Be the Death of Me (11 page)

“You know what?” comes a small voice from somewhere behind me. “Call me crazy, Ford, but I think someone’s trying to kill you.”

“Are you okay?” I ask, watching her pick up and examine the grocery bag, now dripping with what used to be a can of stewed tomatoes.

“I’m dead, remember?” she smirks. “I’m always okay.”

I nod in understanding, allowing my lungs to fill with air, feeling my gut twist with a sudden wave of nausea. And then, whether from fear, or relief, or some other inexplicable emotion, I turn and empty the contents of my stomach all over the side of Fairway’s Grocer and Deli.

Fantastic.

Tucker

“What do you mean, someone tried to run him over?!”

Billie ushers Ford to the sink, pushing his bleeding hand under the faucet now spewing warm, angry water. She guides her hand over his to wash away the blood as he winces from the pain like it’s a gunshot wound rather than a simple cut.  She draws them both out of the water–his hand dripping wet, hers, of course, completely dry.

“Someone tried to run him over, and all they got was his hand?” I ask, watching the pair of them work across the kitchen. I stare at the droplets of blood splattered across the tile, left by Ford as he and Billie had staggered through the back door exactly ten seconds ago. I’d been greeted with, “Good to see you, Tuck. Someone tried to run Ford over. How was your night?”

“Well,” she begins, treading cautiously. “I kind of . . . sort of . . . maybe pushed him out of the way.” She throws open the cabinets overhead, searching for a First–Aid kit, finding the small, white box hidden in the depths of shelving. 

“You pushed him out of the way?” I ask, almost certain I haven’t heard correctly. “You pushed him out of the way of an oncoming car? You pushed him out of the way of an oncoming car that was trying to run him over?”

“Yes! What else do you think ‘pushed him out of the way’ means?”

I almost can’t believe it. Without giving it a second’s thought, I rush forward and pull her to me in an unbreakable hug.

“Whoa!” comes a muffled cry buried within the folds of my shirt. She doesn’t put her arms around me, but doesn’t pull away either. “What’s gotten into you?” she laughs through my arms.

“Nothing,” I smile, finally releasing her. “I’m just really glad Ford’s okay.”

She stares up at me with those bottomless eyes of hers, and I feel myself fall into them. Her brow creases with amused bewilderment, and a brilliant, return smile appears a second later. “Sure you are,” she replies. The curve of her mouth is so lovely, made only lovelier by the simple fact it’s curving for me.

A surge of momentary insanity washes over. As if possessing a mind of its own, my face begins leaning down to meet hers, drawn inward by the magnetism of her lips. The kitchen, the blood splattered tile, the sound of water still running in the sink, they cease to exist, fading into nothingness and white noise. Blissful silence. I don’t know what’s come over me, but I feel as if I don’t kiss her right this second, I may in fact die.

Again.

“I don’t mean to alarm anybody,” comes a poorly–timed voice, “but should there be this much blood?”

Billie turns her head, and I press my lips to nothing but air.

“Sorry,” she says to Ford, hurrying over with the First–Aid. It isn’t a moment’s work for her to properly clean and dress the wound which, I have to admit, is starting to bleed pretty heavily. She then bends down and places a kiss–my kiss–on his bandaged hand.

“All better,” she whispers, patting it gently. “Now quit complaining, you big pansy.”

“I’m not a pansy.”

I watch Billie push him onto a kitchen bar stool. It’s impossible not to feel sympathy for the guy. Looking the slightest bit green, he sits, shoulders slumped forward, all the fight gone from him.

“You look like hell, man.”

He glares up at me through his knot of hair. “Weird, right? It’s almost like someone just tried to run me over.”

I ignore the sarcasm. “What do you think the Captain’s going to say about all of this?”  I turn to Billie, supporting myself on my elbows and leaning back against the countertop. “He’ll probably be mad at first, but that’s just it’s his natural gut reaction. After he hears how you threw Ford out of danger, I think he’ll—”
“Yeah, about that,” she interrupts before I have a chance to tell her the Captain would be as proud of her as I am. “I was hoping maybe we wouldn’t have to tell him.” She bites her bottom lip as if she already knows what she’s asking for is impossible.

“What? Why?”

“You know Cap. He’s always looking for some excuse to yell at me. The fact I allowed Ford to get hurt—”

“A cut! It could have been a lot worse.”

“You’re not the one bleeding to death,” Ford says from his seat.

Billie shrugs and proceeds to flash me the biggest, bluest, saddest puppy dog eyes I have ever seen. “Please, Tuck?” she asks, her voice no more than a murmur. “I’ll tell him eventually, I promise. But for now, can we just keep this quiet?”

What is she thinking? She should know by now that it’s impossible to keep secrets from the Captain. The Captain hears all, sees all, knows all. She should also know better than to try and use the cute, pleading stare on me. It doesn’t matter how pretty her eyes are when they’re shaded by that tiny wrinkle in her forehead, or just how perfect her lips look when she sets them in a pout. It isn’t going to work.

