Wraith (27 page)

I started to open my mouth. Then I closed it again.

I looked into what I could make out of Zane's
once-beautiful green eyes, and my anger melted instantly.

He was doing this for me.

He could see how much I hated lying to my parents.
He could see how much it meant to me, the last few days, to be able to share
everything that was in my heart. He knew he would be gone soon—we both knew
that. He didn't even know where he would be going, but right now, he was
worried about
me
.

"I'm worried about you, Kali."

My eyes teared. I sniffed out a laugh.
"Yeah," I said, stammering like a fool. "I can see that."

His brow furrowed, but some of the darkness in his
expression lifted. "Well, then? Will you promise me?"

Promise you what? A cruise to Aruba? Ten kids?
Name it.

"I… um…" I backpedaled. The ten kids would
be easier, actually. "I don't know, Zane. I'll need to think about
it."

"Don't think about it," he pressed,
"Just promise me. Promise me you'll tell someone the truth. Someone
besides me. Someone you trust.
Please,
Kali."

His form, which had become more solid as we talked,
blurred suddenly; within a fraction of a second he had changed from the gray
sweats into the hottest outfit I'd ever seen—a soft, skintight muscle shirt and
workout shorts, with his feet bare and his blond curls framing his face like he
was posed for a movie poster.

I pitched back a step and laughed out loud. "Oh,
that is SO unfair!"

He flashed a killer smile. "
Promise
,
Kali."

"All right! All right!" I conceded, all
but forgetting whatever it was I was promising. "Just put the freakin'
sweats back on, okay?"

He smirked in victory. "How's this for a
compromise?" In a blink, he was back in his favorite board shorts. His
curls were damp.

"Put a shirt on," I ordered.

His smirk widened. "Fine."

A white tee shirt appeared, and I nodded in
approval.

"You promised," he reminded.

"I know."
What had I done?

Bright lights were on inside the condo; I could see
my parents inside, and my mother glancing my way. The porch light was dim, but
she could still see me. I seated myself at the table again, facing away from
the house and toward the ocean. The waves pounded on the shore in the distance,
and a light breeze ruffled my hair.

"It would be nice not to have to pretend
anymore, wouldn't it?" Zane commented, slipping into the opposite chair.

"Enough about me," I responded, even as I
had been thinking the very same thing. "I want to know how you're feeling.
You're…" I tried hard to sound positive. "You're getting fainter
every time I see you. Do you feel different?"

He paused a moment, then nodded, his gaze trained on
his own, ill-defined hands. "I can feel something happening, yes. At
first, I just felt disconnected somehow, like part of me was somewhere else.
But more and more, I feel…"

I leaned forward, wanting desperately to understand,
even as I feared what he would say.

"I feel like something's pulling at me,"
he finished. "Like part of me
is
in another place, and the part
that's here—." He broke off. His expression seemed pained. "The part
that's here isn't supposed to be."

I swallowed. I would be optimistic about this, for
his sake. I
would
.

"Well, we knew that," I said, as lightly
as I could manage. "Your being here at all—like you are—had to be a
mistake of some kind. But now that you're connecting with your memories… you
can be whole again. You can move on."

He raised his head and looked at me. "Right.
Move on."

He didn't want to go
.

My breath caught in my throat. This wasn't right.
Any of it. And it was my fault. I wanted him to stay because I would miss
him—but that wasn't fair.

Who was I kidding? It was his
dying
that
wasn't fair!

Maybe he shouldn't be with me, but he didn't belong
in some perpetual…
whatever,
either. He deserved to be alive, to be
young, with his whole life still ahead of him!

"I can answer your question now," he said,
intruding on my thoughts, and mercifully so.

"What question?" I asked, my voice ragged.

He leaned forward and smiled at me. My knees wobbled
again, but it was okay this time… I was sitting.

"You asked if I ever had a serious girlfriend.
I remember now—or at least I think I do. The answer is no. Not unless I met
someone particularly outstanding right around the time I died, which would be
doubly tragic, I suppose."

