He speeds us the hell out of the Transfer, running over a few of the residents just for fun. Marshall and Ezrina laugh and hoot as he knocks them down like bowling pins, but I can’t seem to find any joy in me, not when I just screwed up any hope of a future with my once precious husband. Without the keeping solution, the only place fit for Logan Oliver is the Paragon cemetery.
My mother said the future was fluid.
I hope this isn’t what she meant.
***
Devil’s Peak welcomes us with its pounding surf, its suicidal jagged rocks that taunt the people from the overlook to jump on down. Marshall ropes his way up the winding trail that leads back to the highway. Still, the parking lot is empty. I know Ellis said he was having a party. It’s weird knowing that other people are still doing normal things like getting wasted at Ellis’s while I’m busy conducting body swaps, discussing future spouses with my long dead mother, and, now, I’m cruising the fine streets of Paragon with a body in the trunk.
Dark clouds roil up above like smoke swirling from a fire, like the chute was left open to the crematorium and Barron had burned every corpse in the cemetery.
Marshall turns down toward the bowling alley, and my heart sinks. This is starting to feel like a funeral procession, a drive by done out of respect for the body entombed in the rear of the car.
Marshall pulls in across the street, and I stare at the sign that lights up the night like a star. Between Ellis and Gage, the bowling alley is doing great, perhaps better than before. Gage started up bowling in the dark as a regular feature on Friday nights, and business has doubled.
“Out, Ms. Messenger.” Marshall and Ezrina both exit the car, and a flush of fresh night air breezes in.
I squeeze out and stretch my limbs as the scent of the evergreens mix with the ocean.
“This way,” Marshall calls.
I glance up, and my stomach lurches. It’s the house Logan built for us. Gone are the construction trucks and piles of dirt and rocks that lined the outskirts for months. In its place is a perfect lawn, a picket fence that leads to a giant white house with a wraparound porch that stretches the entire circumference.
I follow Marshall to the door.
“This is your gift, Skyla. From Logan.”
“My gift?” I step back and take in the hand painted words that curve along the frame of the white double doors. “
I love you more than the heavens love the sun and the moon
,” I whisper, as my eyes swell up with tears. “This is my birthday gift?” Logan never fails to amaze me.
“It’s a little late,” Marshall chides, holding the door for me to enter. “Better late than never.”
He flicks on the lights, and the house warms with a peachy glow.
I step in, and Ezrina follows. It’s cavernous inside. A wrought iron staircase sits to the left and sweeps to an upper level in a dramatic fashion. Creamy limestone floors expand all around us, the walls painted a soft vanilla. It’s empty. The scent of new wood and paint permeates the air.
Marshall gives me the tour, five bedrooms, four baths, a kitchen the size of three of my mother’s back at the Landon house.
“This way.” Marshall opens the pantry door and steps inside revealing another door just to the left.
“A secret door?” I bite down on my lip with elation.
“Ridiculous place for one.” Ezrina doesn’t bother hiding her true feelings.
“I concur,” Marshall adds. “Nevertheless, here we are.” Marshall leads us down two flights of dim-lit stairs before flicking a switch.
The entire area illuminates bright as afternoon.
“Oh my, God.” It streams from me unexpected.
A white room expands in front of us, deeper than the house up above and with a far wider reach. Stainless counters, steel beds, surgical instruments.
“It’s a lab,” I whisper. Clearly this puts anything Ezrina had in the Transfer to shame.
“This way.” Marshall leads us down a series of white slick corridors until we come to an oversized room. A thick metal door sits open with what looks like a steering wheel attached to the front, and then it hits me.
“This is a safe.” My heart jumps, my eardrums pulsate with fear. “Marshall?” I look around and spot a giant vial lying on a silver table just like in Ezrina’s chop shop. “Who designed this?”
“The Pretty One.” He gives a depleted smile. “Of course, he had a consultant.” He nods into Ezrina. “I’ll be back.” Marshall speeds off.
“To work.” Ezrina pulls a hose from a hole in the floor and begins filling the tube with the most beautiful sight ever—a blue solution—bright as an L.A. sky.
