Between (2 page)

“Obviously,” he says. “You’re standing right in front of me.” He looks me up and down. “You were always so hot,” he says. Then he glances at my body in the water. In a voice that almost makes him sound pleased, he says, “But not anymore.”

“Excuse me? Wait—you can see her, too?” We both stare at my body. All of a sudden I feel exhausted and very cold. Beneath the light on the dock, I can make out enough of the boy’s face to realize that I know him. But for some reason, I can’t remember his name. My mind is fuzzy. I’m so tired.

“Obviously,” he repeats.

I bite my lip. It doesn’t hurt. I take a deep breath and try to blink away my tears. As I’m doing so, the action feels ridiculous. I’ve already been crying. Something awful is happening; why am I embarrassed for this boy to see me crying? If there was ever a time to cry, it’s right now. “All right.
Obviously
something strange is going on. Right?”

He shrugs. “Not strange, really. People die every day.”

“So you’re saying … I’m”—I can barely force the word from my mouth—“dead.”

“Obvi—”

“Okay! Okay. Oh Jesus. This is a nightmare. It has to be. This isn’t really happening.” I stomp my foot in frustration laced with panic. My boots are a shade too tight; pain shoots up my calf, stinging all the way to my hamstring. Pain! My feet hurt! I must be alive if I can feel it, right?

“I can’t be dead.” I put my hands on his shoulders. “My feet are aching. I feel it. And I can feel you. I couldn’t really feel them in there,” I say, meaning everyone on the boat. “Can you feel me?”

“Obviously.” He kind of flinches away from me. “I’d actually prefer that you don’t touch me, if it’s all the same to you.”

“You don’t want me touching you?”

“Obvi—”

“Say ‘obviously’ one more time. Go ahead and do it.” I try to give him a mean look, but my heart isn’t in it. He’s the only person who can see me. And the emotion feels confusing; why do I want to be mean? Isn’t he trying to help me? But he doesn’t want me to touch him. What is his problem?

He just stares at me, his expression blank. He has messy brown hair. His face is young and smooth, his eyes a penetrating shade of gray. Why can’t I remember his name?

“You’re Elizabeth Valchar,” he says.

I nod. “Well, actually, it’s Liz. Everybody calls me Liz.” As I’m speaking, I get the strangest feeling—it’s like I’m not exactly sure about anything, not even my name. I have this sense of uncertainty, and it occurs to me that I don’t remember much about the night before. I’m sure there was a party; that much is clear from looking around the boat at all the empty beer bottles, the half-eaten birthday cake. But the details are unclear. Did I really have that much to drink?

Before I can question the boy about any of this, he says, “And that’s you down there in the water. The very cold water.”

I stare at the girl in the water.
That’s me. I’m dead.
How? When? I was in the boat all night, wasn’t I? I am
so
frustrated that I can’t remember exactly what happened. My memory of the previous night is broken into many bits and pieces, each so small and fleeting that I can’t force them into any cohesive whole. I remember blowing out my birthday candles. I remember posing for a photograph with Caroline, Mera, and Josie. I remember standing alone in the bathroom, trying to steady myself as the boat rocked in the water, taking deep breaths, like I was attempting to calm myself down. But I can’t remember what I was upset about, or if I was even upset about anything at all. Maybe I was just drunk.

When I speak, my voice barely breaks above a whisper. I can feel myself starting to cry again. “It would appear that way. Yes.”

“And you’re not moving. You’re not breathing.” He leans forward to peer at me in the water. “You’re white. I mean corpse white.”

I look at my bare arms. Standing there beside him, I’m not nearly as horrific a sight as the girl in the sea. I am still put together, still beautiful. “I always had such a great tan.”

The thought doesn’t make sense to me. Why do I remember being tan? And who needs to be tan at a time like this?

He nods. “I remember. Those are some killer boots, too.” He pauses. “So to speak.”

“It’s okay. It’s just … they’re so pretty.” And somehow I feel certain they were very expensive. “You know, I learned in history that the Egyptians used to bury their dead with lots of personal possessions to take with them to the afterlife. Can I take them with me?” I pause. “Is there an afterlife?” I look down at my pricy footwear as I stand there next to what’s-his-name. “I’m already wearing them,” I murmur. They’re
so pretty
? Who cares? They’re only boots, for God’s sake. And they’re pinching the hell out of my toes. I don’t want to
keep
them; I want to take them off.

