Authors: Emily Hainsworth
“I
did
used to say that!”
I let out a long breath and lose myself to the impossible tingle of her fingers, her hair, and her intoxicating scent.
“I love your world,” she says into my skin.
I laugh in surprise. “Viv, after we both quit … we weren’t very popular.”
“Who needs popular if we have each other?”
Her words stir something inside me I thought had been long dead. I pull her to me and roll on top of her, careful not to crush any precious part of her. She gazes up at me, a familiar, devilish look in her eye.
“
Your
world is better,” I counter. “I never want to go home.”
A strange look flashes through her eyes. She seems uncomfortable, and I roll gently to one side, propping up on my elbow so I still see her face.
“Why?” she asks.
I hesitate, but right now there’s one big difference between this world and mine.
“Because you’re here—that’s all the reason I need.”
Viv doesn’t say anything at first, and I start to worry I might have said something wrong. But then she reaches out cautiously, running her fingers lightly up and down my forearm. Her touch grows more confident with each pass.
“Well, that seems unfair,” she says, with a hint of mischief.
I relax at her playful tone and nuzzle her hair. “What’s unfair?”
“How do
I
know this world is better if I haven’t seen yours?”
I’m lost in her silky curls. “You’re not missing anything.”
“Take me there,” she says.
“Where?”
“Where you come from—I want to see it. I want to know it’s real.”
I pull myself up, hover over her. “You want to go … to my world?”
“Let’s go now.”
“Now?”
She sits up on her knees. “Yeah, we’ll see whose world is better. Let’s do it right now!”
“But—when did it become a competition?” I mumble, trying to keep up.
My mind spins, unsure what to do. This doesn’t seem like a good idea, but wasn’t I just as curious about everything on this side? Of course she’d want to see something like that for herself. My Viv was always impulsive—and when I catch the sparkle in her eyes now, a warm glow begins to kindle inside my chest. It’s the same look she had when she suggested we go backpacking in the wild that last weekend we had together. We didn’t know what we were doing—she knew setting off alone like that was reckless. But it was an adventure, too, something spontaneous and exciting. She wanted to prove we could do it—or that she could, at least. I stare into those familiar dark eyes and the glow heats up and consumes me. This
is
my Viv.
“Please?” she begs. “It’s not fair that you get to come here, but I can’t see what it’s like there. I’m curious.”
“It’s really all the same....”
She throws her arms around my neck.
“Please?”
I close my eyes, but I can’t avoid the liquid silk of her voice. It will make me ache forever. I have a fleeting thought of Nina.... I have no doubt she’d deem this a bad idea. But she’s not here. I sigh heavily, as I’ve done many times before when giving in to Viv, but as soon as the breath escapes my lips, everything feels right
because
it’s so routine. I missed even this. From that moment on, it takes effort to keep from grinning, to keep up the bluff that I’m anything less than thrilled.
“Okay, but you’ll be bored.”
She claps, remembers herself, and covers her mouth. I pull her to a standing position.
“We have to be careful, though, no one can see you because—”
“Oh, right.” She smiles. “I’m dead.”
She tiptoes to her open window. None of the outdoor lights are on tonight. She climbs inside, and I can hear her rummaging around in the dark. When she drops the few feet back to the ground, she’s exchanged her red and white Rams jacket for a thick black sweater. She’s tied a silk scarf over her hair and sports dark sunglasses. The combination makes her look like an old Hollywood starlet.
I pull the shades down her nose. “Sunglasses? At night?”
She slides them up into place and throws her head back.
“No one will ever know it’s me.”
I raise an eyebrow. This ensemble would seem
very
Viv to anyone who knew her, but I don’t argue. I’m not planning to run into anyone tonight.
“Fine, I’ll save them for later.” She pulls them off, tucks them into her pocket, and loops her arm through mine. “Now show me this green-light thing.”
I smile and squeeze her hand. I don’t like when we’re not touching—I want to be reminded every moment that she’s with me.
“
This
is where it is?” Viv asks.
“Yeah, you can’t see it till you touch it....”
I slide my fingers through the air on one side of the utility pole to just the right spot …
“Right there?”
I glance up at her panicked tone. She’s standing next to me, arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Her eyes are wild, her face is ashen. She looks like she’s going to be sick.
“Are you all right?” I take her by the shoulders, touch her cheek. Her skin is clammy.
Her eyes dart from the pole to the bushes to the sidewalk, but I hold her steady and she eventually focuses on me. Her breathing calms. Some color returns to her face in the pale street light.
“I’ll take you home,” I say.
She grabs my sleeve.
“No, I’m—” She pauses. “It’s just where you …”
“It’s where we both died,” I say, taking her hand again. I gently rub her fingers to warm them. “But that doesn’t matter anymore—we’re both here now.”
She nods her head mechanically and clings to my arm.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask. “There’s really nothing to see.”
She straightens. “Yes.”
I fish around in the air again, and we watch it turn green as my fingers catch the right spot.
“Oh.” She reaches out too, but hesitates. “Is it … safe?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I step into the glow first, not letting go of her hand. Once I’m totally immersed in prickling light, I turn back to help her through.
“You’re
green
!” she says, horrified.
“Just close your eyes,” I say quickly. “It tingles a little, but I’ll get you through fast.”
She squeezes my hand hard, but she does close her eyes. I back swiftly out of the light on the other side, pulling her with me as if we were dancing. She stumbles coming through, but I catch her in my arms. She gasps and opens her eyes.