My lips quiver as I try to absorb all of the attention to detail Logan put into this place, the lab being the crown jewel of his very precious gift to me.
Marshall returns with a blanket thrown over his shoulders, bare feet exposed at the base. He hoists Logan’s body onto the silver bed of steel set up in the center of the room, and the three of us gape at him. Logan with the sutures that circle around his neck in a line of jagged X’s, his beautiful face. I reach over and run my fingers through his hair, snagging my way through the moisture, wishing to God he’d magically wake up.
A strangled cry escapes my throat. I can’t bear seeing him like this. My Logan, my husband—lifeless with his eyes partially opened, gazing up at God.
I bend over and press my lips over his—cold and unforgiving.
“It’s time, love.” Marshall rubs his hand over my shoulder, and I sizzle back to reality.
I take a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”
Graduation ambushes us on an unassuming Friday afternoon as if there had been a miscalculation, and we were left bewildered by its abrupt arrival. Here we were on our last official day as students at West Paragon High, sitting on flimsy white folding chairs that stretch in rows across the lawn—the sky lit up like blue powder.
We sit in alphabetical order with Ellis in front of me, and Gage falling directly behind me. I appreciate it like this—Gage keeping watch over me, sheltering me from danger.
Principal Rice drones on and on about the importance of embracing everything we’ve learned along the way on our scholastic journeys, at least those spent in the minor leagues here at West. Mine was laden with thorns, and the beauty of true love—a rose in all its splendor.
College is upon us, laced with new possibilities,
responsibilities
, new freedoms—rife with open pathways—unknowable pleasures, and I know exactly who I’ll share all of those precious moments with.
I turn and smile at Gage. He slips his hand over my shoulder, and I imprison it there, bringing his fingers to my lips with a kiss.
Principal Rice adjusts the microphone and it lets out an arduous squeal. “And now I present to you the valedictorian of West Paragon High, Emily Morgan.”
A deafening cheer erupts from the stands. Emily waddles to the podium, round and proud, in this, the ninth month of her pregnancy and startles the dumbfounded onlookers into an awkward silence.
“I don’t have a lot to say.” She burps the words into the microphone. Her body twists to the side to accommodate her bloated frame. “Things are going to be different now.” Typical Em, getting right to the point “Things are going to change. Get used to it.”
Ellis leans back. “Worst valedictorian speech, ever.”
True. Even Ellis, in his chemically altered state, could have provided a pearl or two of stoner wisdom.
“There’s a fork in the road. Make sure you choose the right one.” Emily belts it out like a threat. “Try not to get yourself killed. There’s all these reunion picnics and shit we’d like to see you at.”
Principal Rice jumps up and shoos Em back to her seat, offering a quick apology before getting to the arduous task of naming each of the graduates. We stand and snake around in a long line to the front, each in our royal blue robes, bored to tears and excited to be here all at the same time. Marshall stands at the far end of the makeshift stage passing out diplomas, shaking each student’s hand on a job well done. Not every student will get to cross that stage today. Not Logan. But I do my best to push him out of my mind for now.
Lexy goes up and snatches her degree from Marshall with a bounce in her step. She never did spill her secret and teach us how to bind a Fem. Figures. She’ll probably take that one to the grave with her.
“Chloe Bishop,” Principal Rice shouts as if she were reprimanding her, and a mellow round of applause breaks out.
Ezrina walks the stage like she owns it with her shoulders back, her eyes cut to dangerous slits. She’s ditched Chloe’s contacts for glasses and spins her hair in a bun every single day. And, oddly, she looks far more cutthroat than Chloe ever did, well, in a cutthroat librarian sort of way, but still. Ezrina and Nev have been nothing but grateful for having their lives restored.
Nat goes up. Then one student after the other takes the long, lonely walk across the platform. A gentle breeze picks up, and an all too familiar scent enraptures me—Logan’s cologne.
I give a brief glance around, but I don’t see him, not one sign. My mother gifted him a treble, weeks ago, and he’s yet to use it. I would have pleaded on my knees, crawled the entire length of the island just to have him here today of all days. Why in the hell is he avoiding me, not to mention the pain the Olivers are going through.
“Brielle Johnson.”
