Touching the Surface (20 page)

I pulled myself out of my memories. Something wasn’t right. I was suddenly freezing, my teeth chattering. Glancing around I could see why. The Obmil was coated in snow and ice. Everywhere I looked it was as if the White Witch’s Narnia had sprung up. I sucked in a shocked breath and the cold air burned my lungs.

I turned my head to see what Trevor thought of this new development but when I saw his face, I knew. He’d created this winter. The pain was frozen on his face and his eyes were ice. I wondered if he was frozen all the way to his heart.

“Trevor?” I asked. I reached up to stroke his face.

“Don’t,” he growled as he pulled me closer to him.

I didn’t understand his intense reaction. We knew everything now. We had the last of our memories back. We had a chance at a fresh start and yet he seemed to be shutting down, while I only felt relief. I wouldn’t be carted off to hell, ripped from his arms. It was easy to see what had happened now. I had fallen and then he had jumped . . . “Oh my God—NO!” I shouted. “It was an accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident.” He sounded as cold as the icicles
hanging like daggers from the surrounding trees. “I went after you.”

“Then it’s fine,” I said as soothingly as I could manage with my teeth chattering. “You were trying to save me again, like you saved me when I found you at Oliver’s grave. You loved me despite myself. Our time together was short-lived, but it’s all right. Now I have you back again. We can move on together.”

“Here, let me help you. Put your hands on the ice.” Trevor cupped his hands around my foot and helped to elevate me out of the water. When I turned around he was still bobbing in the small hole in the quickly thickening frozen lake.

“Give me your hand.” I kept trying to picture a warm front, but nothing was working. Trevor’s creation was just too powerful. “Come on, I’ll pull you up,” I said as I reached trembling fingers out to him.

“You don’t get it, Elliot. I didn’t jump after you to save you.”

“You slipped too?” I whispered.

“No! I came after you.” His words were painfully slow and deliberate. “I remember.” His voice was bitter. “I jumped knowing full well that you would shatter into a million pieces. I knew that there would be nothing left to save. I jumped anyway.”

“Then why?” I asked, unable to think straight in the icy cold.

“Do you really want to know the ugly truth?” he barked at me without waiting for an answer. “In those endless moments when I saw you slip and fall, everything stopped. My life flashed before me. I realized that until I’d let you into my heart, I hadn’t lived at all. Right before your back hit the water, our eyes met and I knew that I would go to hell and back for you.”

I pressed my fingers into my temples. It was beginning to sink in.

“And,” he continued, “if everything we suspected is true, I just might be on my way there—without you.”_ shibI

It was like a dam had burst. Wild ideas, things I hadn’t allowed myself to investigate, came flying at me from every direction. Horrified, I turned away, not wanting Trevor to see my thoughts. I couldn’t make a sound.

“Elliot, I need to get out of here.”

I reached for him.

“Not with you,” he said, his voice heavy.

My tears burned hot tracks down my frozen face. I tried to suck in enough air to say the words that would keep him here, but I couldn’t breathe.

“Don’t you realize how hard it is, knowing that I may never . . .”

“It’s just rumors,” I said. I was shivering uncontrollably now. “That’s what you told me. We don’t know anything. No
one knows what comes after here. Let’s go find Mel. She’ll be able to help us. This can’t be as bad as you think.” Prattling on, I tried to keep him close and my fear at bay.

“You find Mel. I’ve got to get out of here.”

As I reached for him, he ducked under the dark gray water. My fingers slammed into the ice, as the hole froze solid over his head. My only consolation was that he was already dead, as he so often reminded me. It didn’t make me worry less.

The top of the lake was a thick sheet of ice. I bent down and ran my hand along the surface, thinking about the walls we build when we’re scared and vulnerable. I concentrated, thinking the warmest thoughts I could—a kiss from Trevor. The memory made my face flush but his flash-frozen anger was untouchable. When I could no longer feel my hand, I stood up and faced the shore. I tried not to think of Mel keeping her distance and of Oliver, so obviously hurt and angry. I needed them now.

I turned around one more time to see if Trevor had decided to stay with me after all. He hadn’t. He must’ve swum to the other side of the lake, exited the water, and headed up another section of trail. As he moved northward, the previously green landscape was icing over.

Now I understood. Trevor’s raw feelings were too strong for me to affect them. I couldn’t breach the wall of ice that
he’d placed between us. I’d never seen anyone impact the environment so powerfully. It scared me that he was pushing everyone else’s thoughts out of the picture. He was such an emotional force right now that I hadn’t even been able to cocreate with him.

I moved closer to the shore and felt a subtle thaw. As I ran, the distance between us grew and so did the variation in temperature. The thick ice was now making groaning noises under my weight. Even though I knew nothing would actually happen to me, I shivered at the thought of breaking through the frozen water. Trevor hadn’t needed to come up from underneath the ice to breathe, but I still resisted, unable to shake my innate fear of drowning.

I placed one foot on the ladder leading up to the dock, when my other hiking boot crashed through the ice, sending frigid shards under my pant leg and into my sock. I yanked my already dry foot out of the water. The last time I’d come up out of the lake, Mel had been there to greet me. It felt strange and lonely to walk up that path alone.

I stopped short, realizing I wasn’t by myself after all. Julia was perched atop a large boulder, sitting all cross-legged and Zen-like. She hadn’t said a word, but she was watching every move that I made. How long had she been here? What had she seen?

to be your PassengerI love youhibI
“He’s not here.” I bristled, unsure if it was because I suspected she was searching for Trevor or because I didn’t have him.

Julia opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but before she could mess with my head again, I pointed at her. “Do. Not. Say. It.”

“But I—” Julia stood up on the boulder. I took a step in her direction.