His tone was pleasant, despite the gravity of his
words.

"I don't believe it," I said without
thinking.

He smiled at me again. "Oh, no? Why not?"

"Because!"

"Because why? You think I'm not
selective?"

"No, you idiot," I teased, grateful for
the return to a frivolous topic. "Because you're ridiculously hot and I
know for a fact you wouldn't last ten minutes in any high school without half
the population fighting to be your girlfriend."

His eyes narrowed. "I repeat: you think I'm not
selective?"

"Even if you are," I protested, "you
could have anybody."

He leaned back in his chair. "I wish," he
said solemnly.

His mood turned gray again. Wishing like crap I
hadn't used the present tense, I hastened to brighten it. "You're
seriously telling me that in your high school in Hackensack, there wasn't a
single girl who interested you enough to go out with more than twice?"

He drummed his fingers on the table. At first, the
tips went through the metal, but after a few tries, he mastered the illusion
perfectly. "You're making it sound like I was an operator," he
answered. "But you're wrong. I never had any trouble getting dates, that's
true. And to answer your other question, yes, I did really dance at the dances,
when I could go to them. But once I started having to work all the time, I
never could. I couldn't do much of anything."

He was quiet for a while. I knew he was remembering
more, because his form grew fainter as I watched.

I interrupted him before I could stop myself. All
good intentions aside, I just couldn't stand the sight of it. "Okay,
that
I understand. Maintaining a girlfriend would take some time."

"It wasn't only that, Kali," he said
seriously. His gaze moved over my shoulder to the inside of the condo, and he
gestured in the direction of the window. "You see that?"

I turned and looked in. My parents had their arms
around each other. My father was holding some sheet of paper—it looked like a
real estate flier—and they were laughing together, canoodling like newlyweds.

I whirled back around. "Yeah, I know.
Embarrassing, aren't they?"

Zane looked at me incredulously. "Are you
kidding me? What they are is
happy
." He stood up from the table
with a jerk and began to pace. "Not that it matters anymore, seeing as how
I'm dead," he said ruefully. "But if you want to know why I wasted
what little dating life I had being 'selective,' it's because I was determined
not to wind up like my parents.

"Neither of my parents were ever happy. They were
both good-looking and successful and had plenty of opportunities for
companionship and sex, but I don't think either of them was ever in love. My
dad had no concept of it; he was completely self-absorbed. My mother got
infatuated with a different guy every five minutes, but she never really cared
about any of them. Both my parents claimed they were happy, but even as a
little kid, I could see they weren't
content
. They spent their whole
lives feeling restless, always looking for something else, having no idea what
that even was."

He dropped down in his chair, and his gaze floated
back over my shoulder. "But I knew what I wanted. I wanted what your
parents have, Kali. I wanted
that
."

Warily, I cast just enough of a glance over my own
shoulder to see that my parents were now, as expected, making out in front of
God and everybody.

I turned my head back around and groaned.

Zane glared at me again.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I don't
mean to sound ungrateful. You're right, my parents are happy. They've been
married forever and they're still happy. It's great."

"No," he said after a moment, his voice
more upbeat. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to unload all my childhood baggage
on you. It doesn't matter now, anyway."

He stood up again. He walked to the opposite edge of
the deck and leaned his arms on the railing, looking out toward the ocean.

Wordlessly, I joined him. I knew I was doing a lousy
job of this. I wanted to give him what he needed—whatever that was—to feel good
about what was happening. I wanted him to have hope for his future. But I was
failing. I was too damn depressed about what he had already lost. And, yes…
I'll admit it. What
I
was losing.

"Zane," I asked quietly. "You said
you felt like something was pulling you. I can't tell… I mean… is it a good
feeling?"

