A Soul's Kiss (7 page)

Tyler

Friday

By noon I’d had enough of school and texted my mom. I told her I was sick and asked her to call the attendance office and get me excused for the rest of the day. She did. She probably thought I was upset about Keith.

I didn’t go home though. I started walking south without thinking about it. I was headed to the hospital.

I passed the frozen custard shop where last Friday I almost got up enough nerve to go in and talk to Jessica and Rashanda. Crap. I wish I had Keith’s confidence with girls.

It took fifteen minutes to walk to the hospital. I should have gone straight to the information desk to see if they had moved Keith, but I went to where I last saw him. His cubicle was empty. I looked around and wondered what happened to everybody. The place was deserted. The info board at the nurses’ station didn’t have Keith’s or Hannah’s or Michael’s names, but Jessica Mitchell was still on the list with a special notation and two doctors’ names. I glanced toward the corresponding cubicle number but the curtain was open and the bed was gone. Wheeled to a private room? I asked a nurse’s aide and she told me that she’d just been taken into surgery.

Crap. Double crap.

I went down the hall toward the main entrance and passed the windows of a waiting room. Rashanda was there, camped across two chairs and trying to sleep. I opened the door quietly and snuck in. I was undecided whether to say something or just wait. I took the chair to my left and planted my elbows on my knees. I rested my head on my knuckles and stared at the floor.

Someone came in even more quietly than I had. Barefoot. I could see her bare legs up to her knees where the bottom of a light green hospital gown started. I kept my head in my hands but lifted my eyes and followed her steps as she crossed the room and headed towards Rashanda.

Too strange.

From the back this patient had hair like Jessica’s. I closed my eyes and thought of the last time I saw Jessica. She was walking out of the school with my stepbrother and her hair looked exactly the same as this girl’s. A shot of adrenaline blasted my eyes open with an insane hope. Jessica?

She stopped at Rashanda and bent over her until their foreheads touched. A beeper went off on the coffee pot to my left and I jumped, swung my head toward it. I expected both girls to react to the sound, too. I looked back and there was only Rashanda. I almost came out of my chair I was so startled.

Crap. It was just a dream. I saw what I wanted to see, I guess. I must have dozed off, too.

I got a text from my mom asking me how I felt. I confessed that I was at the hospital and about to visit Keith. Before she texted back I felt that weird feeling that I had in first hour when I saw Jessica’s book on her desk. Like she was near somehow. Then Rashanda started snoring and I went to look for Keith’s room.

Jessica

Friday

I spot Rashanda in the waiting room trying to take a cat nap. If I can do one of those Vulcan mind-melds with her before she falls into a deep sleep, then we can communicate again.

There’s some guy wearing a ball cap sitting off to the side with his head down. I’m extra quiet as I tiptoe in. I don’t want Rashanda to wake up and look like she’s talking to voices in her head if she can see me and he can’t.

I bend over her and carefully touch foreheads. This time I notice the wisp of gray noise that accompanies my transfer from existing in the air to existing in her head.

“Hi, Rashanda.”

“How are you doing, Jessica?” Rashanda is dreaming our encounter. She puts both of her hands on my shoulders, frowns, and gives me a worried look though all of these actions are only in her head.

“I’m fine.”

“Your spleen? Can they . . . did they fix it?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I just walked out of the operating room and left them to do whatever they have to do.” She drops her hands and I use mine to fake like I was brushing the wrinkles out of the front of the hideous green hospital gown I’m wearing. “Look. No more blood.” That has to be a good sign. “And I feel pretty good.”

Rashanda isn’t convinced. “Why are we
here
?”

“Huh?” I try to look up at the ceiling, but my neck won’t work. I can only look down or to the sides. What Rashanda is imagining now is the same place that I’d seen in Michael’s dream. Stony Park. The Quonset hut. We are standing next to a dirty brown mattress. “You tell
me
, Rashanda. This is
your
dream.”

She says that this isn’t a dream it’s a memory . . . and then there’s a beep and I’m not with her anymore.

I don’t know how I end up back in the operating room so fast, flung from Rashanda’s mind back here in an instant. I stand next to my physical body, which is on an operating table, and watch the doctor work on me. My head is immobilized. There’s a tube down my throat, breathing for me. An anesthesiologist monitors its function, but his eyes dart around the room. I wave my hands in front of his face but get no reaction.

The doctors and nurses in the room speak in crisp, tense phrases behind their masks. They are agitated. The thought flits through my mind that my body could die. I might never wake up. I struggle and fight to concentrate on staying alive. I have no idea how to stay alive and yet I don’t panic. My thinking seems foggy. My body on the table shivers. I shiver. My feet are freezing on the cold floors. I start to quiver and throw my arms around myself and wish I was wearing something a lot more substantial than this flimsy gown.