“I said, don’t say a word. I’ve had enough of your mixed messages.” My voice took on a high-pitched imitation of hers. “I don’t want to room with you. Or be your friend. But I love you and I’ll make you paper cranes to prove it.” I was so close now that I had to tilt my head backward in order to stay in her face.

“Is that what you think?” Her face went blank for all of thirty seconds and I expected her to melt into tears. I realized my mistake right as the shock wave of anger hit me, blasting me into a Delve so hard I was blown over on my back.

•  •  •

“Julia, open-this-door-NOW!”

Julia’s mother. I could hear her banging her fist against the door and swiveling the knob. The only thing I could see was the ceiling. Julia wasn’t moving.

“Fine, I’ll get the key. I am coming in, aid="SJGSM">I

28

choose
your
coincidence

I practically flew to the doors of the school, but when I got there my heart sank. They were exactly as only I’d imagine them. There wasn’t a touch of frozen, urban grime anywhere. Nothing that would tell me Trevor was nearby.

My steps quickened as I hurried down the vacant hall, hearing only the faint echo of a rubber squeak every time I took a step with my left foot. Each tread announced the return of the prodigal dead girl.

Mel’s door was ajar. I stood gripping the cool metal of the doorknob, making a half-baked attempt to control my heavy breathing. I was just about to plow through the door and rally Mel and Oliver to help find Trevor when something stopped me. The rest of the class was talking. I froze
in place, my ear tuned to the disgruntled sound.

“I don’t know why we have to be here when our remaining Third Timers don’t even feel it’s necessary to show up,” said an annoyed guy, possibly a suit. “Now that Lily’s moved on, what are we supposed to do without someone to Delve?”

There was a chorus of agreement.

I felt instant relief that I didn’t have to Delve with Lily again, but it was mingled with equal parts shame and regret. I hadn’t made the effort to know her, let alone help her. I didn’t even say good-bye.

“First of all,” said Mel, “Trevor and Elliot need us here.” I heard bangles jingle and pictured her pointing her finger at the spot where she was standing.

“Actually, it’s pretty clear they don’t need us. Obviously, they think its easier to figure stuff out on their own,” came another voice filled with indignation.

“You never know when they’re going to walk through that door,” Mel continued. “There’s also a second important reason for being here.”

I sensed, without looking, that her eyebrow was in action. Despite my nerves, I had a moment of sympathy for the group. I knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that eyebrow.

“What’s the second reason?” came an unfamiliar voice.

“Coincidence, of course.”

“Coincidence?” It sounded like the whole room was thinking out loud.

“What about it?” someone asked.

“I don’t think it exists,” said Mel.

There was dead silence.

Mel waited a few beats before continuing. “Everything that is occurring, or in this case not occurring, may be exactly what’s supposed to happen.”

Someone else quipped back angrily, “That would mean we have no free choice. Should we just sit here passively and let the afterlife just happen to us?”

“I said there was no coincidence. I didn’t say that everything is predetermined. Life and death unfold and every moment is a mystery to all of us, but the mystery isn’t that it happens, it’s what we do with it,” Mel kept going, not letting anyone interrupt. “Let me give you an example of my thought process.”

I wanted to storm in and get Mel’s attention directed on Trevor, talk to her about Julia, but at the same time I was captivated by what she was saying. In fact, I was slightly aggravated that she hadn’t volunteered this information a little earlier.

“I’ll use an example from outside this room, someone who I know won’t mind if I share his story.” Mel’s chair squeaked as she settled down to tell her tale.

I held my breath, hoping she would say something about Trevor.

“Everyone knows Freddie, right?” asked Mel.

There was a chorus of acknowledgment. Freddie
was
the Haven. I didn’t know a single soul who couldn’t remember him always working here.

“Freddie keeps everything on track and moving smoothly.” Oliver sounded relaxed and confident and it made my heart flutter. I’d missed him so much.

“Yes, Oliver, Freddie is all that and a bag of chips.” I could hear the amusement in Mel’s voice. “But he doesn’t work here.”

The room buzzed with questions, and static hummed inside my head. I pushed very gently against the door. I needed to see Mel while she was talking.

She continued, “Freddie is a Passenger, like you, Oliver. He doesn’t actually
work
here.”

The hum of people talking on top of one another started up again, but Mel put up her hand to shush everyone. “Just let me finish and I’ll try to make it clearer.” The room quieted. “Freddie is here because he’s a Passenger for someone who’s a Third Timer. That person has yet to move on, so Freddie hasn’t moved on either.”

“Who’s the Third Timer? Freddie’s been here so long that . . .”

A booming voice came from right behind me. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MISS TURNER?”

I jumped, pushing my weight against the door, causing it to swing open. I took a quick couple of steps into the room, putting some distance between David and to be your Passenger anyonehibI myself. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t smelled his cheap cologne before he’d snuck up on me.

Mel ignored David and looked at me. “I was hoping you’d show up, Elliot.” The smile on her face was genuine and I felt myself relax a little bit. It’d been good to Delve in privacy and close off the rest of the world, but I suddenly found myself craving Mel’s mothering. I thought about Hurricane Elliot and the barbed wire I’d erected. Those were physical walls, but the emotional ones were even harder to break through. What if Mel hadn’t been giving me the cold shoulder? What if she was responding to the barriers that I’d put up? I shifted my weight from foot to foot, but she still was beaming at me, open and warm.

I turned to Oliver cautiously. “Hi, Oliver.” I couldn’t believe how much I’d missed him.

“Told ’em you’d come.” His voice was gravelly with emotion. He strode toward me and wrapped me up in a big bear hug, lifting me off my feet.

“Where have you been?” I asked, even though it was hard to talk with him squeezing me so tight.

He chuckled. “Mel put me on a project helping Freddie.”