But they look so good.
I feel disoriented, overwhelmed, almost like I’m going to pass out. Before I can focus on anything else, the thought continues.
They totally complete the outfit.

I feel unsteady, like none of this is really happening. It can’t be. It’s like I barely know who I am. I feel a flicker of new hope that this is all just a bad dream, that I’ll wake up, wiggle my bare toes as I lie in my bed, and later on my friends and I will go out for coffee together and we’ll all laugh about the crazy nightmare I had.

Except maybe not. The boy shakes his head. “Slow down. You’re getting way ahead of yourself.” He takes a breath. “I don’t want to talk about boots. First of all, aren’t you curious as to why I can see you? Aren’t you wondering why I can talk to you?”

I nod.

“Take a guess,” he says.

I put my face in my hands. My palms feel cool and clammy against my cheeks. “Because I’m not dead. Because this isn’t happening.” I peer at him from between my fingers. “I’ll do anything. Please. Just tell me this isn’t real.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry.”

“Then what happened? I’m not dead. Do you understand?” I take a step closer to him. I scream as loud as I possibly can, loud enough to wake everyone on the boat, to wake everyone who might be sleeping on all the neighboring boats. “I am not dead!” Something occurs to me. “There were drugs. We were doing drugs, I think. Yes, I remember—we were smoking up. Maybe I did some hallucinogens. Maybe I’m all tripped out, and this is just a side effect.”

He raises his eyebrows. He clearly doesn’t buy the possibility. “Did you do any hallucinogens last night? Really?”

I shake my head in disappointment. “No. I wish I had, now. I wish I’d eaten more cake, too.” I frown. “I don’t know how I remember that. I can hardly remember anything. Why is that?”

“You can see me,” he says, ignoring my question, “because I’m dead.” He adds, as though to drive the point home, “Like you.”

A gentle feeling of sleepiness washes over me as he speaks. For a moment, the penetrating cold leaves my body and I feel warm everywhere. Then, just as quickly as the feeling came over me, it’s gone. And suddenly I recognize him.

“I know who you are,” I tell him. The realization excites me. I want to hold on to it tightly; every new thought making me feel more steady, more in control. It’s funny;
of course
I know who he is. I don’t know why I didn’t remember his name immediately. He’s gone to school with me since kindergarten. “You’re Alex Berg.”

He closes his eyes for a minute. When he opens them, his gaze calm and even, he pronounces, “That’s right.”

“Yes. I remember you.” I can’t stop glancing at myself in the water, looking from Alex to my body, unable to feel anything but numb horror. As I’m staring, my right boot—which has been loose on my foot ever since I first saw myself—finally slips off. It fills slowly with water. And then it sinks beneath the surface with a gurgle, disappearing as I reach for it halfheartedly. In the water, my bare foot is exposed: bloated and shriveled at the same time.

Aside from the fact that we went to school together forever, I remember something else about Alex. His face has been all over the newspapers for the past year. Last September, just after school started up again, he was riding his bike home from work after dark—he worked at the Mystic Market, just down the road from my house—when a car struck and killed him. His body was thrown into the sandy brush along the street; even though his parents reported him missing right away, he was thrown so far from the road that they didn’t actually find him for a couple of days. It wasn’t until a jogger happened to go past, noticed the smell, and decided to investigate that he was found.

“How gross,” I whisper. Again, the thought surprises me. What is the matter with me? Aside from the obvious, it’s like there is no filter between my brain and my mouth.
Be nice, Elizabeth
.
The poor kid is dead
. Trying to correct myself, I add, “Well, you don’t
look
like you got hit by a car.” And he doesn’t. Aside from his mussed hair, there isn’t a mark on him.

“You don’t look like you just drowned a few hours ago.” He pauses. “You drowned, right?”

I shake my head. It’s the first time it’s occurred to me to wonder. “I … I don’t know what happened. I don’t even remember falling asleep. It’s like all of a sudden I woke up because I heard a noise outside.” I pause. “I couldn’t have drowned, Alex. You have to understand that. It isn’t possible. I’m a good swimmer. I mean, you know, we practically grew up at the beach.”

“Then what happened?” he asks.

