Touching the Surface (3 page)

“Nope. This is a bit unusual,” she said.

“I’m standing right here.” Oliver’s finger made a circling gesture. “Girls,” he muttered under his breath.

We ignored him.

“Have you ever seen this happen before?” I asked.

“Just once,” Mel said, making little frown lines over her nose. “But we really should be going, kids. Elliot, I can hear your stomach growling from here.” She turned and headed down the twisting corridor. I turned back to Oliver and at that exact moment my stomach gurgled like something volatile in a
science lab beaker. We were standing so close I wondered if he could feel the rumbling.

I extended my palm and Oliver took it. His hand fit perfectly in mine and within a few strides we’d found a comfortable rhythm, stomachs rumbl and rested my forehead6String in unison.

•  •  •

Crossing the threshold of the dining room, I was blissfully happy to zero in on a steaming pie sitting there for the taking. I made a beeline for it, dragging Oliver behind me. I looked at the pizza and then down at our still connected hands, not really sure how I was going to pull this one off. Oliver gave me a very Zen smile and said, “It’s pizza—we must.” I cracked up and wiggled my fingers loose. I loaded up a plate with enough pizza for a small army. Oliver got some too.

We found an empty table and plopped down. I picked up a steaming slice and leaned over my plate, knowing it would probably burn the roof of my mouth but willing to take that chance. When the first bite of hot gooey cheese was grafted to my insides, I glanced up.

I didn’t know who the guy at the table across from us was, but he was staring at me with a dark scowl. At first I thought I’d violated some weird afterlife pizza-eating etiquette, but his pale blue eyes were too cold for that. He was dressed in black boots, black jeans, and an equally black T-shirt that
read
I DON’T DISCRIMINATE. I HATE EVERYONE
. I flinched. I’d never seen this guy before—the murderous stare had to be coincidental. Still, I found I couldn’t keep myself from peeking up at him. Before I could ask who he was, Oliver leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“That’s Trevor. Appears to have anger issues.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I said.

Trevor pushed back his chair and stood up. He must’ve been over six feet. “Is he always angry like this?” I wondered aloud.

“Not completely sure. He just got here. He came right after you.” Oliver ripped off one third of a new slice and chased it down with a few chugs of whatever was in his glass.

“How do you know who he is, then?” I asked, already feeling a wave of dread washing over me.

“I overheard Mel talking. He’s going to be in our Workshop.” Oliver paused. “But that’s not all. I think I knew him in my last life.” His eyebrows scrunched up. “I can’t quite figure it out. There’s something about the guy I don’t like. He just annoys me.”

Happiness sloshed around my insides hearing that Oliver and I would be together for Workshop. I watched as Trevor stalked off, hitting the exit door hard enough that it banged into the wall on his way out. Some of my excitement lost its
fizz. There were dozens of different Workshops at the Obmil. Why did Angry Boy have to be in mine? But I knew the answer to that—Mel. She couldn’t pass up a stray.

“Anything else I should know?” I asked.

Oliver’s face lit up. “Plenty, but I’ll start with the important thing first—there’s dessert on the table.”

A big plate of chocolate chip cookies appeared on the buffet. In my mind, exchanging a hostile guy for warm cookies was a good trade. Maybe we could talk Mel into bringing dessert to Workshop tomorrow and leaving Trevor at the Haven.

•  •  •

After lunch I was strangely concerned that separating from Oliver would be traumatic, but as we said good-bye, I still felt relaxed. Perhaps it was the side effects of the pizza and cookies. I stood on the Haven porch, watching as he walked backward toward the trail that led to Workshop. and rested my forehead6Str

“It’s not so bad,” I shouted out. “The separation, I mean.” I felt dumb after I said it, but Oliver nodded his head in agreement.

“It’s because I’m full,” he called back.

“Of pizza?”

“No—full of you.”

“Huh?”

“When I first saw you, I felt like I was running on empty.
As if I’d been away from you for far too long. I needed an Elliot fix.” He grinned. “But now I’m feeling fully charged again. I’ve got a full tank.” He patted his heart twice. “Now I can venture out, safe in the knowledge that I know where to find you should I need to replenish my reserves.”

I blushed. Who was this guy? Granted, I couldn’t remember my last life, but I was pretty sure that no one could have ever made me feel this special before. I grinned, completely embarrassed, but sort of wanting him to say more.

I waved, sending him off, but a small sigh escaped as he disappeared from view. I could feel the effects of him wearing off and the reality of being a miserable Third Timer setting back in. I was happy that he was content and running on full, but the truth was, I already felt like there was a cloud blocking out the sun.

I went back to my room, and spent the afternoon reliving everything that had happened so far. I was hoping that Julia might show up so we could hash out all this nonsense between us, but she either had a full dance card or she was avoiding me. I thought about exploring the grounds but it didn’t seem nearly as fun as it would be with Oliver and I was afraid I might run into Trevor. He’d just arrived too, so he also had the day off to get his bearings.

I finally saw Julia at dinner, but she walked in with David
and the rest of her Workshop. Not an optimal situation. But I cheered up when I spotted Oliver. The sight of him made me feel lighthearted and optimistic for the first time in hours. But as he passed by Julia’s table, some guy yelled out for Oliver to join them. I held my breath. I couldn’t believe it as I watched him squeeze right between Julia and David. Julia’s face lit up and David clapped him on the back. Everybody adored him, not just me.

What if this whole deep connection we shared was just the way Oliver was with everyone? My stomach twisted into a knot of a million different emotions. I couldn’t join them and I certainly couldn’t watch. My heart hammered inside my chest as I leaned up against a wall. Everything had me feeling off balance, even Oliver, so I decided to hide in my room again. It was foolish to be so insanely wrapped up in this guy—I’d known him all of a couple hours. I didn’t understand this whole magnetic attraction thing, but Delving was going to be tough enough, I didn’t need additional complications making things harder. I already had plenty of problems.

