Touching the Surface (22 page)

a twist
of
faith

It was my turn to be confused. “What?”

“I’m not David’s Passenger,” Freddie repeated. “I’m Mel’s.” He reached for me, but I pulled away, feeling as if I’d lost my footing yet again and was spinning wildly out of control.

“Mel?” My heart plummeted into my stomach.

“Mel doesn’t work here, Elliot. No one works here. This is simply a stopping place for souls. You stay until you go.”

I continued to back away. Everything here was an illusion. Nothing was what I thought it was. It seemed so much simpler when I was just a dumb, forgetful dead girl.

“Please tell Oliver I’ll meet him later.”

“Don’t run away again.”

“I gotta go find Trevor and Mel.” My feet were moving me backward toward an escape. to be your PassengerWesuunderstand

“She does, you know,” Freddie yelled out as I neared the door.

I didn’t want to be near him anymore.

“Mel, I mean. She loves me. She really does love me.”

I was happy he didn’t have the same doubts that I did.

•  •  •

It wasn’t long before I was cresting the mountain. It was easier to climb when my subconscious wasn’t creating obstacles. Mel was sitting cross-legged in the exact place that Trevor and I had leapt from. It was surprising to see someone besides Trevor in
our
place.

“Hello, Elliot. I was keeping an eye out for you,” she said, without getting up. There was a sadness in her voice that I’d never heard before. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her.

“I didn’t figure you’d have too much luck finding Trevor, unless he was ready to be found.” I plopped down beside her, my feet dangling out into space. An unexpected calm—or was it numbness?—had taken over. I glanced below and marveled at what a difference a single cliff dive could make in overcoming one’s fear of heights.

“Truth?” asked Mel. Like I might choose a lie.

I raised my eyebrow in an imitation of her usual gesture.

“Ouch, I guess I deserved that,” she said. “The truth is, I went after Trevor and sent you with Oliver so someone else would break the news.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“No good excuse, really. It’s just that love happens in layers.” She smoothed her skirt over her legs.

“What do you mean, layers?”

“I’ve known you through three visits to the Obmil, Elliot. Every time you came here, you were someone different. But your soul, that was constant. As I got to know that soul, I loved it a little bit more every day. At what moment do you love and trust someone enough to share everything? The day I realized that I loved you and trusted you that much was the same day I started wondering if you loved and trusted me enough not to think my admission came too late. It was—”

“Like standing on the edge and not knowing if the leap would result in falling or flying,” I finished.

“That wasn’t my exact thought, but yes, that was the general feeling.” She made a little noise in her throat that was hard to interpret.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For?” Confusion flitted across her features.

“For not being perfect.” I realized I was apologizing to myself as much as to Mel.

She reached out and ran her fingers through my hair—not for connection like Oliver and not charged with electricity like when Trevor touched me. This was different. Her bracelets jingled softly in my ear.

Her touch was absolution from my self-imposed sins.

•  •  •

Mel cleared her throat. “So, now you remember everything.” It was a statement not a question.

“I thought that when we remembered, it would all be clear, but it’s just made me more confused.” I sighed and tugged on a loose thread dangling from my to be your Passenger.hi shirt.

“Don’t go back to being so hard on yourself. You’ll make it unbearable for me.”

My head whipped around in surprise.

“I’ve been here, lost in my own confusion, for so much longer than you. I have my own issues of failure to deal with. If you have the right to be so harsh with yourself then what should I feel like about my track record?” She smiled, softening the words, knowing how easily I took on new forms of guilt.

Curiosity nudged at me. “Can you tell me about it?” I asked. I needed something to keep me from leaping off this cliff and retracing what little I knew of where Trevor might have gone.

Mel pulled me back. “No one works at the Obmil.”

“I heard,” I said. The sarcasm leaked out, but I tried to rein it in. “But you were placed with me.”

Mel shook her head.

“But—but I remember it. You were the guide who was assigned to me.”

“Everyone is here for a reason. I’m not a guide, Elliot, just a Third Timer like you, except I’ve been here a lot longer.”

