Through to You (12 page)

The pages stick together as I thumb back to the rows of juniors … but I find her, second row down, looking into the camera like the photographer told her to
Smile!
and she just can’t summon the effort. At least one thing in this book is familiar. Despite her expression, it’s actually a nice picture. Her hair looks different in black-and-white—it’s lighter. Her mouth is serious, but not somber. I find myself wishing I knew her better, or even understood how we became friends.

I close the book and sit with my palms pressed to my eyes until a swirl of color rises up behind my lids.

I get dressed.

I never actually said I wouldn’t go through the green glow again. I’m concealed behind the shrine, working up the nerve to stick my hand into the night air. I glance at the boarded-up art-room window—the one that most definitely hasn’t been replaced yet—and bite my lip. Nina’s right, it probably isn’t something we should mess with … but I need to know what the note means. I would never have written it, so why would he? What happened?

Passing through strange, otherworldly light is a hell of a lot easier when you know what’s waiting on the other side. The electricity buzzing through my skin only makes me slightly nauseous this time, though I have to duck a little to fit through the space, and I don’t remember having to do that before.

I crouch by the bushes and let my stomach settle. Nina’s yearbook is tucked under my left arm. I turn, trying to get oriented to my surroundings … make sure I am where I think I am. But the art-room window is now miraculously intact again, and there’s no more than a trace of Viv’s shrine. I touch the dirty white ribbon tied around the pole, and it falls to the ground in a limp ring. There’s part of a candle stub left on the pavement, some scraps of paper stapled to the wood. You can tell there was a memorial here, but you’d never know who it was for.

If
he
showed up right now, I’d beat the shit out of him. Viv died on this spot, and he can’t even honor her memory by maintaining her shrine? I’m disgusted with myself for wanting what he had. Overcoming a debilitating injury, salvaging his reputation, his career—what’s any of it worth if he took the most important thing he had for granted?

Blood roars in my ears and I’m consumed by this need to hold Viv against me, so she can feel the constant ache that courses through my body, that hasn’t left since I saw all that blood and shattered glass.
I
want her back.
I
live with the emptiness of her absence.
He
doesn’t even miss her!

I grip the yearbook tightly and start walking toward Nina’s house as fast as I can. If he’s her best friend, I want to know why. I want to know why she bothered saving the asshole’s life.

I’m halfway up Euclid when I stop at the corner of Belleview. Viv’s street. I can picture her house, long and white, second from the last. There were juniper bushes outside her window. My feet turn and I’m walking. I could get there with my eyes closed. I just want to see it, be near something that proves she was here.

I have no idea what time it is, but the street is mostly dark. There’s a TV on here, a porch light there, but I don’t hear any cars, or even dogs barking. I don’t have to look up to know when I’m in front of Viv’s house. Freshman year, the city poured a new sidewalk and we snuck out in the middle of the night to draw our initials in the cement: V.H. + C.P. The letters are under my feet. From this spot I can see Viv’s window, but not the front door, behind a large willow tree. If she gave me the all-clear, I used to climb in or help her out without either of us being seen. I think her parents liked me fine, but it was faster this way. No small talk or reminders of curfew, just the two of us, alone.

I lift my head.

There’s a light in her window.

For a second, my heart stops.

My chest hurts thinking of someone poking around in her room. Are they cleaning it out? Converting it into an office? A guest bedroom? I imagine Viv’s room being dismantled—her favorite quotes and pictures peeled off the walls. I feel sick. I wonder if her scent still lingers on her clothes. I’m halfway across the lawn before I can think.

I creep carefully into the juniper so no one will see me from inside. I haven’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Hayward since the funeral.... I was hoping we’d never have to see each other again.

Someone is in there, on her bed.

I move to the corner of the window and peer in.

My breath catches in my throat. There’s a girl sitting with her back to me on Viv’s bed. She’s thin, and her black hair is held back with a red ribbon. She’s hunched over on the phone, tracing circles with her finger on the quilt. Every now and then she nods, but if she’s speaking, it’s too low to hear through the glass. She’s wearing red and white, her long legs tucked beneath a short pleated skirt.

She nods quickly a few more times, then drops the phone to her side and flips it closed. She wipes her face. After a moment, she swings her legs over the side of the bed and starts to undress. The outfit is a Red Rams cheerleading getup. She strips it off, adding the top and skirt to a pile on the one chair in the room, exchanging them for a rumpled pair of pink pajamas. There’s a small brown birthmark on one side of her lower back. It looks like a little diamond—I know without having to get a closer look because I used to lay kisses on that spot like it was the most sacred place on earth. I feel like the world falls away when she turns. The thick black curls that used to tumble down her back swing short at her chin, held back with a red ribbon. Her face is thinner and blotchy, her dark eyes rimmed in red. But the arching eyebrows I used to trace with my thumb are unchanged.

I can’t breathe. I watch in a daze as she slips into the pajamas, and there is no doubt left in my mind. I spent three years memorizing every inch of this body, this face, and the last two months aching for one glimpse of her again.

I bang on the glass and scream her name.

“VIV!”

I THROW MYSELF AT THE WINDOW, BANGING AND HOLLERING. I DON
’
T
even know what I’m saying. I can’t believe my eyes—I need to get to her, touch her,
hold
her.

She jumps back from the bed, gripping a blanket in her hands. Her eyes dart around the room, but when they settle on the shaking window pane, I grin.

“VIV! Viv, it’s me! It’s ME!” I’m pushing at the window, but it’s latched, so I just hop up and down like a moron.

Her dark eyes meet mine. Her face goes bedsheet white.

