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“Yeah, she seems good,” he said.

A cold gust of air blew snow inside as Kate opened
the door.

“Bye, Abby. I’ll call if I’m too late. Leave the
lights on.”

“Bye,” I said.

I gave Dr. Mortimer a quick hug.

“Take care, Abby,” he said, following my sister
outside.

I watched from the window as he opened her car door.
I could tell he was trying to linger, but Kate was all business.
That’s how she was when stories came up and there was even a small
chance to advance her career. She wasn’t going to be stuck in Bend,
Oregon her whole life. She had CNN and New York on her mind, and
was determined to find the story that would catapult her towards
huge success.

I locked the door and watched as she drove off,
leaving the doctor in the street with snow swirling around him.

CHAPTER 2

Going back to school was actually harder than
dying.

I didn’t want to go back. After the accident, in my
junior year, I had a tutor who came out to the house every day and
I was content at home where I didn’t have to deal with people. I
was thinking of doing that again for my senior year or even
dropping out.

“Just get it over with. Everybody misses you. Come
back. You need to start living again.”

Jesse and I had been best friends since fourth grade
when we were in Mrs. Turner’s class and were paired up for a
science experiment on buoyancy.

“The tutor says she’ll keep coming to the house,” I
said.

“You can’t be hiding in here the rest of your life.
It’s time to face your fears.”

That was true. I knew I would never really want to
go back to school and it had nothing to do with the academics. I
didn’t want to show all those kids the new me. I was pretty sure
how it would all play out, too. Everybody would be real nice for
the first couple weeks, but then the gossip would start. Girl
gossip is always the worst. Riley and Olivia had already stopped
calling and dropping by and I was sure the rest of my so-called
friends would do the same. Me showing up to school as the walking
ghost of what I used to be wasn’t going to help my social life
any.

But Jesse was right. I couldn’t hide in the house
forever.

The first few days of my senior year were great.
There were painted posters in the hallways that said “Welcome Back
Abby Craig!” and the kids and teachers were excited to see me. But
it wasn’t long until I was pushed to the outside of my circle of
friends. It was subtle, but I could tell. They said hello and
everything, but then hurriedly walked by. Being dead had changed
me. I thought I could hide it somehow, but I couldn’t.

Most didn’t ask too many questions and I was
grateful for that.

“Abigail,” Mrs. Baylock said as we sat at a table in
the library. She was one of the volunteers who helped me. Her son
Robbie played the trumpet in the marching band. I was working on an
algebra problem.

“Did you see anything?” she whispered.

“See anything?” I said, wondering if she was talking
about the dance assembly that morning. I looked up and saw how
nervous she was. Her eyes were wild behind her jeweled-frame
glasses.

“Like, you know, Jesus? Or a light? Or a tunnel of
some sort? Did you see anything like that?”

I sighed, put down my pencil, and nodded. I wasn’t
going to tell her that there was only darkness, a terrible black so
deep that it sucked my breath away just thinking about it.

She seemed disappointed in my silence and wasn’t
going to let it go.

“Why do you suppose you were brought back?” she
asked.

“What?”

Suddenly she lunged across the table and squeezed my
arm. I looked at her in horror, at the terrible desperation
consuming her face.

“Please, let go,” I begged. My mouth was bone dry.
“Please.”

“My husband needs help. Your help. I know he’s going
to Hell. I keep telling him, warning him. Can you talk to him?
Please, talk to him, Abigail!”

My head was spinning as I stood. I couldn’t breathe,
everything was fading except those crazy eyes that darted back and
forth.

“I can’t help you,” I said, finally breaking free
from her grasp and backing away.

“The Devil must have done this, Abigail!” she
hissed. “You’re the Devil’s work! I’ll pray for you, evil
child!”

I started running. Out of the library, down the
corridor, and into a bathroom stall. I locked the door behind me.
My heart thundered in my chest and my face was prickly hot. I tried
to calm down, tried to catch my breath.

I don’t know how long I was in there before the
school counselor found me and took me back to her office. Bells had
rung and the school was empty. I didn’t mention what had happened,
and she just assumed that I was having trouble adjusting to
school.

