Authors: Emily Hainsworth
“Now what?” I say through my teeth, glancing around for Logan. I just want to get this whole fucking thing over with.
She takes a deep breath, steps into the bushes, and starts moving around, waving her arms randomly. It stays dark, and she stays here. If she isn’t an actress, maybe
she’
s crazy. I wonder if she’d like to meet Dr. Summers. She steps back out of the shrubs.
“Still doesn’t work.” She glances around as if looking for something she missed. Then she swallows hard and stammers. “I—I guess maybe we should try holding hands?”
Oh, hell no. I shove my hands in my pockets and stare at her, but she’s serious. She bites her lip and holds out one hand. My leg aches. I shift from my right foot to my left. I didn’t think this could get any weirder. But if it helps me get rid of her …
“Okay.”
She approaches slowly, and I hold out my right hand so she doesn’t get any closer. She takes it with her left. Her touch is gentle, warm, but not the least bit tingly.
I wonder, for the first time, what
will
happen next? Will Logan leap out of the bushes, then post a video of this online? Will she turn back into a ghost and disappear?
She tugs me forward, and I have this horrible déjà vu about being pulled into that green light, only it stays dark. We trample through the bushes, making a wide circuit around the utility pole. I take secret joy in kicking the prickly shrubs. This feels like some bizarre game of ring-around-the-rosy.
After several minutes of this, she starts jerking my wrist, like if she yanks hard enough, she can somehow
make
something happen. I catch her eye, and her face contorts. She looks away, but fresh tears shine on her cheeks in the faint street light.
“Um, maybe we should get closer to the pole,” I mumble. “It seems like … it was closer before … I don’t know.”
She just nods, and I pull her along this time, feeling ridiculous. I glance at Viv’s pictures looking back at me, and I feel totally wrong holding this strange girl’s hand. I hope Viv knows that she’s the only one
ever
. I hope she understands.
We stop against the front of the pole. Nothing has changed. My hand is getting stiff from being squeezed, but I don’t say anything. Ghost girl’s looking around like she wants to tear the place apart, and I almost tell her it’s okay—that happens to me too. But then she lets go of my hand and flips her hair over her shoulder.
The ends of it glow green.
It’s just for a second, and when the strands fall back down around her shoulders, they look normal. I don’t trust myself to blink, so I reach past her with my free hand, right behind the pole where I saw it happen, and watch my fingertips turn green.
They tingle. Is this … real?
“Here,” I gasp.
She turns around and sucks in a breath. She reaches below where I hold my hand, where the air looks dark and normal, and sinks her fingertips in too. Her nails start to glow, and she pushes in to her knuckles, and then she’s up to her wrist in green. I watch with my mouth open. I can barely breathe. She lets go of my other hand, and starts walking into the light, but I grab her sleeve.
“Wait—are you sure about this?”
She turns to me, face pained. “I can’t stay here. I have to get home—my brother.”
Half her body appears normal, but the other half has gone transparent and glowing. I blink and widen my eyes. Seeing through her the first time was one thing, but watching her step in,
become
transparent …
I point into the light. “What if that doesn’t take you home?”
She leans all the way in, so far that half of her disappears completely and her lower half is all green. I’m relieved when she straightens, entirely transparent, but otherwise in one piece.
“This looks like home … but I guess it does there, too,” she says uncertainly.
Her voice has that metallic quality, like the first time I saw her, only now the tone is softer. Her eyes have turned back from brown to green, but they’re filled with resolve.
She forces a smile. “It was great to see you again, Cam.”
I open my mouth, not sure what to say. She can’t just leave—she never said how she knows me,
or
Viv. Where’s she from? Where does the light go? How is any of this even possible? My mind races with things I would’ve asked if I’d just believed her sooner.
But before I can say anything, she turns away again, quickly, and vanishes with the light.