He didn't answer for a moment. "It doesn't feel
like anything at all," he said finally. "I think about my past, and I
get gloomy. I try not to—I really do. I try to remember the good times. But the
bad things that happened at the end… they're stronger. They still weigh on me,
if that makes any sense. While I've been here, I've been free of them. I've
laughed. I've played. I've had fun. You have no idea how long it's been
since—"

He broke off. He gave his head a shake. "It's
been like a dream, you know? I can see now that none of this was real. The only
real thing is this force that's pulling me away. It's like someone is telling
me, 'Enough. The party's over. Come on to the endgame.'"

"The endgame," I repeated thoughtfully.
"That's what I'm asking. Please tell me you have some positive feelings
about that."

"I wish I could, Kali. But I don't feel
anything at all." He exhaled slowly. "Backwards is sadness,
loneliness, guilt. Forwards is just… nothing."

He turned to me and smiled weakly. "Looks like
the fun's all here. But my ticket's expiring. I can't stay any more."

My accursed eyes began to water again. "I'm so
sorry," I said helplessly. "I really thought… I mean… I wanted to
make things better for you."

"I know you did," he said softly. His eyes
locked on mine, and I leaned on the railing to steady my jelly legs. "I
wouldn't trade getting to know you for the world, Kalia Thompson."

My heart beat like a jackhammer. I stood
breathlessly, unable to move, as he stretched out one faint, flickering hand
and gently traced the line of my cheekbone.

I felt nothing. Nothing physical, at least. Inside,
my heart was shattering.

"Zane," I whispered breathlessly, knowing
it was wrong, but powerless to stop myself. "If things were different… if
you were alive… and I was alive—"

"Yes," he said immediately, interrupting
me. He leaned in closer. His voice was no more than a whisper.
"Absolutely, yes. Don't ever doubt it, Kali."

I stood, frozen, while his head slowly lowered. Our
noses touched. His lips grazed over mine.

But there was nothing to feel. No sensation. No
warmth. Not even the faintest buzz of vibration I had seemed to feel before.
His face was no more than a mist… a vapor.

He drew away again.

A tear rolled down my cheek.

"Kali?" my mother called. "Come on
in, will you? It's getting late."

I wiped my eyes hastily with a fist. "Yeah, I
know. I'm coming."

"Lock the doors behind you."

"Sure."

Zane's form began to drift away.

"Don't you dare!" I ordered.

He stopped, but wouldn't look at me. "I'm
sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"Yes, you should," I said shortly.
"And I'm not sorry." My voice began to crack, but I steadied it.
"You haven't got much time. We both know that. And I don’t want to spend
whatever time you have left with the both of us feeling sorry for
ourselves."

The words coming out of my mouth surprised even me.
"I know. Come to my room. We'll have a slumber party."

Zane's faint eyes danced. He laughed out loud.
"A
slumber
party?"

"Yes," I said with authority. "A
slumber party. Ever been to one?"

He smirked. "Not likely."

"Well, I don't have any popcorn," I
admitted. "And the usual procedure is to giggle and talk about boys all
night. But we can modify."

His eyebrows rose.

"I'll sleep on the bed; you can float around in
mid air. We'll talk about whatever makes us laugh. And we'll keep each other
company till the wild chickens crow. What do you say?"

He grinned at me a moment. Then he answered with a
mirage. The tee shirt and board shorts disappeared; in their place were
SpongeBob Squarepants pajamas.

I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

I opened the doors and led him inside.

I don't know when I fell asleep. I didn't think I
would sleep at all. But at some point I closed my eyes, and time skipped
cruelly forward. 

"Kali?"

The urgency in Zane's whispered call brought me back
to consciousness immediately. Morning sunlight peeked through my shutters; the
drone of the ocean was calm and distant.

"What? What is it?"

His voice was feeble, indistinct. "Sorry to
wake you. But… I don't think I can do this much longer. And I didn't want you
to think I'd just left you."

He was leaning against the side of my bed, his legs
stretched out across the floor, his head close to mine. No part of him was
solid.

"The pull is really strong now," he
continued. "I've been trying to fight it. But I just keep feeling… well,
weaker, I guess."