The Pace (25 page)

“No, I’m not.”

“Well, you know I’m not normal, to say the least, and I’ve just told you that you died twice already, and you’re still sitting here. I say you are.”

“Fair enough,” I said, thinking he might be right.

“What
are
you thinking anyway?” he asked.

“I don’t know what to think. I’m just happy that you’re talking to me again. I’ll pinch myself later and decide if any of this is real. Why does all this worry you now anyway? I’m only eighteen,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

“Because I don’t know how to save you.”

That took the light out of the mood. “Well, that makes two of us, because I don’t know how to save myself either. It’s a good thing we don’t have to think about it for another year,” I added.

“You don’t have to pretend here.”

“I’m not pretending. If what you’re saying is true, we’ll figure something out together.”

He sat there without moving away from me, and I took that as a good sign. He offered to take me home that evening, and there was no way I was about to let him out of my sight after that revelation, so I quickly accepted. “What about your car?” he countered.

“Maybe you can pick me up tomorrow and we can hang out. I can get it then.” I tried to sound hopeful.

He considered the idea and wrapped his arm around my shoulder as we walked to his car. I took that as a yes.

I had some time to think in the car while he was driving. There were certain things I needed to know in order for any of Wes’ explanation to make sense. One, what was the cause of this? Was it some sort of reincarnation? Two, if it was a reincarnation, how did it work? Three, why did I keep dying? And four, how come I couldn’t remember any of it?

The more I thought about this, the more I started to feel confident that this was not such a bad thing. I mean, I know Wes just told me I wouldn’t live to see twenty. That was frightening, but I was trying to look at this like the glass was half full. If he knew all of this, then that meant we had been together. He must have loved me, and I must love him for us to keep finding each other. If that was true, then it seemed we were given more than one chance to be together. How many people could say they had more than one chance at first love? And not just their first love, but their only love.

If I could only make him see that he didn’t have to look at this so negatively. There was nothing to fear. We could change this, and if we couldn’t, I was going to come back if history repeated itself. Right? All I had to do was make him see this. It sounded good to me. Then again, I wasn’t the one living through my death over and over. I wasn’t sure if it was fair to ask him to just deal with whatever was to come, only to have to wait however many years for me to find him again.
If
I even found him at all. Maybe he was right. Maybe it would be better if I left him alone. He could experience a love that could last longer than what I had to give. I could release him from this hell, as he described it. I had no idea what I wanted. On one hand, I wanted to be with him more than anything, and on the other, I didn’t want to be the cause of his hell on earth. These were my two options, and I would have to decide.

We pulled up to my house around 8:00. My mom’s car was in the driveway, so I needed to come back to reality. She would ask me all the normal questions: How was your day? Where have you been? Do you have any homework? I wasn’t sure I was up to putting on the façade, as if I’d had a normal day. Wes had just informed me that I was some sort of walking ghost. Yeah, Mom, I’m great!

Wes opened my car door and walked me to my front steps. I invited him in, but he declined. “I need to take care of something,” he said. I let out a small, involuntary sigh of disappointment, and he stroked my cheek. “I’ll come back later, and we can talk about whatever you want.”

I nodded.

As I turned, I heard him say, “I love you.”

I looked back at him, wanting to return the sentiment, but hesitated. He tilted his head forward and said, “I don’t know what to do about it, but I can’t deny it.”

All I could say in return was, “I love you, too.”

“I know,” he said, with a half smile. “I’ll see you later.”

I watched him get into his car and drive off. All of a sudden, my swelling heart went idle. I took a deep breath, turned around, and put the key in the door.

I wasn’t in the doorway two seconds before my mom asked me who I had been talking to. She was in the kitchen cleaning the dishes, but she took a break to peek around the doorway so she could see me. I hung my jacket on the coat rack, trying to prolong the silence as long as I could.

“Weston,” I replied.

“Really?” she asked, in record time.