“I’m going to give your sister the name of a friend
of mine. It would be good for you to talk to him,” she said. “I
mean, on a regular basis that is.”

And that’s how I started seeing Dr. Krowe.

CHAPTER 3

“Hey, Craigers,” Jesse said as he walked up to me. I
was standing by my locker, fiddling with books, buying some time.
Amanda and her friends were at the doors and I was hoping they
would head out so I wouldn’t have to pass them. I was relieved to
see him walk up.

“Hey, Jesse,” I said.

He adjusted his hat. For the eight years I had known
him, I only had seen Jesse without a baseball cap a few times. One
of those times was when he stood over my hospital bed and I hadn’t
even recognized him.

“Let’s get a burger,” he said.

“Can’t. Have a shrink appointment. Want me to drop
you somewhere?” At least I was still able to drive, which came in
handy since Jesse smashed up his car last year. He was a speed
freak and apparently his dad knew that too because the car was
still not fixed.

He tipped his hat up and sighed.

“C’mon. You have half an hour. I’ll eat fast.”

I shrugged. I was usually a little late anyway and I
was hungry.

“All right, but let’s get going.”

I wrapped my arm in his as we walked down the hall,
past the girls and whispers. Jesse was the only school friend I had
left these days, but that was okay.

Snow covered the streets and the cars in the parking
lot. Everything was bright white. The weatherman had been right for
once.

“Good ‘boarding weather,” he said as he got into my
Jeep. “Maybe we should ditch school tomorrow and head up to the
mountain.”

“It’s not even open yet,” I said. It was too early
to even think about snowboarding up at Mount Bachelor. “There are
still some leaves on the trees!”

“Oh, we could find our own hills. Think out of the
box,” he said.

“All right, maybe,” I said.

He fiddled with the radio and found Metallica and
blasted it. Jesse loved heavy metal. He got that from his dad, who
owned a garage at the edge of town and listened to that music as he
fixed Harleys. Jesse worked with him in the summers and after
school sometimes.

I put the Jeep into four-wheel drive and made it out
of the parking lot.

“How you feeling today, anyway?” he asked as I
slowly drove on the slick streets. Driving in the snow always made
me a little nervous.

“Good, why?” I asked.

“I don’t know. You look kinda pale and sad,” he
said, doing a Lars Ulrich drum solo with his hands on his long,
skinny legs.

“I’m fine,” I said. We pulled into the lot.

A warm fire was raging in the center of Pilot Butte
Burgers. There were already kids from school at some of the tables.
I waved as I walked by and grabbed a booth close to the flames
while Jesse ordered.

“You want to sit with us?” Tina asked.

“No, thanks. We’re good over here.”

She shrugged. Jesse soon followed and sat down with
his food.

“You sure you don’t want anything?” he said.

“Just your fries,” I said. “As usual.”

We talked about basketball for a while, about how
the team was looking this year. Jesse was a starting forward.

I reached for a fry as he dug into his burger.
Amanda and her friends had come in, scanning the tables as they
waited in line. Our eyes met briefly and she ignored me.

“Don’t worry so much about them,” Jesse said. He
sponged a gob of ketchup off his face with a napkin.

“I know,” I said, trying to push the girls out of my
mind. I took a sip from his Coke.

I was wishing he could eat a little bit faster, even
though he was the fastest eater I had ever known. I was ready to
leave.

“C’mon, tell me about Kate and the good doctor. Are
they together yet?”

“I wish,” I said. “Matt has been over five times
this week. He leaves his paintings for us. It’s a form of payment,
I guess.”

Jesse laughed.

I didn’t want to talk about Matt, but I couldn’t
stand hearing the laughter that was coming from Amanda and her
group.

“He’s nice enough and all, but has a strange
aversion to taking care of himself. Like bathing or paying rent.
I’m pretty sure he’s just living with different friends all
week.”

“He’s still young, he has time to pull it together,”
Jesse said.