I wait a couple of long minutes. It’s quiet out here, alone in front of the school, too cold for crickets. A dog barks somewhere in the neighborhood. A siren wails faintly, rising and falling in the distance. Nothing happens by the wooden pole. I’m afraid to move.
Where did she go?
My breaths are short. I lift my hand, and I’m about to touch my fingers to the empty air again, but I stop. What if I reach out and the green light is still there? What if it isn’t? A gust of wind sweeps through my hair, sending a chill into my skin. I pull my hand back and my jacket closer.
Do I just leave now? I stare into the night air, afraid to look away or turn my back on the pole. I half hope for something else to happen, half pray it won’t. Even if something else
did
happen, I’m not sure I trust my eyes anymore. Did I really see a girl here? Did she walk out of thin air and spend the afternoon at my house? I kick a rock into the street, listening to it bounce solidly across the asphalt. My lips curl back from my teeth and I laugh out loud, but my voice breaks and I clap one hand over my mouth to stop the sound.
I touch the utility pole carefully, running my fingers over the cards and pictures that connect me to Viv. I reach for the nearest one—the cheerleading shot—and tear it down, but I hesitate once it’s in my hand. The empty spot where it used to hang looks wrong, like something’s missing. I start to panic, try to put it back in place, but the staples and tape don’t cooperate. After several minutes, I give up. The paper is wrinkled, so I smooth it out until Viv’s smile looks almost right, and tuck it in my pocket. You’d never know what happened to her without this shrine. I glance warily at the spot where the ghost girl—Nina—disappeared. I could be mistaken, but I swear it’s the
same
spot.
Two girls have disappeared here. And I’m still alone, without even a ghost.
I FUMBLE WITH MY HOUSE KEY. IT
’
S DARK INSIDE, BUT MOM
’
S CAR
is in the driveway, so I tiptoe in and lock up as quietly as I can. I spent the evening outside a gas station sipping coffee after coffee, gripping the Styrofoam cup tight in my hands. I feel like I need to touch everything I see, just to make sure it won’t disappear. My head is foggy, and despite the caffeine, I don’t feel any more awake than I did this morning. This night is already starting to seem like a weird dream, and right now, I’m okay believing that’s exactly what it was.
I have to pass through the living room to make it to my bedroom. Mom is asleep on the couch, bathed in the light of the TV. The sound of an old sitcom laugh track whispers through the air. She’s still in her work clothes, shoes on the floor. Nothing unusual. She sleeps out here now more than in the bedroom she shared with Dad.
I feel the promising pull of my own bed down the hall, but I hesitate by the couch. She looks so small, curled into a ball like that. I decide to get her a blanket from the linen closet, but before I can take another step, she speaks.
“Late night, Cammer?”
“Didn’t think you were awake … it’s not that late.”
She sits up and stretches, holding her watch in the blue light of the TV. “Guess it isn’t.”
Laughter titters from the speakers. Mom hits the mute button and pats the cushion next to her.
“I was kinda hoping to get to bed,” I say, walking around the coffee table to sit beside her. “Trig quiz tomorrow.”
“How’s school going?”
“Fine.”
She twists her fingers together in her lap.
“Your dad called again today. He said he’s been trying to email you too—”
“I don’t care.”
I stare at happy black-and-white families moving silently on the screen.
“Cam, Dr. Summers called. She was concerned about you.”
“Oh …” The broken kitchen telephone pushes its way into my exhausted mind. I rub my eyes. “Sorry about the phone. I’ll buy a new one.”
“You want to tell me why there was glass all over the kitchen floor too?”
“What?”
Then I remember. I give myself a head rush, I stand up so fast. I flip the light on in the kitchen. The tile floor is bare, but the dustpan is on the counter, full of glass and dirt.
“I swept it up … thankfully before I cut myself wide open,” Mom says, coming up behind me and squeezing my shoulder. “Sweetie, what’s going on?”
I brace myself in the doorway. The kitchen counter is spread with newspaper, one side of which has been torn into neat shreds. Two barstools are positioned like people were sitting there together. Me. And her.