A gown that has a red bloodstain starting to grow on the front. Again.

Tyler

Friday

I went up in the elevator two flights and followed the arrows to Keith’s room. Crap. His mom was in there with someone. I waited near the nurses’ station and tried to get up my nerve. I’ve heard my stepdad complain about his ex-wife’s bad temper and I’ve seen her in action at sporting events. She was always a little too loud, like she’d had a few drinks before she showed up.

“Can I help you?” a nurse asked.

Whoa, she was young and cute. “Uh,” I knew my mouth was catching flies, “uh, I’m just waiting to see my stepbrother, Keith.”

“Oh, you can go in. The chaplain is just making his rounds.” She smiled. Cute. But not as cute as Jessica. I nodded my head and moved away from the desk. I didn’t want to go in while his mom was there, but maybe if there was a minister in there the former Mrs. Mullins would tolerate me.

I stopped as she came out with the chaplain. They were talking in low voices, not looking my way, and were huddled together. The chaplain put his hand on her back and guided her toward the waiting room. As soon as the door shut behind them, I popped into Keith’s room. I didn’t know how much time I’d have and I didn’t want to stay long anyway. All I could think about was Jessica in surgery.

“Hey.”

“Hey, bro.” Keith was pale. His leg was strapped up a foot or more off the bed. He had an IV line and some other crap with lines and monitors and stuff. We knuckle-punched.

“How’re you doing?” I asked. I didn’t sit down.

He groaned. “Man, I feel like I was hit by a bus.” He gave a fake laugh. “I guess Hannah and Michael got out without a scratch, more or less.” Then his face puckered. I saw the guilt. He’d been the one driving after all, and I knew what he was thinking: Jessica. I nodded.

“How is she, Ty?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I couldn’t speak for a second. “She’s in surgery. Doesn’t look good.” I really didn’t know her outlook, but something made me want to deepen Keith’s guilt.

“At least she knows you like her.”

“What? Huh?” Was he hallucinating? I wondered what drugs they put him on. He must be getting something for the pain. “I never got a chance to tell her.”

“But I did.” I was so tempted to punch him for real, but then he added, “This morning. I saw her at school and I told her you have a crush on her.”

Okay. That was just crazy. Neither of them was at school today. He must’ve been trippin’. I took the chair and pulled it closer to the bed. This was gonna be good. “Tell me about it, Keith.”

“Really? You believe me? Man, it was so awesome.” And then he started talking like a wild person. It was like he had an adventure with computer generated images. Very vivid. I didn’t believe a word of it until he got to the part about seeing Jessica: “And then you came out of room 236 right after second hour started and went to the restroom. You passed us and when you came back out you mumbled Jessica’s name. She answered you, but you couldn’t hear her of course because, well, I don’t know why exactly. Weird, huh? And that’s when I told her about your crush. And I told her I hoped she wouldn’t die.” He groaned again and shook his head, “Man, I should have apologized for the accident. But it wasn’t really my fault.”

I didn’t know if he said whose fault it was then because I’d already stopped listening. I had to believe him now because I
did
leave class second hour and I
did
say Jessica’s name in an empty hallway. And most incredibly, I
did
think I heard a voice say
What, Tyler?

Too crazy. I wanted to ask him a million questions, but his mom came back into the room.

I leaped up. “Uh, hi, Mrs. Mullins,” I said. It was weird because that was my mom’s name, too.

“Hello, Tyler. Could you stay a while? I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” I nodded as she smiled and kissed Keith, and wasn’t unpleasant like I expected. “See you later, honey. Thanks, Tyler.” She left the room and I sat back down.

I had a long discussion with Keith. I made him tell me everything from the moment he left school with Jessica and those other two jerks up to now. It was all disjointed and he was acting silly, too, and forgetful. The part about talking to Jessica wasn’t as clear in the second telling. Like a fading dream.

I considered telling him about my surreal encounters with her. It made sense now. Her spirit must be floating around trying to get back into her body. We needed a way to communicate.

“Can you get in touch with her again, do you think?”

Keith laughed and yawned at the same time. “I don’t know, man, it was just a dream.”

“Try.”

“Try what? To get unconscious? I’ll get right on it.” He closed his eyes.

“No. Like, like just relax and try to get into one of those zoned-out states.” That’s when a really cool thought hit me. “Never mind, get some rest. I’ll see you later.” He probably thought I was wacked out or else mad at him, but I’d just put it all together—Rashanda’s cat nap, the zoning out, concentrating on Jessica at school, feeling her presence. I could do it myself. All I needed to do was find an empty room and fall asleep. I know—crazy.