I stare at my body. “I have no idea. I can’t remember anything. It’s like … some kind of amnesia or something.” I look at him. “Is that normal? Did it happen to you? I mean, can you remember anything from before you … died?”

“I remember more now than I did right after I—right after it happened to me,” he says. “I’m not an expert or anything, but my guess is that it’s normal for your memory to be sort of fuzzy for a while. Think of it this way,” he explains. “People usually get amnesia after some kind of a trauma, right?”

I shrug. “I guess so.”

“Well, death is one hell of a trauma, isn’t it?”

“Dead. Shit.” I bite my lip and look at him. “I’m sorry, Alex. I just can’t believe it. It’s a dream … right? I’m asleep, that’s all. You aren’t really here.”

He stares at me. “If it’s a dream, why don’t you pinch yourself?”

I stare back. I feel so small and desperately sad, I can barely speak. But I manage to shake my head a little bit, to coax a single word from my mouth. “No.”

I don’t want to pinch myself. I’m afraid that if I do, I won’t wake up. Deep down, I know I won’t wake up.

I take a deep breath. I can feel my lungs filling with air; I
feel
alive.

“You’re definitely a goner.” He’s so flippant about it, so matter-of-fact, that I almost want to slap him.

“Okay. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this is all real. If I’m actually dead, why don’t you prove it?” I narrow my eyes in defiance at him. “Seriously.”

He’s amused. “The sight of your corpse floating in the water isn’t proof enough for you?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m saying there’s another explanation. There has to be.”

“Put your hand on my shoulder,” he says.

“I thought you didn’t want me to touch you.”

“I don’t. But I’m making an exception.”

“Why don’t you want me to touch you?”

“Would you just—”

“No. I want to know, Alex. Why don’t you want me to touch you?” And then I can’t help myself; the words are coming out before I have a chance to think about them. “A boy like you? You’re a nobody. I’m
Elizabeth Valchar
. Any guy would give his pinky finger to have me lay a hand on him.”

Why am I treating him this way? We’re here together, with no one else in the world to talk to, and I’m being mean to him.

He stares at me for a long time, but he doesn’t answer. I know I sound conceited, but it occurs to me that what I’m saying is true. That’s right—I’m pretty. Beautiful, actually.

Alex stares past me, at the water. “You say you feel like you have amnesia. But it’s interesting what you
can
remember. You know I was a nobody. You know you were popular.” He brings his gaze back to me. “What else do you remember?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. You will eventually.”

“What does that mean?” I demand.

But he doesn’t answer me. Instead, he says, “Just do it, Liz. Put your hand on my shoulder.”

So I do. Then he closes his eyes, which leads me to do the same. I feel like my whole body is being sucked into a gelatinous vacuum. I almost yank my hand away from his shoulder, but just as I’m about to pull it back the vacuum is gone, replaced by—oh God—the cafeteria of my high school.

It’s crowded with students, but right away I spot my old table: it’s next to the potato bar, on the far end of the cafeteria near the double doors leading to the parking lot.

“There you are,” Alex says, pointing at me. “You and the cool crew.”

I can see myself; it’s almost like being in reality, except not. There I am, and here I am, watching. I’m sitting with my closest friends: Richie, Josie, Caroline, Mera, and Topher. They were all on the boat with me last night. They’re still inside right now, sleeping.

“Oh God,” I murmur, “look at my hair.” Even as the words are leaving my mouth, I know they sound ridiculous.

“Your hair is fine.” Alex sighs. “It’s exactly the same as everyone else’s.”

I realize that he’s right: my girlfriends and I are all wearing our long blond hair with the sides pulled back, a slight pouf at the top of our heads, the result of a good twenty minutes of painstaking teasing and hairspraying in the morning. The look is called a bump, I remember. It was popular a few years ago. The only variation on the look is Caroline’s hair, which is decorated with red and white ribbons, whose shades exactly match the colors of her cheerleading uniform.

“What year is this?” I ask. “We can’t be older than—”

“Sixteen. This was sophomore year. You know how I can tell?”

“How?” I hate to admit it, but even though we might be ghosts, even though I know nobody can see us, I feel awkward being here with Alex. It’s as though I’m afraid my friends will look over at any moment and see me with him, and immediately brand me as an outcast. My God—what would Josie say?