It really happened.
I shrug Mom’s hand off my shoulder, and suppress a shiver.
“Nothing, I just—forgot, sorry.”
“Cam—”
“How was court today?” I ask. “You kick some prosecutor ass?”
“Honey …” She takes off her glasses. “I told Dr. Summers that maybe we should think about medication.”
I close my eyes, only because I know she isn’t looking at my face. Happy pills—so you don’t have to feel. They’ve tried to get me on them before. I don’t want to live without Viv, but the pain of missing her is better than no feeling at all.
“No.”
“We don’t have to decide tonight, I just mentioned—”
“
No
, Mom.”
She doesn’t think I’ve noticed that she stepped farther away, that her voice has gotten small. She’s waiting to see what comes after a broken telephone and shattered glass, and there was a time I might have broken a few more things.
“I don’t need it,” I say calmly.
Then she surprises me; she takes my hand and looks up into my face. She used to have this helmet hair before Dad left. I don’t know if she hasn’t bothered to cut it or what, but I think she looks younger the way she does it now, piled brownish-gray on top of her head. Without her glasses, all the hazel colors in her eyes stand out. She seems shorter, but then I remember her heels lying on the floor.
“I’m proud of how you’ve been dealing with—everything.” Her voice quavers. She won’t say Viv’s name. She never does. “But you have to promise me you won’t miss any more appointments with your doctor. You
need
her right now.”
“Okay … I promise.”
Mom gives my arm a little squeeze, tips up on her toes, and pecks me on the cheek. I give her a weak hug, mumble something about trigonometry, go to my room, and slump against the closed door.
I am sitting in Dr. Summers’s waiting/living room, but it’s only Tuesday morning. Lance pants loudly at my feet. This was the only appointment open before Friday, which is fine because I want to get this out of the way sooner rather than later. So much for getting my shit together. I don’t know what I’m going to have to say to stay off meds, but I’m not leaving with a prescription, even if she thinks I
am
crazy. I place my hands on my knees and stare at my knuckles. Finally, the door opens and Dr. Summers emerges to see her first patient out.
Lance whines when we enter the office and close the door behind us. Dr. Summers heads for her chair with a cup of coffee, as she often does. She has on one of her plethora of beige sweaters. The dog is outside the door. The clock ticks rhythmically on the wall. All of this makes me relax. Nothing too weird—except this isn’t Friday.
“I know my mom talked to you,” I say before she’s totally settled.
She takes an extra second to cross her legs.
“And I know what she probably said,” I continue. “So I just came in to let you know I’ve given it some thought, but I’m not going on any meds.”
She waits a long time before speaking, letting the silence creep under my skin.
“So how come you think your mom wants you to?”
“She told me. I was standing right in front of her—”
“No, I meant what do you think
caused
her to feel that way?”
I shift on the couch and stare at the wheels of her chair.
“I don’t know.”
“Is there a reason she might be more worried about you lately?”
There are a zillion reasons my mom should be worried about me lately—
I’m
worried about me—but I’m not sitting here for any of those reasons. I’m here to avoid the pharmacy, not get a ride over there. But that’s exactly where I’ll be if I tell Dr. Summers about the strange girl I met yesterday who said she
used to know Viv
, then disappeared into thin air.
I need a diversion.
“It’s dumb,” I say. “No big deal. I was upset at Dad.... A couple things in the kitchen got broken.”
She raises an eyebrow. “It’s been a while since you’ve gotten angry like that.”
Ugh—bad plan. I grit my teeth. Part of what made them want to put me on meds in the first place was anger. Before Viv made me realize none of it—none of them—was worth the rage. She’d stay so calm when I got mad, I could never manage to stay upset. As long as we had each other, nothing else mattered. My chest aches. I really don’t want to drag her into this, especially since she had nothing to do with the broken phone or the shattered glass, but she’s the one thing nobody will question.