“Sure,” I say. “We don’t have to tell him right away.”

Who am I kidding? It’ll work every time.

“Thanks.” She sounds delightfully sincere. “You’re a good guy, Tuck, you know that?”

Were I alive, I might have blushed. “So did you happen to see who was driving?” I ask them, hoping for a positive answer and a decisive change of subject.

“No,” comes Bille’s reply. “Tinted windows. Bright headlights. Bad combination.”

“Well, did you get a tag number?”

“Oh yeah,” Ford’s face lights up with what I can only assume is another round of derision. “I managed to memorize the license number while the car was busy running me down at a hundred miles an hour.”

“What about when it was leaving?”

“I was a bit busy. And despite my overwhelming desire to
not
die, I cannot run faster than a car.”

“And he seemed so perfect on paper,” Billie teases, tilting her head to one side as if examining a work of art.

“How disappointing,” I join in on the ribbing. “I’m thinking seriously about asking for my money back.”

“Perhaps we should upgrade to a newer model.”

“Splendid idea. I’ll look into it.”

“Okay, I get it,” Ford cuts in, standing. The bar stool teeters dangerously on one leg before crashing back on all fours. “I’m sorry if I don’t handle near–death experiences as well as you’d like.” He storms through the living room and sits on the staircase at the end of the hall.

I groan in impatience. Another ego check? “Maybe you should talk to him,” I whisper to the top of Billie’s head.

Her eyes grow wide at my suggestion. “What? Why me?”

“Because otherwise I’ll have to.”

“Come on, Tuck. I like the guy and everything, but if he cries, you and I both know I’m going to clock him.”

I shake my head, tousling my hair, leaving it perfectly rakish. “You’ll be fine. I promise. You’re much better at this than you think you are.”

For a split second, her eyes betray her uncertainty. “Promise?”

I smile down at her. “On my life.”

It takes her all of three steps to cross the tiny, poorly decorated living room. She seems to glide over the vintage, brown carpet, crouching on the step at Ford’s feet.

“Jeez, Ford,” she whispers, reaching for his recently bandaged hand. “We’re only kidding.” He doesn’t answer or bother looking in her direction. “You’re not going to get self–conscious on us now, are you?”

“I’m not self–conscious,” Ford barks. “At least not at the moment. I’m just . . .” he buries his head in his hands, making his muffled response somehow come across as even more pathetic. “I’m just exhausted.”

Billie looks to me, and I know what’s coming before she even has to speak a word. Ford was right. I did this to myself. I asked them to get along. I thought nothing could be worse than the constant bickering, but I guess it’s true what they say . . . 

 . . . Be careful what you wish for.

Please don’t ask me, Billie. If there is any kind of justice in this world, please don’t ask to stay with him. Just this once, pick me. Tell me you want me to stay.

“Let me take this one for a while, okay partner?” she says, breaking my heart with a smile. “I think he’s just a little overwhelmed. How about I stay with him tonight while you take a break. We can meet up in the morning, okay?”

Words seem neither necessary nor possible, so I do the only thing I can and nod my response. I don’t know where I’ll go until morning. I don’t want or need a break. There’s no one I want to speak to, and nowhere I want to go without the girl who just sent me away.

The last thing I see before disappearing is Billie putting her willow branch arm around Ford’s shoulders, and for a split second I imagine how much easier this assignment would be if I was capable of ever telling her no.

Billie

Ford returns to school the next day with no one the wiser about the incident in Fairway’s parking lot. By the end of the following week, the locker incident is also forgotten, made old news by the tragic, yet completely predictable break–up of basketball captain Dean Murphy and cheerleading co–captain Jessica What’s–her–name. Ford seems to breathe a little easier as each day passes without sign of threat. He becomes quite talented at hiding his fear of death, masking the dread in the gentle features of his face. To take his mind off things, I convince him to talk to the girl we met at the grocer’s. Their new, tenuous friendship works to ease his mind, though occasionally, when he’s alone or eating lunch with his new semi–friends at their usual table, I see how lost he is. He won’t answer a question right away, or he’ll wander off in a different direction, lost in his thoughts, and I know he’s once again surrendered to his panic.

Time passes, weeks of what I would call near perfection. Winter rallies and fails, making way for the encroaching spring, and it isn’t until three weeks into the assignment, on a random, seemingly innocent Thursday evening that everything begins to change. I’m alone, once again left to fend for myself while my partner is off reporting to our superior. I don’t blame him for his absence, nor envy his task.

Ford’s lies in bed, arm bent behind his head as a makeshift pillow while the actual pillow lies on the floor, unused. Deep, full breaths issue from his chest, his mouth hangs open. “You’re the worst fake sleeper in the world, you know that?” I call across the room.

