Ghost of a Chance (16 page)

“Yes.”

“You never told anyone? Ever?”

“I told . . . I only told Brandon.” I move my eyes from the ground to straight ahead, just in case I start crying. If I do, hopefully the snowflakes hitting my face will mask the tears.

My mom's lips settle into a tight line. “Well, I suppose at some point you were going to tell someone.” She takes a deep breath. “Kendall, I . . . I want you to know that I didn't leave you because I wanted to.”

I laugh. “Oh, please,” I say. “Save it.”

She looks like she's been slapped. “Save it?”

“Yeah. Save it for someone who cares.” I can't believe I just said that. I'm not the type of person to say things like that, especially not to my mom.

I expect her to yell at me, or at least tell me not to disrespect her like that, but she doesn't. All she says is, “Well, I guess I deserve that.”

“You do,” I say, tears filling my eyes. “You left me. You
left
me. I was just a baby, Mom. How could you have done that?”

“You don't understand,” she says, stopping and taking a step toward me. I can see the pain etched on her face, and for a second I feel bad for her. But just for a second. “I thought I was going to ruin you. I thought that if I stayed, if I was involved in your life in any way, I'd end up making a mess of things.”

“More of a mess than if you left?” I'm almost yelling now. “I needed a mom. I needed someone to explain everything to me, to be there for me! I had no idea where you were, why you left. And now I find out that you were just a couple of hours away, that you've been talking to dad this whole time, that you could have come back anytime you wanted to!”

I don't even know what I'm saying now. All I know is that I'm upset and angry and crying, and it's like every emotion I have about this whole stupid situation with Brandon and Ellie and everything is all coming down on my mom. My life is a mess, and whether it's true or not, I feel like it's all her fault.

“Kendall,” she says, stepping toward me again.

“No,” I say, stepping back. I stumble a little and almost fall to the ground, but then I catch myself on the edge of a bench. “Don't.”

“Kendall, please. You almost fell. Are you—”

“I'm
fine
.” I stand up, still a little unsteady. But I don't care. I don't want to hear about how she's so sorry and how she wants to explain things to me and how she was just trying to protect me and how it hurt her too.

I just want to go home.

So I turn around and run.

I run back through the cemetery, and my boots slip on the soft, wet snow. But I keep going, not caring if I fall.

When I get to my house, I push against the door, stumbling into the hallway.

My dad's there, already waiting. He must have been looking out the window, watching for me.

I collapse against him.

“It's okay, it's okay,” he soothes, stroking my hair as I cry.

“Dad,” I say, pulling away. “I'm so sorry. For everything.”

“It's okay, it's okay,” he keeps saying.

Finally, after what feels like forever but is probably only a few minutes, I pull back and wipe my tears from my face. “Can I just go upstairs?” I ask. “Please? I don't know if I can talk about this right now. And I don't . . . I don't want to see her again tonight.”

“Of course.”

So I go upstairs and wash my face and brush my teeth and then pull my hair back with a headband. When I come out of the bathroom, I peek out the window. My mom's car is gone.

I don't know what my dad said to her before she left, and at this point I really don't care.

My head hurts from crying, and even though I splashed cold water on my skin, my eyes are all puffy.

I curl up in bed, waiting for my dad to come upstairs to talk to me, but a second later I fall asleep.

When I wake up the next morning, there's a fresh blanket over me. My dad must have tucked me in.

We don't talk about it.

Any of it—not about what happened with my mom, not about me getting in trouble at school, nothing.

At least not at first.

My dad tries. But I'm just not ready.

So he tells me he'll be there to talk when I want to, and until then he'll give me space so I can process what's been going on. Not that I really know how to process anything. I mean, I'm only twelve. Processing sounds like something that takes a long time and involves lot of emotional unrest.

And I'm more of a live-in-the-moment kind of girl. At least I have been until now. Maybe processing things is what you have to do when you start to grow up. Either
way, I'm going to have to figure it out soon, because at some point I'm sure my dad's going to get over the whole being-patient-with-me thing.

The next few days pass in a blur. We're tackling a new unit in math, and so I have my hands full trying to keep up. Ellie and I are talking more, but it's weird because she's spending a lot of time with Kyle and Brandon, and obviously I can't hang out with her when they're around.

So I spend my lunch periods in the library, working on my math.

After school I watch movies in my room. (My dad surprised me by getting a new TV delivered. I know it's kind of a pity gift, but I don't care. I'm not sure if watching a lot of reruns of ABC Family in high-def luxuriousness really counts as processing, but I decide to pretend that it does.)

Of course, I still have Lily to deal with. She's been very patient with me the past couple of days, not even getting upset when I spend more time processing than I do helping her move on. Most ghosts definitely wouldn't have been so understanding.

So by the time Saturday morning rolls around, I figure I owe it to her to take the next step.

The next step means I'm going to have to find a way to get to Sadler State. I MapQuest it, and it turns out the college is only about fifteen miles away. Yes, it's a long way, but I'm pretty sure I can bike there.

One time me and Ellie biked twenty miles to this karate competition she wanted to go to. (She said it was because she was thinking about getting into martial arts, but I'm pretty sure it was because she had a crush on this kid who was going to be competing. She didn't want to admit it to me, because he was kind of a jerk. He wasn't even that cute, either, but he had red hair, and Ellie's a sucker for redheads.)

“So do you remember what dorm you were in?” I ask Lily on Saturday morning.

My dad is working today, finishing up a job that's way behind schedule, so I don't have to worry about him asking me where I'm going.

Lily closes her eyes and scrunches up her adorable little nose. “Yes,” she says. “Millbank Hall.”

“Okay.” I try to keep the skepticism out of my voice. Apparently Lily suddenly remembers her dorm, which I'm happy about, but I'm also trying not to get too excited. I mean, until recently she didn't even know she was in college. So obviously her memories are a little faulty.