“Um yeah,” I said, as I turned around to head straight for the stairs.

“Where did that come from?”

“I went to his house today to talk.”

“And?” she asked.

“And we talked.” I knew my mother well enough to know that she wasn’t going to give up easily. She was nosy, and I couldn’t blame her this time. We’d moved to a new city, and the only friend I’d had for six months was a boy who had the power to dictate my mood from day to day. After he broke things off with me, she never knew whether I was going to lie in bed all day or bury myself in my homework. Now she finds out I’m talking to him again. This wasn’t going to go over well.

“Why don’t you come in here and talk to me? I’m cleaning the dishes. I made spaghetti.” I wanted to make a mad dash to my room and evaluate what I had learned today, but something in me felt sorry for her. I’d gotten a glance of her looking like she was lonely, and that triggered a whole new realization.

If I was going to die in a year or two, then she would be left alone. She had only me, and all of a sudden, I felt this feeling of guilt for trying, purposely, to stay off her radar. I didn’t have it in me to turn my back on her, or put the barrier of my bedroom door between us. Instead, I turned around and told her that sounded like a good idea.

“Perfect,” she said, as she turned to heat a plate she had already prepared for me in the microwave. I sat at the kitchen table while the microwave hummed. “So what did you guys talk about?” she asked, while she was working on the dishes again. Privacy 101 said that I should lie, but I had this strange longing to have someone else help me with this. I had to figure out how to get advice. He certainly wasn’t objective, and I didn’t have any close friends here. I suppose I could’ve called Kerry, but she really didn’t know how much I loved him. She wouldn’t have understood if I sprung it all on her at once. Plus, I was dealing with the fact that I couldn’t very well tell her I had fallen madly in love with an immortal science experiment, could I? And I definitely couldn’t tell her I was a living ghost, so she was out. That left my mother. At least she knew I really liked him. So, I decided to test the water. Right about then, the microwave beeped, and I jumped up to get it.

“Um, we talked about why he freaked out last month and wanted to stop seeing me.” I grabbed a fork from the drawer and returned to the table while she continued transferring dishes to the dishwasher. She didn’t comment on what I’d said, and I took that as a good thing. She was listening before making any premature suggestions. “Then we talked about why he’s been acting so strange, like following me around and stuff.” I took the first bite.

“He was following you around?”

Oops. I forgot she didn’t know that. “Well, sort of. He just seemed to pop up in places I was. I thought he was following me,” I added. The spaghetti was really good. It’s one of my favorites. I was glad I’d decided to eat instead of sequestering myself in my room. I had plenty of time for that later. Besides, it felt good to get some of the weight off of my chest.

“Anyway,” I continued. “I drove out to his house today to ask him why he was going back and forth all of time. I wanted him to make up his mind. Either be nice to me or leave me alone. No back and forth stuff.”

“That makes sense. What did he say?” she asked, working on the pots now. Her back was to me, and that could’ve been why I felt so comfortable having my first real boy talk with her. Only I had to be careful about how to word this. I didn’t want to just make something up completely. I really did want to get some advice. The problem was, I couldn’t very well tell her that my dilemma revolved around the fact that I was going to die in a year or so, and he didn’t want to have to hang around for the third time. I had to come up with something else.

“He said he liked me a lot, but since he’s had a lot of loss in his life, it made him think he shouldn’t get attached, in case something happened to me.” That was perfect. I smiled as soon as I said it.

“That’s right. He lost both of his parents. That is so sad,” she said. “Poor boy.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So does he want to be friends or not?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I think so.” This wasn’t working. She was being nice, but I needed some advice I could use. I needed to figure out how to make this a little more clear without her thinking I was nuts.

“Mom, I think he’s closed himself off, so he doesn’t ever have to deal with death again.”

“Well honey, you can’t live your life thinking death is going to come all the time. You have to live life, and if it comes, then we can only hope we were able to do all the things we wanted. He has to want to do something. Everyone does.”

