The Death of Us (17 page)

My father sitting in an armchair in my bedroom reading
The Odyssey.

Cosmo watching me, his eyes carefully focusing, his gummy mouth smiling.

Kurt. The way he scratches the back of his head when he listens to the things I say.

Ivy’s mother, poised like an angel at the edge of the water.

I’m sitting on a branch of a tree, my feet dangling.

I see the moving van two doors down, a green car, the passenger doors opening, a girl getting out.

I see the back of her head before I see her face for the first time.

I remember how I loved her, how she felt in my arms.

All the days rush at me, every day I’ve lived, a photomontage of memories. There’s Kurt standing outside my house in the evening sunshine. There’s my father, leaning against my doorway, telling me a story, turning to kiss my mother. There’s Cosmo grabbing at my finger with his podgy baby hand.

There’s my mother, typing, music playing, concentrating. She sees me and so she pauses mid-sentence. She rolls back her chair and I come into the room. I’m crying and she’s holding me, kissing my hair as I sob into her chest.

I wish I could tell her that I love her.

She releases me, looks in my eyes, love spilling over, and for a moment that look feels strong enough to hold me to her forever.

But I can’t hold on.

I let go.

I’m soaring.

Pain shoots through me.

Someone shouts, “She’s hemorrhaging.”

Callie. I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me.

My granny stands before me and the air smells of rose petals, sweet, floral, edible. Behind her is nothing but sky and it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.

I try to concentrate, try not to drift.

Words like river fish.

My granny says, “Oh, Callie.”

I kiss her papery cheek. “I miss you, Granny.”

“Don’t stay here,” she says. And she fades away as if she were nothing but air.

I call for her, but she’s gone. Then I see Kurt walking along the riverbank, searching for something, maybe for me.

I run to him, shivering, and put a hand on his arm, which is cold, so cold.

“Kurt,” I say, testing my voice.

“Where were you? I didn’t know. A ghost of myself without even knowing.” He sounds lost. “The lights keep going on and off.”

“I had to swim. I had to leave you there,” I sob. “Oh, Kurt. Did it hurt?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how I got back here from the hospital. First, I thought I was at the party—I don’t know how I got there. Then I was at the hospital, waiting. But I’ve been dead the whole time. Now I’m here.”

“Hey, hey, shh. You’re not making sense.” I notice the silver dollar round his neck.

His eyes fix on mine. He says slowly, as if he’s speaking through water, “I can’t come back to my parents. My birth-mom. My brothers. I can’t come back.”

“Oh, Kurt, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not
your
fault,” he says, suddenly coherent.

“How could I have been so blind?” I say. “I sit around reading and rereading novels where people do terrible things, but in real life I float in a bubble.”

“You couldn’t fix her.”

“I was so naive. Thought I was so grown up but I was just a—how could I have thought I was in
love
with her?”

“Shh, stop.” He touches the letters of his tattoo. “I got this after my birth-mom said something to me.
—‘Know thyself.’”

“No way? From above the temple of Apollo at Delphi?”

He says, “Geek. No one knows that stuff.”

“I always wanted to go there—to the temple and see into the future—when I was little. All that prophecy stuff is cool.”

“You really are a geek,” he murmurs. He turns serious. “I wish things had been different, Callie.” He adds, “There’s a chance for you. Look.” He points.

We both look at my body where it lies, pale, washed up at the side of the river.

I whisper, “It’s not fair. You don’t deserve this.”

“You need to hurry.”

I think of my family, of my home, of the things I want to do. I think about
Flat Earth Theory,
the poems I want to write, the story I have to tell. “But I …”

“But nothing. Go.”

I know he’s right. I step toward my body.

He says, “I’m going to miss you, Callie.”

My stomach hurts. My face, my neck too. I reach up and feel my skin. It’s wet. I’m lying on the grass, the river beside me.

I
stir. My parents and my baby brother are in the hospital room. The three of them together.

“She’s awake.” That’s my dad, yelling, running out to the corridor, shouting, “Nurse! Anyone? She’s awake!”

My mom leans in to hold me, Cosmo squished between us. She’s crying. I feel her tears through the shoulder of my hospital gown.

Later they tell me about Ivy. She survived the crash but hemorrhaged and died in the hospital. I wish I could talk to her, yell, scream, hate, forgive, but she’s gone.

And then they tell me about Kurt. I knew, but the news is a shard of glass in my heart.

Later still, I tell the police what happened. I tell them everything. My mother is here, her head in her hands.

Mom holds me while I cry. There will be many more days like this.