“I was so sure,” I responded, feeling like a big idiot.

“Your assumption wasn’t crazy. You arrived needing someone, and I needed to be wanted.”

I nodded, capitulating a little.

“There are plenty of ‘guides’ around here. The more the assumption happens, the more real it feels. Lots of souls find themselves lingering here.”

“Souls like Freddie?” I knew I was baiting her, but I couldn’t help myself.

“I’m assuming you know he’s my Passenger?”

There I was, standing on the edge again, wanting to sympathize with Mel and at the same time feeling angry that she was holding Freddie captive in the afterlife.

“Yes. He said he knows you love him.”

“I really do, but I feel so guilty. He’s always telling me to relax because he’s got nowhere else to be, but that just makes it
worse. He signed on to help my soul grow and he can’t move on until I leave here.” Mel broke into choking sobs.

I slid closer and gathered her up in my arms. “Oh, sweetie . . .” I crooned in her ear. “It’s okay. We’ll do this together. I won’t leave you here. You should’ve let me help you. I had no idea.” I felt her begin to relax and calm down with every word I spoke. I squeezed her shoulder, keeping her close to me.

“Elliot, can you tell me how you were able to do it? How were you able to Delve outside the classroom? I’ve never met anyone who’s done that before. I didn’t even know that it could happen. Leave it to a bunch of teenagers to push the boundaries.”

I thought about it a minute. “It actually was easy. We just kind of let go. Had a giant emotional surge.” I created a couple of tissues to hand to her.

She clutched the wad between her fingers.

“I saw David, Delving in his room. So did Freddie. That means even David knows how to do it.”

“Oh, I think you misunderstood. David wasn’t Delving, he was having a nightmare.”

“How do you know?” I asked to be your Passengerhelo before. It had seemed like he was Delving to me.

“David can’t Delve because you have to be a Third Timer to bring up the memories.”

“But you told me he was a Third Timer.” I couldn’t keep the exasperation out of my tone.

“Yes, but there’s a catch. David doesn’t think that he’s a Third Timer. In order to Delve, you have to
be
a Third Timer, aware of your soul. He isn’t cognizant.”

“So he thinks he really works here?”

“Believes it with a passion, as I’m sure you’ve witnessed.” Mel gave a little humph.

“How long has he been here?”

“Now, that’s a good question because I’ve been here longer than dust, and David greeted me when I arrived.”

We both nudged each other at the exact same time.

“Well, that explains it. That first meeting must have stunted your spiritual growth,” I said.

Mel smoothed her billowy skirt and stared off into the horizon.

“Gosh, I wish it were that easy. It would be nice to blame someone else for being stuck here at the Obmil, but this has been my choice.”

“Even though Freddie’s been stuck here with you?”

I regretted the question the moment it flew out of my mouth. Mel’s face lost its color.

“Wow. I’ve always let myself believe that everything was all right as long as Freddie wasn’t complaining. He’s always
seemed content to wait until I was ready to move on. My, that does sound horribly selfish, doesn’t it?”

I wanted to say something to make her feel better, but I was afraid of putting my foot in my mouth again. I felt terrible saying something that hurt her.

“It’s okay, Elliot. This isn’t your fault. These are my issues and I have to find a way to deal with them. But let’s change the subject for a minute.”

I moved my hand toward her to protest, but she wrapped her fingers around mine and said, “Trust me, helping you is helping me. So, you and Trevor . . .”

“This is so confusing. And weird. But somehow, in the middle of all the damn Delves”—I cracked my knuckles one finger at a time—“I fell in love with him. After that, even when he was rude or mean, it still hurt me, made me unsure of myself, but I never felt the isolation that I felt in the beginning. Once I was connected to him, it was easier to remember my past.”

“Does he love you too?” she asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know. We have a strong connection but . . .” There were moments when I was so sure that he did love me. But maybe I was confusing him with the Trevor who adored me in our past life. Or maybe it was just the intensity of the things we’d shared. I pictured our leap off the cliff. I felt the tug behind my navel that you get when you ride a roller coaster. I
wasn’t sure if the pull was a reminder of our flight downward or the simple fact that thinking of Trevor did the strangest things to my insides. It wasn’t just those brief, confusing kisses either. It was the way he examined me sometimes, like he could see my soul. Like he believed in me.