I scream and yell until my lungs are sore. Brielle crosses the stage while lifting her gown up over her knee as if she were flirting with the crowd.
Principal Rice continues on, and a sea of bodies filter through before Drake is called. He crosses the stage with a serious douchebag swagger and forgets to pick up his diploma from Marshall. I suppose there’s an allegory in there somewhere.
The students in front of me melt from the line. I glance out at the crowd and spot Mom and Tad each holding a baby, next to them both Mia and Melissa. This is it. It’s really happening. I’m closing a chapter in my life, one that can never be reopened.
Cerberus catches my eye one last time. My last few moments as a student of this haunted establishment are upon me. So many things have changed since I first set foot on Paragon, so many lives transformed,
lost
—although they’ll never be forgotten, good or bad I’ve tucked them away in my memory bank. I have a feeling I’ll privately relive these West High days with a certain serendipitous fondness that only high school can bring.
“Skyla Messenger.”
A breath gets sealed in my lungs.
Gage presses forward and sears a quick kiss over my lips, his dimples dip in with an approval all their own.
“I’m proud of you, Skyla.” His eyes beam with a smile, and, for a moment, the world stops spinning, it’s just Gage and me.
A polite applause ushers me as I stride my way toward Marshall.
The last two years tumble through my mind like the rinse cycle of a washing machine. Ellis and those bright red Solos, the Fems, the clowns, Chloe and all her madness, ski week, the All State Competition, my time in Ezrina’s lair—her
skin.
Logan and Gage and all those heated kisses, and, of course, the angel in disguise I come upon at this very moment—my, one day, partner in carnal crime—Marshall.
“Ms. Messenger.” His cheeks rise in appreciation. “Well done.” He hands over a leathery piece of cardboard with a blue ribbon sealing it shut, my name printed in gilded lettering across the front. I take it from him and wrap my arms around him tight.
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I know,” he whispers as we part. “I’ve gifted you a D in trigonometry. Not to worry, we’ve the rest of our lives to rectify your lack of numerical knowledge.”
“A ‘
D
’?” Crap. “I totally don’t deserve a D,” I whisper, making my way off stage.
OK, so maybe I never did do any work in his trig class, but that’s beside the point. We had quasi-
sex
on a light drive for Pete’s sake—pornographic
art
was created in our honor.
I stand off to the side as Gage nears the front. I want to be the first to congratulate him—to
kiss
him at the finish line, the starting gate to the freedoms that wait for us on the other side of West High.
“Logan Oliver.”
I give a small gasp as the crowd starts in on nervous titters.
Principal Rice leans into the microphone. “Accepting on his behalf and receiving his own diploma today is his brother, Gage Oliver.”
I roll my eyes for a moment at her relational oversight before sniffing back tears. But now that I think about it, Logan and Gage were a lot more like brothers than they were anything else. It’s fitting for Gage to accept on his behalf. My chest heaves as he strides across the stage. He smiles in my direction, never taking his eyes off me as if I were the prize he were accepting for both Logan and himself.
Gage and the selfless sacrifice he’s made for Logan resonates through my mind, my heart. He laid out years of his life as easy as digging pennies out of the ashtray in his truck. Gage thought nothing of dividing the spoils of God’s own breath. He’s perfection—a savior in every way.
Gage shakes Marshall’s hand, and Marshall pulls him into a man-pat. I take it in. Gage and Marshall experiencing a brief truce. Something warms in me when I see it. I’d love for Marshall and Gage to put their differences aside, but I suppose their only real difference is me.
Gage heads over, and those dimples ignite a killer smile on his face.
“Congratulations!” I jump over him, crushing my chest to his with a giant embrace. I pull back and shrug, looking down at the dual degrees he’s sporting. “That was nice of you.”
“He earned it. He had enough units to graduate last semester.” The smile slides off his face. “It’s going to be OK, Skyla.” Gage picks me up and twirls me. He presses a kiss just over my ear. “We’ll push through this. He’ll be back.”
“Oh, Gage.” I sigh, bearing right into his sky-born eyes. “You always know the right thing to say.”
I press my lips to his and offer a mouthwatering kiss right here on the soil of West Paragon High under the watchful eye of Cerberus.