One chocolate eye opens against the darkness. Ford flips over on his back. “Damn,” he grins. “And I here I thought I was a shoo–in for Julliard.”

“Well, I hear they’ll take just about anybody,” I say, taking a running leap at the bed and landing with a plop on my knees. The mattress doesn’t jostle in the slightest, completely unable to register my weight. I shift so my back is resting against his headboard and I’m able to look up at the dark expanse of ceiling.

He sits up on his elbow and gestures to ceiling. “Is it like the movies?” he asks as I sink down beside him.

“The movies?”

“Yeah, you know. All this time, I’ve pictured you living in some big, fancy cloud condo. Stars for porch lights, an angel for a roommate.”

I groan in spite of myself. “Ugh. Don’t even get me started on those guys. Bunch of sanctimonious old windbags.”

His eyes light up. He shakes his mess of hair, sending it in waves across his forehead. “Elders and Angels and Guardians.”

“Judges,” I add to his list. “Shepherds, Reapers. Not the most pleasant people, of course. Caretakers, Seers.”

“So let me ask you something then,” he says, twisting to face me. His brown eyes shine ebony in the darkness. “If you and Tucker are the first Guardians to be seen by a living person, how did you do your job before? How do
any
of you do your job?”

“You know on cop shows how interrogation rooms always have those one–way mirrors? It’s kind of like that. Just because you don’t know we’re there doesn’t mean we can’t do our job. You could have had a hundred Guardians before me, and you’d never once have known they were there. But you’re still alive, aren’t you?”

His lungs fill with a shaky breath, and his ribcage expands against my body.

“Imagine for a minute that you’re on your way to school,” I continue, lowering my voice to a tight whisper. “But your car won’t start. Maybe your Guardian figured it out and was trying to keep you from getting in a wreck. Or maybe you’re flying across the country, but your plane gets delayed, and you’re bumped to another flight.”

“That’s the Guardians?”

“Sometimes,” I shrug against his wiry frame. “But not every time. We’re never a hundred percent sure what we’re protecting you from, so every now and then we have to guess. We may be the little voice in your head, telling you not to cross the street. Or a whisper in the breeze persuading you to turn around for no reason whatsoever. But you do. And you live.”

Ford stares ahead, seeing the unseen, buried in his thoughts. “What happened?” he asks, suddenly nervous. “To you, I mean. What happened when you died?” It’s obvious he’s trying his best not to overstep a line. It doesn’t matter. The lines have been blurred and what’s left between us is only foggy shadow.

“I woke up,” I begin slowly, “with my face pressed against the floor and this girl standing over me. She was my age, but with curly red hair and freckles.

“‘All new arrivals must report to room one–eleven,” I mimic the snooty, high–pitched voice I remember so clearly. “Of course I had no idea what she was talking about. I just assumed she was nuts.

“‘All new arrivals must report to room one–eleven,’ she said again when she realized I wasn’t listening to her. She had a clipboard in her arms, and was dressed like a nineteen–seventies stewardess.”

Ford clears his throat. “I think they prefer the term flight attendants.”

I roll my eyes at him. “I had no idea what was happening. And what was strange was I had just been through hell but I still felt fine. No broken bones, no cuts, no burns. I was for all intents and purposes completely unhurt. I kept staring at the girl. I rubbed my eyes, blinked, did whatever I could, but no matter what I did . . .  she kept glowing. Her hair, her face, they just . . .  glowed, bright, brilliant blue. But that would be crazy, right? So I told myself I had a head injury.

“She kept telling me to go to room one–eleven, and I, of course, kept ignoring her. She wouldn’t answer any of my questions, no matter how many times I asked her where I was or how I got there. So finally, and I still maintain that none of this was my fault, something inside of me snapped. I lunged at her, grabbed a handful of red curls and pushed her up against the closest wall I could find. Cap says I was the first person to ever physically attack the hostess.”

“I’d believe it.”

“I held her against the wall, and yelled at her to take me home.”

“‘You can’t go home,’ she said calmly. I remember thinking it was strange she didn’t try to fight back. I asked her why I couldn’t go home and she said something I’ll never, ever forget. She said, ‘Because the dead have no home.’”

Ford leans forward, eager, anticipating, a child listening to a ghost story in every sense of the word.

“I went into complete shock,” I continue. “And then I started screaming and screaming and screaming until someone finally took me by the shoulders and led me away. The room they took me to was pitch dark and empty except for a single, full length mirror. I walked over to it, not sure why it was there, or why
I
was there. But then I saw.”

“Saw what?”Ford whispers.

“The girl looking back at me wasn’t the same girl who for school that morning. The blonde hair was still mine, the blue eyes, but
I
wasn’t there. I had been swapped with someone who could never in a million years have been me. But most of all . . .” I let my voice trail off.

“Most of all . . .” Ford says. His voice sounds strange. “Most of all what?”

I let my eyes drop to the hands resting in my lap.

“I was glowing.”