yes, yes, I’m so excited and Hannah is letting me through a little.

“What’s the matter, Hannie? Ya miss me?”

This is awesome. I relish the thrill that circles and swirls through my middle. Will he kiss me, her, us? I’d cried inside at the memory of Hannah’s childhood disappointments and I’m pretty sure that my sorrow and distress for her has affected Hannah based on the things that her locker partner said. We look at him and I realize how awful and yet wonderful it is to be Hannah. I look into his eyes, really look, and I try to push Hannah aside. I throw my arms around him, but she’s the one to hold onto him.

“What’s the matter?” he says, giving her, us, a weak squeeze. We break apart and I accidentally slip into another childhood memory of Hannah’s:
a birthday party for her when she was eight with hand-me-downs for presents and day old balloons that had lost their helium. They flutter around the floor where her younger sisters pop them.
I gasp at the irony of balloons on the floor—the very thing that Michael had joked he was afraid of. I have to laugh.
This is funny,
I scream at Hannah.
Don’t you see how funny this is? Balloons!

Aloud I say, “Balloons, balloons on the floor.” I peek between my fingers at Michael to see if he gets the absurdity of it all, then Hannah waves him off and turns back to her locker to grab a notebook. I hear him mumble something about girls before Hannah wipes at her tears and sends me deep into the recesses and corridors of her childhood. But I have spoken—I’ve broken through.

I spend the rest of the morning watching scenes from a sad little girl’s life. From time to time I hear a teacher’s voice or glimpse a classmate and once a door to a recent memory opens all the way, but it doesn’t give me any reason to change my opinion of Hannah. She is messed up. Sad, angry, belligerent. Hard. Maybe it’s up to me to work some happiness into her life, because, even though I don’t like her much and I’m jealous of her having Michael as a boyfriend, I have a scary feeling that I might not ever get back to my own body. What if they’re pulling the plug on me right now? I have no way of knowing.

I become aware of what is happening when Hannah enters the cafeteria. We’re hungry. I can see again and we’re headed toward the seniors’ table. This isn’t my lunch hour—I can tell by the kids who are already sitting down.

Michael takes the seat across from us and says, “Are you going to tell me what that was all about earlier? Are you on painkillers or something?” His eyebrows dip together in a vee. It’s too corny, his scowl, too affected. Mrs. Clark would give him a little direction if this was a play and Michael, being the wonderful actor that he is, would relax that grimace. Even so, I can’t take my attention away from him.

I miss Hannah’s response. Miss most of the conversation as they eat, but I try really, really hard to butt in once in a while, like when Hannah is busy chewing and swallowing. She might have reached across and touched his knuckles on her own, but I’m sure that I nudged her to do it, and I take advantage of it.

A couple of times someone at the table talks to them and I spend the time staring and mentally drooling over Michael. Rashanda would be throwing up if she could see this. I wonder then if she’s in the cafeteria. There are three lunch periods and we don’t have the same one. This might be hers. I look all around and wonder how I’m doing that without Hannah’s head moving. Strange. I am tethered to her somehow and yet I have certain freedoms.

“Do you want an ice cream?” Oh my gosh, yes. That sounds so good, but Hannah says no, shakes her head. Michael leaves the table and Hannah lets her guard down. A door opens in her mind and I sneak in.

Holy cow!
She’s thinking about last weekend. Her plan. Her body. Michael. Sex.

I duck out, embarrassed. Disgusted.

“Do I know you?” I hear Hannah say. I look at Michael’s spot and see Tyler sitting down. He looks incredibly shy and nervous. My heart leaps to my throat and I clutch at the memory of our dream kiss. I do not want Hannah to see or feel or know about it and I’m not sure if my thoughts are as hard for her to access as hers are for me.
Hi, Tyler
.

I see him through her eyes. She thinks he’s pretty cute, likes the freckles, admires the blue sparkle in his eyes. She compares him to Michael. Her thoughts flicker back and forth between memories of kissing Michael and thinking about Tyler’s lips and wondering about kissing him. I don’t know why I feel so possessive of Tyler, but I do. I don’t like where her thoughts are going. Doors are swinging open around me and I jump in and out of Hannah’s recollections, wishes, hopes, and half-remembered dreams and finally plunge myself into her foremost consciousness.

“What’s your name?” she asks Tyler. Like she doesn’t know—I practically screamed it in her head this morning. I’m the tiniest bit jealous that he is sitting here talking to my archrival. For half a second it occurs to me that this could be a good thing. She thinks he’s hot so maybe she’d drop Michael for him and then I could step in.

“Tyler.”

“Tyler, huh? I knew that.”

“So . . . uh, the hospital? You need to visit Jessica there.” Oh, how sweet. He isn’t hitting on her—he’s thinking of me. I wonder if he spent the weekend at the hospital. Ask him, Hannah.
Ask him about me. Ask him about Jessica! Hannah! Touch his hand! Let him know I’m here!

She reaches across the table and puts her hand on his. Before, when she touched Michael’s hand I had been ecstatic to feel the coolness of his skin, but her touching Tyler is laser hot, at least on my end. I put all my effort into moving myself up his freckled arm, hoping I can extract myself from Hannah somehow.

I hear Hannah’s voice choking out a response one syllable at a time: “I—don’t—real—ly—know—her.” I scream in her head
Tyler!
and I make her move her mouth in those two syllables and she says, “Tyler.” She draws in a breath and seems to suck me back. I squeeze Tyler’s hand with hers, but she jerks away and I spin back, shocked by the foul language she directs at him.

I know Tyler is leaving. I hear the seniors nearby tossing taunts and jeering at his back. I can’t look. Michael appears and Hannah speaks to
me
inside her head. I answer and she freezes in terror.