“Oh my God, that was—” She looks around, at the school, the bushes, the traffic light. “We didn’t go anywhere.”
I smile, lift her chin, and kiss her.
“I told you, everything’s the same. It’s totally boring—except now
you’re
here.”
“Am I supposed to just believe you? I want to see what’s different!”
“Well, there’s the art-room window,” I say, gesturing across the lawn to the school. “It’s not boarded up on your side.”
She raises one eyebrow, but doesn’t actually
say
that’s completely lame.
“Um, okay, let me think …”
I try to come up with something that might satisfy her. Mom could have our house staked out for all I know. I don’t own a yearbook, not that we’d be in it. And besides, it’s hard to show someone intangible things like who they’re
not
friends with and things they
didn’t
do in another world. I get anxious just thinking about that. We could go to her house, but that might be awful, and I won’t risk running into her parents. Everything that comes to mind is so depressing.
“I know! Take me to my
grave
,” she says.
I shudder—that’s grotesque. My skin breaks out in goosebumps just from the realization that there’s a grave with my name on it back through that green light.
“No,” I say.
“Oh, come on, please? How else am I supposed to believe I’m dead?” A look of doubt comes into her eyes. “What if I’m going crazy?”
I sigh. I know that feeling too well. “Can’t you just trust me?”
She gets quiet.
“I don’t know, what if you came back to me for some other reason?”
I smooth the hair back from her forehead. “What other reason?”
Her voice goes flat and a stricken look crosses her face. “Maybe the universe is messing with me—for the bad things I’ve done.”
“Bad things?” I lift her chin so she has to look me in the eyes. “Like sneaking out to fool around with me?”
“Maybe.” She manages a small smile. “Can’t fool around till I see what I want to see …”
“But it’s a graveyard.”
“It’s just a place. It doesn’t mean anything.” She touches her forehead to mine. “And I’m alive, right here.”
She smothers the objections on my lips in a long, deep kiss. My heart skips, and I can’t think. Maybe she’s right; it’s just a place.
“Fine. We can look at it,” I say. “It’s just kind of a depressing place.”
She pulls me down the street, in the direction of the cemetery. “How depressing can it be to visit my grave—
with me
?”
There’s nothing as eerily quiet and spooky as a cemetery in the middle of the night. I haven’t been back since the day of her funeral. I just never felt like she was there, not the way I felt her at the corner. Maybe now I know why.
I get us lost a couple of times, but the place isn’t that big, and eventually I find the right row of Haywards. You could almost miss the headstone. It’s just a small rock with a plaque, but it’s the only plot that was dug recently.
“It’s that one, over there,” I say, pointing.
Viv pulls on my arm. “Come on, then.”
I shake my head. “Go ahead.”
She tilts her head. “You’re not seriously going to make me look at my own grave alone....”
I glance at the rectangular patch of dirt over her shoulder. Grass is just starting to grow over it, sealing her in as if she’d always been there. I shiver.
Viv blots out the scene and touches my cheek. “I’m here with you, Cam—
alive
.”
I slip my hand into hers and squeeze. She’s taking all of this in such stride; I wish I was half as strong. We approach the plot together. This is actually the first time I’ve seen the headstone. It wasn’t in place during the funeral. There isn’t much to it, just her full name—Vivian Frances Hayward—her date of birth, and death.
Without warning, memories from the accident flood my mind—road, rain, squealing tires, the lighter. Everything flashes before me again like it’s happening
now
. I close my eyes and shudder as the car impacts the pole, then I climb out to see the shattered window, the blood—and I fall back into the bushes. When I open my eyes again, I’m trembling, clutching Viv to me, burying my face in her neck. She whispers soothing words into my ear, strokes my hair, and now I can hear she’s crying too.
I run my hand gently up and down her back while she lays little kisses on my cheek.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, Cam.”
I shake my head. “No, I am.”
We move away from the lifeless stone in the ground, wandering until we find a wooden bench along a path. I take a deep, cold breath of air.
“I didn’t know it would be that way,” I say, holding my head in my hands. Even with her beside me, she’s still there in the ground too. “We shouldn’t have come here.”
She doesn’t answer, and I look up to see her sniffles have turned into big, silent tears. My stomach sinks. When Viv starts to lose it, there’s not much you can do. Every horrible memory of my own disappears. I pull her into my lap and rock her gently while she gasps for breath and shakes with sobs.
“What is it?” I whisper. “You can tell me.”
She shakes her head vigorously and says, “I couldn’t believe when I lost you, and—it just happened, and—
how could you
?”
“Oh, Viv—I didn’t—I would never on purpose …”
I rub her back while she sobs into me, and I feel so helpless. All I can do is hold her and listen to her cry. Finally, she seems to gain control over her breathing. She sniffs, and speaks in a shaky voice. “You were just
gone
, and I couldn’t bear—”
“Shhh,” I whisper, pulling her scarf off to stroke her hair. “It’s not your fault.”
She makes a sad little whimper and rests her head on my shoulder, holding on to me tightly. Eventually she goes quiet and our breathing falls into sync.
“You said—you
promise
—you’ll never leave me again?” she asks.
For a morbid second, I think of the guy in the grave in her world, and how I’m no kind of replacement for him.
“As long as you think you want me,” I say.
She clutches me through my jacket, like being in my arms isn’t enough. “I’ll be better this time too, I promise....”
I close my eyes, inhaling her scent as we kiss. “We both will.”