I figured if I waited in our room, Julia would have to show up eventually so we could really straighten things out. I knew I couldn’t possibly survive the Obmil feeling so lonely. Oliver was great. He was like a life jacket keeping me afloat, but no boy can ever take the place of your best friend.

The sun was just about down when I heard her soft voice in our doorway. “Where’d you take off to during dinner?”

“I didn’t feel like watching you with your new guide.” The bitterness in my voice was like black coffee. Ironically, David smelled like black coffee underneath the Ol choked out the words.lo befored Spice.

She lifted her chin. “I have my reasons, you know.”

“Are you going to explain them to me? Because I can’t seem to make sense of them by myself.”

Julia plopped down on a pile of pillows on the floor, folding in her spindly limbs like a doe curling up for the night. “I need space, Elliot.”

“Space? Space from what? From me?”

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings.” It appeared that she meant it, but that didn’t make it better.

“Why do you need space from me? We’ve always done everything together. It’s worked out perfectly up until now.” I hated the whiny pleading sound to my voice.

“That’s it right there.” She snapped her fingers. “We’ve done everything together. Life and afterlife and every single time, you’ve led the way. Forgive me . . . but I want to be in charge of myself for a change. Oh, wait—forgiveness isn’t your strong suit, is it? You have to have the control—better to run the show and not let anyone make any mistakes. This way you don’t have to be judgmental at all.”

“Excuse me? If I remember correctly, in my Samantha life, you pulled me out of the depths of depression and saved me. You took charge then.” I crossed my arms and gave her a look.

“You were still running that show though. Everything that was happening—all about you.”

“I—that’s so not . . .” I didn’t even know where to start. I threw up my hands. “So, take the lead. Nobody’s stopping you.”

“Aw, come on, Elliot. You know I can’t be in charge with you around. We’ve got a pattern. I’ve got to break that routine. This is something that I have to do.”

“You can be the one calling all the shots.” I pointed at her. “I don’t care. I’ll support you. I’m not a bully, you know.”

Julia blew a curl up off her face but it settled down right in front of her eye and she had to sweep it away. “I know that you don’t mean to do it, but you have a tendency to need things to be the way you think they should be. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for the rest of us to have an opinion.”

It felt like a slap. “What are you going to do, then? Just discover everything without me? Avoid me and move on? What’s going to happen if you make sense of everything before I do and then you leave? We might not be able to get into a new stream together if we don’t leave here at the same time.”

“I know.”

She said it quietly.

So quietly it was like a knife sliding in between my ribs and severing my heart into two pieces, halves that would never be whole again.

“Well—now I guess I know too.” I rolled over, putting my back to her. Now that I’d badgered her for the truth, I wanted to put it back where it’d come from. Neither onw3.org/TR/xhtm

4

creation
variation

The next morning Julia was gone when I awoke. I was stiff and uncomfortable from sleeping in my clothes and staying on my right side in order to avoid looking at her. She’d snuck out early but left an origami crane sitting on my pillow. Cranes are supposed to be extremely loyal. Legend says that if you fold a thousand cranes you’ll be granted a wonderful wish, like a long life. Since I was already dead at the age of seventeen and the closest soul I’d ever known wanted to get away from me as fast as possible, it was too depressing to think about.

I placed the crane on the shelf over Julia’s bed, but then changed my mind. I didn’t need a constant visual reminder of everything wrong between us. I held the tips of the wings between my fingers and gave a test pull. It wouldn’t take much.
I bit down on my lip. I couldn’t bring myself to cause harm, even to a little paper crane. Compromising, I moved it to the corner of the shelf above my bed where I couldn’t see it.

I glanced at my watch. Although I’d had the periodic urge to escape from the dark loneliness of our room last night, now I was finding it hard to leave the Nest, my nickname for the place. I headed out anyway, feeling as if I was traveling down the path of other people’s choices.

Despite my reluctance to get to Workshop, I found I was actually enjoying my walk to the Delving School. I was torn between avoiding my past and enjoying the rush that came from playing with my surroundings. I knew the novelty of creating would soon wear off and become second nature, like breathing, but for the moment I greedily envisioned my two favorite seasons at the same time. I sighed as I watched beloved characteristics from autumn and spring jump to life in front of me. I was having so much fun tromping through crunchy leaves and smelling flowers that my steps became a little quicker, despite the fact that I wanted to avoid my destination. Thinking about it, I realized that the last thing I wanted to do right now was to engage in an emotional excavation of my last life. It wasn’t like I was going to discover something good—how well could my last life have gone if I’d ended up here? But on the other hand—I’d be spending more time with Oliver since he would be in my Workshop.

When I reached the doors of the school, no one else seemed to be around. This was evident because the school appeared exactly as I would imagine the perfect school to be. Unlike the stability and continuity of the Haven, this building was subject to personal interpretation. It had a designated location in the clearing at the top of the western trail, but that was about as much consistency as this part of the Obmil offered. When no one was around I imagined the space was like wavy heat dancing over hot pavement, but I was only guessing. Whenever I got close enough, my vision filled the gap.

With my imagination unimpeded, the main section of the building was stone and brick with . Instead of sittingsuunderstandlarge windows and ivy crawling any place it could get a hold. There were large majestic oaks, maples, and willows keeping guard around the edges while smaller, bud-laden trees held court in the front entrance. Over to the side there was an addition to the building, a seamless connection that was glass and light, beams and angles, a modern contrast to the ancient history of the brick and stone. It was the equivalent of the glass pyramid that announced the Louvre in Paris. It was wrong in such a way that it wouldn’t be right if it were any other way, at least for me.