18 Thoughts (My So-Called Afterlife Book 3) (9 page)

“I guess neither of us matters to him anymore. What a douche bag.”

“Yes, you said that already.” I rubbed a hand over my face, wishing I could erase this whole night from my memory.

“I know. It makes me feel better each time I say it. Douche bag, douche bag, douche bag—”

“Please stop.” I glanced at Conner again; I couldn’t help myself. Then I wished with everything I had that I hadn’t looked, because he was totally copping a feel in front of everyone, and instead of slapping him in the face like she should, the girl copped one right back. “I think I’m gonna puke.”

Tammy slid her hand down my arm, and she wrapped her fingers around mine. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Where?” I whimpered, allowing her to lead me through the crowd and toward the exit.

Once outside, Tammy immediately fished her cigarettes out of her purse and lit one up. After an inhale, she pulled the paper from her lips and blew rings of smoke into the air like a distress signal.

“Why did you bring me out here?” I asked, swatting the smoke away with one hand and slipping off my glasses with the other. The hot air made the lenses fog up, and I used the hem of my shirt to clean them.

“Because we were just torturing ourselves back there, and we’re better than that. At least, I am.”

“Says the girl who hooked up with him last night like it was no big deal. Do you even realize how much I love him?” I laughed at my own question. “Of course you don’t. That’d require you to actually understand what love is.”

“How can I understand something when it’s never been given to me? Not all of us are as lucky as you, princess.”

Her comment made me drop my proud shoulders. She had a point. When her father was rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning last month, I heard two nurses gossiping about Tammy. It was then I learned the truth about her. Her mom had died during childbirth, and her dad had been drinking ever since. Tammy was the one who supported him with her modeling jobs around the state.

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s okay.” She took another puff of her cigarette before flicking some embers to the ground. “Anyway, I guess I did you a solid.”

“How do you figure?”

“Oh, come on, everyone knows you were saving yourself for him. Now that you know he’s not doing the same courtesy for you anymore, you can move on. It’s time to let go, don’t you think?”

I took a breath, then coughed on the secondhand smoke and pulled out my asthma inhaler. “Easier said than done. And did you even like him?”

Taking two puffs, I waited for her answer.

“Of course I did. I liked him a lot. I dare you to name ten girls in our class off the top of your head who didn’t have a crush on Conner sometime during the last three years. My point is, that’s not our Conner in there. He might not ever be the same again. In my experience, it’s best to cut your losses before you end up emotionally bankrupt.”

I looked at her for a moment, wondering if all her hardship had made her wise. Before tonight, I just thought it’d made her another mean girl ruling the school. “Why are you even talking to me?”

She stomped out her cigarette and kept her gaze there a moment longer, the small fire sizzling on the sidewalk. When she looked at me, I swear I saw a flicker of hope in her eyes. “Because I think it’s also time to let bygones be bygones.”

Maybe in the world of mean girls who ruled the high school social class, this was as close as you got to an apology. She’d been the bane of my existence during our junior year, ever since she decided I was the only obstacle in her way of snatching Conner for herself. She’d even tricked him into not asking me to the prom and taking her instead, but then we had the freak accident a week before the dance anyway.

But when I looked at her now, I saw beyond our differences and recognized something we had in common. We both needed a friend who understood the disappointment of love without even saying a word. And in some weird way, maybe she did do me a favor. My love for Conner always overshadowed everything else, and for the first time ever, I realized maybe those feelings weren’t necessarily a good thing. Now I knew. I couldn’t go back and do anything differently, but I could move forward and focus on other things for once. Better to live on the edge than maintain the status quo and forget to live at all.

Still, forgetting Conner would take some time. I wasn’t usually the forgetting type.

After an entire summer of avoiding awkward run-ins with Conner and his various out-of-towner hookups, the time to start our senior year finally arrived. Over the past ten weeks, I’d pretty much managed to successfully dodge Nate, too. He still stopped by the Bookman occasionally. We’d make small talk about what each of us was up to, and then he’d sit by the window and peruse the magazine or book he just bought while drinking his free cup of coffee. He looked good sipping that coffee, too. He’d gained some weight, got a tan, had his cast and bandages taken off. Hanging out with him, showing him around our small town, keeping our beach date, would’ve been the polite thing to do.

But it was just too humiliating to remember over and over again that he could hear my every thought. Because what I thought about most was how much Conner broke my heart. I thought him waking up from his coma would be our second chance, but the truth was, we never even got our first chance. Maybe I could’ve forgotten him if he’d woken up his old self and we had that chance and it just didn’t work out. Although some part of me felt like we must have tried at one point and discovered the truth I feared all along: There’s nothing like a romance to destroy a friendship. Especially a romance born out of desperation. So I needed to get over Conner. The problem? I didn’t know who I was without him by my side. And I definitely didn’t want Nate around while I figured that out.

Instead, most of my summer nights were spent hanging out with the girls, Nic and Tammy. Nic thought me befriending Tammy was strange at first, but it wasn’t long before the two of them were squealing and giggling together even when I wasn’t around. Somehow, both of them had convinced me to try out for the cheerleading squad at the beginning of August. Nobody was more surprised than me when I actually made the team. And even though my mom thought about cheerleading being a dumb sport for bimbos, I won her over by reminding her how good the activity would look on my college applications. Plus, Tammy’s dedication as team captain and “go get ‘em” attitude was contagious, and I loved being part of the squad. Something told me Tammy was probably the reason I made the team in the first place.

Soon I’d have my own captain duties to tend to for the sailing team. We’d have our first meeting this week. I always loved being part of the sailing team, too, because it was the only co-ed sport. Conner was usually my partner, but that wouldn’t be happening this year. Even if he was back to his old self, I didn’t know if he’d actually be eager to get back on the water given everything that’d happened. I wasn’t, but I needed to face my fears.