She pulls the blanket to her chest, backing into the wall. Her lips barely move, and I think I make out my name, but I can’t really tell what she’s saying until her mouth stops forming words and opens in a scream.

The sound pierces through the glass, through my chest, and it’s like I’m knocked into the shadows. Her father forces through the door seconds later, looking just as panicked as Viv, who has crumpled in a heap on the floor, trembling. Mrs. Hayward comes in seconds after her husband, and kneels by Viv, who’s holding her knees, shaking her head and crying.

My brain feels thick; my limbs heavy. I stare at Viv’s inky curls while her mom rubs her back. She lifts her head and peers tentatively over her knees out the window. I know she can’t see me now where I stand, but disappointment wars with relief in her eyes. Mr. Hayward’s voice booms and he strides purposefully out of the room. The outdoor lights come on, illuminating the lawn, and adrenaline surges through my veins. All I want to do is rush inside, pull Viv into my arms, and tell her she’s safe now; we’ll never be parted again. But something in her haunted face glues me to the shadows. The front door slams and every instinct I have shrieks for me to leave.

Didn’t she see it’s
me
? Why would she scream?

“Who’s out there?” Mr. Hayward shouts in my direction.

My feet override my head and I escape through the neighbor’s yard. I gasp for air, eyes burning as I run, but though my heart pounds, I’m numb in my chest.

By the time I get to Nina’s house, my eyes are swollen and I can’t breathe through my nose. I collapse on her front porch and slump over, resting my head on the floorboards. I’m vaguely aware of a zombielike sound emanating from my mouth.

Viv’s
alive
.

I’ve dreamed of it a hundred thousand times. But never like this.

A shaft of light slides toward me. Someone gasps.

“Nina!” Owen calls.

Footsteps rush through the house, slow down, and come to a tentative stop near my head. The door closes, and we’re in blackness. I peel my face off the porch and wipe my sleeve under my nose.

“Why—” I choke, and have to start again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I can barely make her out in the moonlight, my eyes are so bleary. She stands perfectly still, back flat against the door.

“Tell you what?” she asks.

“Viv’s
alive
?”

Her face pales. In the silence, my head starts to clear. My heart picks up. She kept this from me and now she isn’t going to say anything?

“You saw her memorial—you knew!”

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t
lie
to me anymore, Nina!”

She looks down at me, huddled on the floor, and I swear she gives me the same pitying look she had at the diner.

“Viv is alive here—” Her voice cracks. “Because
you’re
the one who died!”

The street gets so silent we could be the only people around for miles. I focus on breathing, but the air seems too thin. I can’t get enough of it. I support myself against the house and close my eyes.

Viv’s alive … and
I died
?

“How?” I whisper.

She pauses. “Hit-and-run. Two months ago—Sunday the fifth.”

“Sunday the fifth,” I mumble. “Hit-and-run?”

“At the corner by the school,” she says.

I try to envision it—the fall of the Red King—but my mind can only handle one gruesome death in that spot on
that
date. A sick feeling creeps into me, slithering through my gut like … guilt? I’d made up my mind to hate the other me an hour ago. But did he deserve
that
more than I did?

“Did—” Nina hesitates. “Did Viv see you tonight?”

I open my eyes. “What?”

“I just need to know—did she see your face?”

I think back to the chaos in Viv’s room. She’d seen me, all right … but in the moments afterward, when she lifted her head, I’m positive she was hoping to see me again.

“What’s it to you if she did?” I ask.

“It’s everything, Cam—she thinks you’re
dead
!”

“So?” I pull myself unsteadily to my feet. “I thought she was dead too, maybe this is meant to be—”

“No!”

We both listen in surprise to her voice echoing off the houses.

“She’s not what she seems.”

Nina steps forward and reaches to touch me, but I pull away. The yearbook I’d been clutching under my arm falls open on the porch with a thud. I bend to pick it up, but she’s already kneeling with it in her hands, staring at the open page. She lingers to touch the handwriting—
You saved my life
.

“Guess he was wrong about that,” I say.

She looks up at me in surprise, then back at the words. She covers her mouth. My stomach sinks at the look on her face—some unnatural mixture of horror and grief. A feeling I’m too well acquainted with. I wish I could take it back. She slams the book shut and rises to her full petite height.

“Why did you come back?” she demands.

I open my mouth. I used to have an answer for that, but all I can think anymore is
Viv.

If Viv is alive in this place, that must be why I’m here.

“If you want what’s best, for you
and
for her this time …” Nina’s lips continue to move, but if she’s still speaking, I can’t make out the words. She shakes her head and raises her voice. “Please, Cam,
please
just go home.”

A tear escapes down her cheek. She walks through the front door and shuts it in my face.

I step off the porch, confused. Why wouldn’t she tell me Viv was alive? A light in an upstairs window goes out. I kick the grass and start down the path to get away, when the door opens behind me.

I turn around. “You know, just because you want—”

Owen stands alone on the porch in blue pajamas with football helmets all over them.

I wait for him to speak.

He gives a furtive glance over his shoulder and closes the door carefully. I wipe my hand over my face, exhausted, and walk back to the porch. At this point I just want out of here, but I don’t think I should leave the kid standing there by himself.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” I ask.

“Nina really missed you,” he says with a tentative smile. “I’m glad you’re back.”

I hesitate, unsure if he still thinks I’m a ghost or a hero—or if he’s figured out I’m neither.

“Look, Owen …”

“I wish Mom and Dad would come back too.” He stares at the ground.

I swallow hard. “What … happened to them?” He looks at me funny. Am I supposed to know about this? “Sometimes it’s hard to remember things.” I hesitate. “After you come back.”