Hannah

Monday noon

I thought I was going to lose my lunch. If Michael’s face reflected mine, a habit he has, then I must have looked pretty scared. I got up before he had a chance to sit down. We had twenty minutes left, enough time for him to drive me home. Or to the hospital. Not that I believed the stupid things that Tyler said. Like I’m possessed. Right.

“You’re taking me home,” I said and didn’t wait for a response. He would know I meant right now. I could sign myself out and have my dad call in later.

“What’d that kid say to you?” Michael caught up to me and touched my elbow, slid his hand down to mine and held it.

“Nothing. I’ll tell you later.” We reached the door and Michael gave the hall monitor some bullcrap about band practice and she let us leave without a problem. Michael can get past anyone.

“You get your stuff and I’ll pull the car up,” he said, dropping my hand and heading for the first exit.

I headed to my locker then inexplicably raced up the middle staircase while mentally screaming back at the voice in my head.
Shut up!

I was
not
going crazy. This was just an aftereffect of the accident. Post traumatic something.

I stopped at locker number 1116 and said to myself: this
isn’t
my locker. The voice in my head said
it’s my locker. I’m Jessica. I know you can hear me. Try the lock. The combination is 38-8-12.

I looked up and down the empty hallway before I took the lock in my left hand and twirled the dial with my right. 38.

Now left and go past the 38 one whole revolution, slow down.

8.

Now just a bit to the right to the 12. Pull.

I yanked the lock down.

See? Do you believe me now?

I didn’t have to rifle through the notebooks or books to find her name—there was a picture of her and Rashanda on the door, the words ‘best friends’ scrawled across the bottom. Sappy. And there was a swim practice schedule taped below it with Jessica’s name circled at the top.

I’m sorry, Hannah. I didn’t mean for this to happen
. . .
for me to get stuck inside you. I’m in a coma actually. Maybe if we went to the hospital
. . .

I drowned the voice out by repeating a certain profanity over and over. I left the lock dangling and the door open and raced downstairs to my own locker, got my stuff, and tried not to think, not to hear her.

Michael was parked in the pick-up zone. He leaned over and pushed the door open for me. I climbed in still chanting my vulgarities and curses.

“Don’t ask,” I said. “Just drive. To the hospital. Now.”

We went maybe a whole mile in silence, except for my whispered swearing, until Michael couldn’t take it anymore. “Are you sick? Are you . . . bleeding?”

I snorted. I wished I was bleeding. Wait. Maybe I was. Maybe this was a brain bleed or something worse. No, I had to take into account what Tyler had said. As crazy as it was, I believed him now. I did not want to admit it, but . . . what a perfect payback.

Payback? I don’t understand.

Shh, go away.

Michael was waiting for an answer. I said, “No, I’m not bleeding. We just need to see that girl.” I shot him a look. “That girl you like. Your little drama class friend that we were going to prank.”

Prank? No, you were helping me. I got hurt and you were so nice and suggested taking me home.

No, we were going to prank you. Take you to our secret spot. The others were on their way. We were going to get you high and then—

“Uh, I can drop you off if you suddenly feel compelled to visit her. She’s not my drama class friend, by the way. She was just my suggestion for a victim. She seemed easy to fool. But anyway, I have to get back to school for next hour. Calc test.”

Victim? Easy to fool?

Do I really have to explain more, Jessica?

“Just let me off under the canopy for the emergency room entrance. I’ll find my own way home.”

I was pissed. He’s such a liar. I knew he liked Jessica . . . likes
you
. And he didn’t have a calc test next hour, and even if he did, they’d give him another day to study. He’s the great and wonderful Michael Hoffman and he was just in a serious car accident.

I slammed the door.

I kept up the conversation in my head. Jessica’s voice intensified once we went through the revolving doors.

So, what room are you in?

I don’t know. The last time I saw my body it was in a recovery room after my splenectomy. I’m probably in a private room now. My dad has good insurance.

Yeah, rub it in.

Sorry.

I checked at the information desk and got sent to room 244.

Those are my parents!

“Hello. I’m Hannah.” Jessica’s excitement in my head made me angry. I tried to stuff her into some mental pocket of my brain. “I was in the accident with her. How is she doing?”

“Sit down, please. Here.” Her father held out a chair for me. “I’m Joe Mitchell. This is my wife, Diane. Didn’t you go to school today, Hannah? Are you all right?”

I wanted to cry. I bet my face was a dead giveaway because Mr. Mitchell patted me and Mrs. Mitchell started gushing all over me, too. They were so nice and Jessica hopped out of that pocket and began to whisper memories in my ear. Nice ones. She had a really great family, rich in a way I’d never known.

I did cry and they comforted me and talked about Jessica and how she was going to wake up any time now.

I tried to mentally scream at Jessica: Just jump back into your body!

I’m trying. I think you have to get closer.

Awkward. Maybe when your mom and dad leave the room I can.

I got hold of my emotions then and calmed down. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell talked a lot about Jessica, what she was into, her love of swimming, how she was going to try out for the school play. Blah, blah, blah. I learned a lot about her and for sure we would never have been friends.

You don’t have any real friends.

Well, that was a mean thing to say. But I wasn’t sure if that was Jessica speaking to me or my own conscience.

*  *  *

By two o’clock we were out of things to talk about and her parents asked if I would stay another ten minutes while they took a break. They didn’t want her to be alone, even though the nurses had come in and out of the room a couple of times. I said sure and after they left Jessica surprised me with the strangest request ever. I was so not going to kiss her. This was not Sleeping Beauty or Snow White or any other fairy tale.