“Yeah, I guess. But Kate’s kind of young too to be
supporting a boyfriend. She already has me. And besides, she could
have anybody. Why is she settling for him?”

“You mean, why isn’t she going for your doctor?” he
said.

“Exactly,” I said.

“Who knows the ways of love, Miss Abigail?” he said.
“For example, my poor little heart pitter patters loudly for Chloe
over there in the corner. It’s not logical. She’s not the prettiest
or the smartest girl, but there you go.”

Chloe was both pretty and smart. Jesse was just full
of it sometimes. Supposedly, he’s had a huge crush on her since
middle school, but not once have I seen him talk to her. And Jesse,
aka Mister Popular, was cocky. If he were really interested, he’d
be over there, full charm on. It was more that he liked to talk
about her.

“How do you eat all that anyway?” I asked grabbing
another fry.

He was nearly finished, stuffing the last bit in his
mouth as he threw his napkin in the middle of the empty plate.

Jesse had taken to getting the Monster Burger since
he started his senior year, which was usually ordered by football
linebackers, tourists, or groups who would split it. It had three
times the meat as a normal hamburger. His appetite was ferocious. I
had no idea how he finished them, but he did every single time.

“This is like my dinner too,” he said.

“Oh, right,” I said.

He smiled.

“Come on,” he said, standing up. “I promised to get
you to your shrink on time. Let’s go.”

Jesse led us past all the groups of kids and Amanda
pretended not to see me. Big flakes were falling now and the city
had disappeared in a low, white fog as we drove.

“So what about tomorrow?” Jesse said as we pulled up
to his house.

“Sounds fun, but I’m gonna pass. I would like to at
least get C’s in my classes this semester.”

I wasn’t even sure why. It didn’t seem to matter how
much I read, I blew most of my tests.

“All right, but if you don’t see me around, you know
where I am.”

“Have fun,” I said.

“Thanks for the burger,” he said as he slammed the
door and walked away.

I had made a mistake with Jesse. The summer before
the accident we were sitting on the soccer field at midnight,
studying the constellations and planets, and Jesse had leaned over
and kissed me and told me that he loved me. A lot of things had
been erased from my memory after my accident, but that one terrible
scene remains, strong as jasmine. I wished I could erase it, wished
it had never happened. At the time I had fallen for Conner and told
Jesse I didn’t have those kinds of feelings for him.

The second I told him, his face fell thirty stories
in the soft moonlight and I immediately wanted to take back my
words. There were a lot of awful things I could do in the world,
but the absolute worst thing was hurting Jesse.

The rejection lingered between us for weeks, and I
knew that it would always be part of us now. It hurt to think about
it. Conner turned out to be a fool, and now my feelings for Jesse
were changing. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and that kiss.
Couldn’t get his smile out of my mind sometimes.

But it was too late.

I drove over to Dr. Krowe’s office and parked. A
fierce wind blew into me as I slowly made my way into the
building.

I sighed and paused before pushing open the door. I
hated Thursdays.

CHAPTER 4

I was a few minutes late.

Dr. Krowe liked to remind me that when I showed up
late, I was acting in a passive aggressive pattern and it was
unhealthy.

“Hello Abby,” Dr. Krowe said, giving me a quick nod
before closing the door behind me.

“Hi, sorry I’m late,” I said. “I go slow in the
snow.”

He smiled and I followed him over to the two large
leather chairs that faced each other. I sat down, letting my
backpack slip off my shoulder to the floor.

“Crazy weather out there,” he said. We stared a
moment through the large window. His office overlooked a forested
walking trail and the scene was like a Robert Frost poem, full of
snowy woods and promises.

“Kind of early for all this, don’t you think?” he
said.

“Yeah and it’s supposed to snow through the
weekend,” I said. “That’s Kate’s official report, anyway.”

He pulled out his pad and pen and adjusted his
glasses. When he crossed his legs, I noticed he was wearing argyle
socks.

“So, how has your week been going?” he asked, his
penetrating gray eyes probing mine.

“Good,” I said. I usually tried to focus on the kids
and teachers at school during these sessions. That way there was
something to talk about.