“In the moment we leapt to be your Passengerhelo before off the cliff together I was so sure he loved me, but when we surfaced from the Delve, everything was all wrong.” My stomach tightened.

“The instant we leapt, I wasn’t afraid of anything. It wasn’t like the past, when I fell off the cliff in real life—when I died. The first time, it was intense, especially the moment when I saw Trevor jump. The physical impact of the fall and the emotional impact of my life collided with indescribable force. Then I surrendered and everything became soft and blue and your hand reached for mine.”

Mel squeezed my fingers.

“This time . . .” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “This time when I jumped with Trevor, I did it without expectations. I was ready to just be whatever I was. I longed to move forward, no matter where that took me. This time I wasn’t alone—I jumped with Trevor.”

“Maybe
you
should work here, Elliot.” Mel’s voice caught.

“Oh, Mel.” I didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. “The only thing I know how to do is to share with you
what I figured out about myself. Do you want to know what my life lesson was?”

“You know that now?”

“Yes—I’m pretty sure I’m starting to understand it. The patterns of my life, or I guess I should say lives, is all about forgiveness. I had trouble forgiving others, trouble allowing myself to be forgiven, and the biggest one of all was deciding that I was worthy of my own absolution. I was living in a kind of isolation with no real faith in anyone, not even myself. In my last life, I almost figured out the growth plan after meeting Trevor. Over the summer, when we became close, I started to believe that I could have a life and love. I had hope, despite what had occurred. I started to believe that an accident didn’t erase a soul . . .”

“So, what happened?”

“We left the shelter of our world of two. We went back to school. He convinced me that together we could open the eyes of everyone else. He believed that if we were together, everything would turn out all right. We made a gamble that, deep down inside, people are good.”

“Are you saying they really aren’t?”

“No.” I took a deep breath. “They really are good at heart, but I couldn’t hang on until
they
remembered it. I was so fragile, which gave them free rein to steal my hope, but at the last
minute I found my stride. I’d like to think it would have been enough if I hadn’t fallen, but I’ll never know for sure. I’d like to think that I would’ve made it—that I found something true in myself.”

The words floated in the air, swirling around like the eagles. I felt lighter having said things out loud too. I pulled my knees up, hugging them.

“Trevor killed himself. He jumped after me.” Maybe if I said this out loud, it would somehow make it easier to bear.

“Maybe he was trying to—”

“No.” I shook my head. “He admitted it. He knew I never would have survived a fall from that height. Our eyes connected when I was falling backward, right before I hit the water. He decided to follow.”

Mel’s face clouded over.

“He heard—well, we’ve both heard the r to be your PassengerKVg beforeumors. People who commit suicide go to hell. Everyone says so.” I stopped talking, not knowing what else to say. I felt my old fears pressing back in on me. I couldn’t sit here and wait for him any longer. Even if it was hopeless, I needed to be out and moving, trying to find him. “And when I came back this time, you insinuated the same thing. You said that there were consequences to staying here—but wait,
you’ve
stayed here—”

Before I could finish, Julia came dashing up the path, her
cheeks flushed with exertion. She was panting, and as she got close she hugged her waist and doubled over. Mel and I jumped up simultaneously. I sucked in my breath, flashes of Julia’s withered body moving through my mind. She’d been a walking corpse when I’d last seen her in the Delve and it was hard to erase that visual, even though she now stood in front of me, petite but not sickly. I shuddered.

“Are you all right?” Mel asked, fussing like the mother Julia never got to have.

I stood very still, although my insides teetered back and forth like a seesaw. I’d just talked about forgiveness and believing that all souls were ultimately good. And yet, the hurt I felt when I was near Julia was like a bruise. In some ways it had gotten deeper, more layered over time. Then there was the jealousy. I loved Trevor and I had no idea what he felt for Julia—or, for that matter, what he felt for me.