Closing my eyes, I knew sleep would remain out of reach with too many thoughts about seeing Conner at school tomorrow. The handful of times I had seen him over the summer, it seemed like he delighted in making a mockery of my feelings. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, only accepted the accident had fundamentally changed him.

My bedroom door creaked, and a shadow appeared in the moonlit glow of the room. I sat upright, ready to scream for my dad, when I heard a familiar voice.

“Olga, it’s okay. It’s me, Conner.”

He managed to noiselessly close the door and make his way slowly to my bed, where he sat on the edge. How could he be sitting on my bed? Of course, he had sat there many times, but that was before, when he had been Conner. But this wasn’t Conner anymore, was it?

I thought of telling him that, or asking, but as soon as I opened my mouth, all words left me. I was in that annoying haze of searching my mind for what I wanted to say and then failing to recall what I searched for in the first place. Suddenly, I felt self-conscious and pulled the covers around me, cringing at the thought of how my crazy curls must be standing up with static at this hour. Things like boys showing up in my bedroom unannounced in the middle of the night didn’t usually happen to me. Maybe to other people, but not me.

“I woke up, and I needed to talk to you. I knew I should wait, but I didn’t know if I’d be myself again the next time I saw you.” A beat. “I’m glad your parents still leave their apartment door unlocked.” Another beat. “Olga?”

Dad said the moment he felt like he had to lock our front door would be the moment he moved to a smaller town.

“What are you doing here?” I instantly regretted how bitter I sounded. Obviously, Conner was distraught and needed my help.

And just like that, he was crying. “I don’t know. It’s like ever since I woke up from that coma, I’ve been sleepwalking. I can remember all the terrible things I’ve done, but it’s like I have no control over myself. Then I woke up in my bed tonight, and I felt like the old me again. I know that doesn’t make sense, but—”

“Is this some sort of twisted prank?”

More tears came, spilling over his cheeks. I’d only seen him cry one other time, and that was back in kindergarten when he got the chicken pox and had to miss our class field trip to the fire station.

“I swear it’s not. Something is haunting me; I don’t know how to explain it. I’m sorry. I know I’ve been incredibly rude to you this summer, but you’re the only one I wanted to see when I woke up tonight.”

Shame slithered up my insides, reminding me this was Conner, and I owed it to both of us to help him. I sat up straighter and handed him a tissue off my nightstand. “What happened tonight?”

“My parents staged an intervention.”

My hands flew to my chest and felt the fast beating of my heart. “Without me?”

I didn’t know why I was hurt by the exclusion, but I was nonetheless.

“It was only with them and this therapist from the hospital, Dr. Judy.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So, her intervention worked?”

He ran a hand through his blond hair. “Not exactly. I could feel something in my spirit responding to her, like I was scared, but I didn’t know why. Then, when I woke up in the middle of the night, I felt something leaving me.”

“And then you were back to your old self again?”

He nodded. “Olga, I know how insane I sound.” His voice was barely a whisper. “I won’t blame you for not believing me, for not forgiving me for all the things I’ve done since I woke up from that coma.”

For a moment, we just sat there, neither of us saying anything. Finally I said, “I don’t know if I forgive you yet for all the things you’ve done, but you’ll probably be surprised by how easily I accept your explanation.”

“Really?” His voice cracked.

I cleared my throat. “You’re not the only one who has had supernatural things happen to them this summer.”

“All right. What does that mean? Your friendship with Tammy?”

I threw my pillow at him, and we laughed quietly. The gesture felt familiar, good. “No. You know that new guy in town?”

He nodded. “Nate.”

“Well, he can hear my thoughts.”

Doubt flickered in his gaze. “Hear your thoughts? How? Does he hear everyone’s thoughts?”

I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling tired. “I don’t know. And, no, just mine.”

He leaned back on his hands. “Do you think the two of us are connected?”

Stifling a yawn, I asked, “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you think it’s weird this creepy dude who ends up being my hospital roommate can only read your mind, the only girl I’ve ever loved, and then I miraculously wake up, but I’m not myself? And then—”

I held a finger to his lips, afraid to breathe. Afraid to think. “Conner.” Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to continue. “You said I’m the only girl you’ve ever loved.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

I couldn’t believe how easily he said those words! I’d been stumbling over telling him how I really felt for the past five years and could never get the right words out. And I’d never heard him sound more sincere, either. Was he finally manning up? Ready to be more than my friend? My heart pounded, and I swallowed, trying to think of what to say. I sat in the darkness, stunned but feeling like I finally found some light.

“I’m sorry; I wish I was doing this better. Telling you I love you with flowers, candles, romantic music, and stuff. But I’m just scared I won’t be myself again tomorrow, so I had to tell you now. Please don’t give up on me, no matter what I do, okay?”

No matter what I do.
Suddenly, those words gave way to fury. His whole life, I’d been accepting, I’d been forgiving, I’d been hopeful, I’d been denied, I’d been depressed, I’d been lonely… but now I was just angry. I couldn’t help the feeling. It rose up from the pit of my stomach and couldn’t be stopped, like I rotated through the seven stages of grief in reverse order.

Before, I would’ve set him on my pedestal and did as he asked, because I loved him. But was that really love? Is that what I wanted? Bitterly, I thought of everything he’d done this summer. The images were almost intolerable. So he wasn’t himself when he did all those things. If the lightning strike had fundamentally changed him somehow, it’d done the same to me. Maybe I was still in love with him. Maybe I’d always be. But right now, that didn’t matter, because he had
destroyed
me this summer, the me that could get past whatever he did.