“So what should I do?”

“Well, what did he say he wanted?”

I stopped eating at this point, because I didn’t seem to have the same appetite. I looked down at my plate. “He said he didn’t think he could handle losing someone he loved again.”

“Did he actually say the word loved?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Well, I had no idea you guys were that serious. I’m not sure what to say about that.” She turned around and leaned her back against the sink. “All of this talk about death is making me gloomy. You guys are too young to think about these things.”

“So what do I do?” I was almost desperate for an answer. I had no idea how to handle this situation. I loved him. That much I knew, but I also didn’t want to be the cause of his everlasting pain. And that is exactly what it was. Gosh, I was starting to feel sick.

“Honey, you guys can’t think about that. You have to think about things you want to do. Not things that you fear. Everyone is going to die. You can’t change it. You just have to make the best with what time you have. If you don’t do things that make you happy while you’re living, then what’s the point of what time you have at all?”

I was actually beginning to see what she was getting at, and it made sense. At least it did for now. “Thanks, Mom. I appreciate it.” I stood up to rinse my plate and put it in the dishwasher. “I have a lot of homework to do.”

“All right sweetheart,” she said. “I’ll be in my room if you need anything.”

By the time I reached my room, I felt better. My mom had actually given me a lot of things to consider, and I was glad we’d talked. I looked at the clock and realized it was getting late enough for me to take a shower and get into bed. I knew Wes was coming back tonight, so I wanted time to curl up in my bed and think about all of it first.

A
nyone wondering how an eighteen-year-old handles the news that they’re going to die young? It’s very simple. They numb themselves up to the actual reality of it and then, when they force themselves to acknowledge the possibility, they cry. At least that’s what I did.

As soon as I got in my bed that evening, I started thinking.
Is this true? Is Wes crazy? Am I really insane for considering this? How could he know?
All of these things passed through my mind, and the only answer that came out on top was that I believed it. I knew, somewhere deep within me, that what he was saying was true. I felt it. It was almost as if I’d never been able to plan too far ahead, because I knew there was no future for me.

Whatever was going to happen was unknown, but I did know that whether or not I was going to die in one year or in fifty years, I didn’t want to live it without Wes. My mother was right. People shouldn’t live their lives being afraid of something. They should do what they want while they can, and with that, I made my decision. Selfish or not, that’s what I wanted. If he wanted to use fear of losing me as an excuse to stay away from me, then that was his choice, but I’d made mine. If it was too difficult for him to handle, then I wouldn’t blame him, but I would at least have an explanation for his decision.

By the time he came back to my house, I was ready to hash things out. When he entered my room, he immediately sensed my distress.

“You’ve been crying,” he said.

“Yes,” I admitted, moving aside to let him in.

He sighed. “It’s because of me.”

Yeah it was
, I thought, but I didn’t reply because I wasn’t sure how to.

“Sophie, I’m sorry that I only seem to cause you—”

That’s when I cut him off, hoping to come to a resolution quickly.

“Listen Wes, you’re going to have to stop with the sorry stuff and decide what you want to do. I can accept if you don’t want to be with me, but you can’t have it both ways.”

He looked at me, perplexed. I was even surprised by my abrasiveness, but there was no way to get around it. I wasn’t about to take the high road and sacrifice what I wanted in order to spare him pain or
hell,
as he put it. It was like my mother said: I can’t live fearing death, so I wasn’t going to. I’d made my decision, and now he needed to make his. So, I gave him the choice.

“I love you, but the point is, you have to decide whether you’re going to be with me all of the time or not. No staying away and then coming around.” I could tell my offensive attack was unexpected.

“What do
you
want?” he asked.

“I already told you what I want. This is about what you want,” I replied.

He moved over to the bed and sat, pondering the choice. “Can we talk about this first, let you hear everything, and then decide?”

“No we can’t,” I countered. “You decide before we go any further. You either want to be with me or you don’t.”