“Do I look like a college student?” I ask her now, twirling around in front of the mirror. I'm wearing my best dark-washed jeans and a crisp white button-down with a gray wool sweater over it. My hair is pulled back in a messy bun. I was going to add a pencil, but I thought maybe that was going too far. Same with the pair of fake glasses I was going to buy.

“Umm . . . you look really nice,” Lily says.

“You don't think I could pass for a college student?” I turn this way and that, admiring my look. This outfit definitely makes me look way older than I am. I even put on a smoky eye shadow that my dad never lets me wear to school because he says I'm too young for it. But I'll bet all the girls at college wear makeup like this. I look like I'm at least fifteen. For sure.

“Oh, you definitely could,” Lily says, then quickly looks away.

Hmmph. Well, it doesn't matter what she thinks anyway. All that matters is what the people at her school think. Not that I know I'm definitely going to have to pass for a college student. In fact, I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to have to pass for. Maybe I can pretend to be Madison! Probably not, if what Madison says is true and she went to visit Lily at college before. Probably everyone there knows her already. But maybe I can pretend to be Lily's cousin or something.

Anyway, I definitely don't want to plan things out too much. I mean, sometimes if you go into a situation with a preconceived notion, it doesn't work out the way you thought it would.

When I get outside and pull my bike out of the garage, I say a silent whisper of thanks that the weather's nice. It's almost sixty degrees today, even though it was snowing
just a few days ago. Welcome to fall in Connecticut.

I hop on my bike and start pedaling.

This won't be that bad, I tell myself. The weather is warm, and how hard can fifteen miles really be? Those riders who do the Tour de France ride something like two hundred miles a day. And yeah, they're professional athletes who are in ridiculously good shape. But if humans can ride two hundred miles a day at top speed, then I should definitely be able to ride fifteen miles at a moderate pace.

Miles one and two are nice.

Miles three and four are on a bit of an incline, but I shift gears and enjoy coasting down the other side.

Miles five through ten definitely seem like they're taking a little longer to get through, but when I check my watch, I see that I'm keeping a steady pace.

By mile ten I think I'm going to die. What I thought was nice bike-riding weather turns out to be way too hot. I'm starting to sweat, and I have to take my sweater off and tie it around my waist. Which is actually good, because my butt is starting to hurt from sitting on my seat, and the sweater provides a nice cushion.

“Isn't this so fun?” Lily asks from the handlebars. “It's such a gorgeous day.”

“Yes. So. Fun.” I grunt as I push down on the pedals. I'm glad at least one of us is having an easy time of it. Well, as
easy as you can have when you're a dead ghost who's trying to take care of some unfinished business and move on to the other side.

When the huge stone sign that says
STATE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT AT SADLER
comes into view, I breathe a sigh of relief. I have no idea how I'm going to be able to bike all the way home. I might have to hang out here for a while and wait until the air gets a little cooler.

We bike through the main campus to the admissions building, and then I put the brakes on.

“Where to?” I ask, straddling my bike.

“What do you mean?” Lily asks. She's looking around campus with a smile on her face. “Wow, this place brings back so many memories.”

I know I should probably ask her what kind of memories, but I'm not really on the kind of schedule that allows for reminiscing.

So instead I just say, “Where's your dorm?” Hopefully it's not too far. I don't know if my legs can take it.

“My dorm?” She looks around. “Um, I'm not sure.”

Great. I guess her newfound college memories don't include directions.

Whatever. It can't be too far. And there's a big stone map of the campus in front of the admissions building.

I walk my bike over there, and Lily and I study it.

Luckily, Millbank Hall is only three buildings over.

“We should probably walk,” Lily says. “No one here rides bikes.”

I look around. She's right. There are tons of kids milling around, and not one of them is riding a bike. Hmm. And none of them is wearing clothes, either. I mean, they're not
naked
or anything. They're just all in their pajamas.

No wonder Lily didn't think I looked like a college student. I'm way too dressed up to be a college student. And this smoky eye shadow is definitely not appropriate. I guess Saturday mornings are a little more, ah, chill around here.

I decide to leave my bike at the bike rack near the main buildings. Of course, I've forgotten to bring my bike lock, so I'm just going to have to take the chance that no one steals it. I really doubt anyone is going to take my hot-pink ten-speed with sparkly tinsel hanging from the handlebars. (What? Me and Ellie did this to our bikes when we were eleven. It was cool at the time, and if you want to know the truth, I kind of still like it.)

“I hope no one steals your bike,” Lily says helpfully.

“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”

We follow the winding sidewalk through some trees and over a cute little bridge that leads to the quad. Beyond that I can see the dorms looming in the distance.

“This is a nice walk,” Lily says.

“Would have been nicer if I hadn't just biked fifteen miles,” I mutter under my breath.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I say cheerfully. A big brick building with
MILLBANK HALL
on the side has come into view.

Now, how do I get in? The building has big double doors and what looks like a keypad on the outside of it. It definitely looks very secure.

“How do we get in?” I ask Lily.

“I don't know.” She looks at me. “Break in through a window?”

“Um, no,” I say. “I mean, how did you get in? Is there a key, or a code, or what?”

“I'm not sure,” she says. “I don't remember.”

I stand and look at the building, hoping someone is going to go in or come out. But although the main campus had some students wandering around, down here by the dorms things are decidedly more quiet.

We sit down on a bench near the side of the building and wait. My legs could use the rest. After about fifteen minutes or so, two boys wearing puffy navy-blue vests and carrying cups of hot coffee come wandering down the path.

“It was so sick,” one of them is saying. “The dude, like, broke his arm. And the bone was sticking out.”

“That's awesome,” the other kid says.