Best Friends Through Eternity (2 page)

I trudge through the snowdrifts covering the sidewalk. Houses line the streets here; I should be safe. Still, I move quickly and, when someone calls out from behind me, I fall down, instantly covering my head with my arms.

“Hey, Paige, you okay?” a guy in a tuque asks. When his face appears right in front of mine, I stare into his smiling brown eyes. It’s Max Liu, the Chinese guy from science class.

“Peachy,” I answer. Max being Asian is enough to bug me, enough for me to want to avoid him. His looking amused at me right now makes me want to shove him into the snow.

His friend reaches his hand out to help me up, but I scramble to my feet by myself.

“Didn’t mean to startle you like that,” Max says.

“Of course not.” I raise an eyebrow.

“Sorry.” He shrugs and they continue on, laughing and jostling each other.

Down the street, a plow flashes its alien blue lights as it pushes the snow into piles along the side. Piles you could easily stuff a body in, there has already been so much snow this winter. “Wait up, Max!” I call, but he doesn’t seem to hear. I wish I could just get over myself and chase after him. Safer. It isn’t his fault he’s Chinese—or a boy, for that matter.

I jog for a block, but then my feet slide out on some hidden ice and I crash-land on my butt again. I look around. No one chuckles or laughs. I’m alone.
Good.
When I get up, I walk slower, checking over my shoulder for movement or shadows, anything to hint that one of the volleyball girls is stalking me.

I glance toward the road Jasmine and Cameron may come down. If I see them, I can warn her. But it’s still too early for her to return, unless she uses her brain and comes back early on account of the storm. I can slow down and wait. Maybe Cameron can walk with us, tell those girls to back off and leave us alone. But Jazz doesn’t usually use her head when she hangs around with Cameron.

And I do not wait.

I hear a dog barking at me from behind a picture window, and I keep moving. All I want is to make it to the
crossing on Appleby Street and turn onto the gravel alongside the track. No one will see me walking. Those girls won’t catch me there. They are planning to catch Jazz at the overpass, not hunt for me. I won’t have to stand up for the best friend who has abandoned me for the cleft-chinned brown-eyed boy.

Blinking the snowflakes from my eyes, I duck my head into the wind. Not far now. I make sure the tracks look clear. They have to clean them quickly for the commuter traffic.

I turn onto one of the sets of tracks. On either side of them, a six-foot-high chain-link fence blocks animals and kids from dashing across. People don’t understand that trains can’t stop like cars. For their average driving speed, trains need the length of sixty railroad cars to stop, Dad told me. If an engineer brakes with less space than that, the whole train derails and chances are whatever is on the track still gets creamed.

I should be safe now. No one will look for me here. Huge drifts fill the gaps between the two sets of tracks and the chain-link fence, so I have no choice but to walk dead center between two metal rails. I sigh, take out my iPod and plug my earbuds in. Trouble is, Jazz and I created the mix together BC (before Cameron), and the first songs in the shuffle are her pick. Soft, sentimental love songs that kind of make me want to stuff snow down her neck so she’ll wake up. I know she wanted a boyfriend, needed one really, to prove to herself she’s beautiful enough to fit in.

We both have this straight black hair that can’t do anything but lie flat. I have a round face, with typical Asian dark eyes. Virtually no eyebrows, but I hide that by wearing black horn-rimmed glasses. Jazz has caterpillar brows that she plucks like crazy, but beneath them she has these incredible pale green eyes and a narrow face. Jazz is beautiful. She doesn’t need Cameron to prove that. But to really feel like you belong, a boyfriend like him means everything. For me, too.

I forward ahead on the iPod till I hit a loud, pulsing, hip-hop song. My choice, yeah. I swear the beat rumbles through my feet—great stuff. I walk faster. The wind picks up and drives the snow against my face. I live four long blocks down the track. Not far in good weather. It’s just the snow stings now and the wind pushes hard against me. I can imagine that it’s Vanessa shoving me against the gym wall.

Is that thunder? I hesitate for a second. Is there even lightning in the winter? All kinds of strange weather seem to be happening with the climate warming. Maybe the rumble is in the music. The next song is one both Jazz and I like: techno rock.

I think of her and wince. How will she make out alone? Could the two of us have stood up to those girls? No way. Not if all ten of them show up at the overpass. Sometimes it’s even worse having a witness to your humiliation. I text her again:
Stay away from the overpass.

The beat crackles like lightning. The drum thumps hard and quick. Have to hand it to the music people, they really take creative risks. I hear the wind howling in between the crackles, which sounds really cool.

Alone against ten, how bad will it get for Jazz?

Only another block to go. The tracks themselves shake. What a storm!

Jasmine all alone.

My watch says 4:10. I face slightly away from the wind and see a light from the corner of my eye. This is nuts. There’s still time to head her off. I turn around.

A train throws sparks from the rail not one car length away.

I scream and jump.

W
hen I wake up, I’m standing on a sandy beach by the ocean. Puffy white clouds dot the baby-blue sky. Waves of turquoise water lap gently at the vanilla-colored sand.

My toes dig in, and the hot sugar texture feels good against my feet. The sunshine warms the air blowing gently off the sea. Palm trees, like long-necked ladies, shake their feathery green hair out in the breeze.

This is my kind of heaven.

A tiny figure kneels near the water: a little girl. She wears a one-piece red bathing suit spotted with black to look like a ladybug, and she scoops sand from a hole. She looks so small and alone, something makes me want to protect her, to hug her. Everyone starts as these sweet innocent children. Too bad little kids have to grow up into obnoxious jerks. Ones that snap towels in other people’s faces.

I sigh. Something about her seems familiar, tugs at me. Affection? Something I don’t feel a lot of for little kids. But I had a bathing suit like that once. Is it those shiny black pigtails, so perky and cheerful-looking? I used to wear my hair like that, too.

She turns my way and smiles, a gap-toothed grin, her cheeks swallowing her eyes till they are happy slits. She looks like … like me when I was seven years old. I feel sorry for that person from long ago. She was so lonely. I walk toward her.

“Hi, Paige,” she says and stands up, reaching out her arms. “I’m so glad to see you!”

“You can’t be…,” I start and shake my head. No more eating chocolate bars before going to bed.

“It’s me, Kim. Come on. You don’t remember your best friend?” She stands up and hugs me now, squeezing tightly.

“Wow. I can’t believe I’m dreaming about you.” I hug and squeeze back. Normally, that would wake me. You can’t hold on to a dream person and feel solid flesh touching you.

“You’re not dreaming,” she says. There’s a hint of melody in the tones she uses as she talks. Singsong, little-kid-speak. But, at seven, people said we were both already such old souls.

“I must be dreaming.” I pinch myself a couple of times. “You moved away seven years ago.” When I don’t wake up, I squint at her suspiciously. “I never got to say good-bye.” The strange tug of warmth toward this little girl
becomes something that sparks and crackles inside of me.

Her smile turns sad. “That’s because I died that summer.”

“No!” It’s like a fist punches into my stomach. I double over and can’t breathe for a moment. But then random memories fly together, making sudden clear sense. My parents never told me much when Kim supposedly moved away. They never suggested e-mailing or writing to her, certainly not visiting. What Kim says has to be true. When I can breathe again, the crackles snap white and hot. “Why did my parents lie?”

“Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny—do adults ever tell the truth to kids?” Kim’s childish singsong voice contrasts with her sad, old-soul thoughts.

My voice lifts a pitch, and I sound more like the little kid now. “How did you die?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “I was sick in the hospital awhile.”

This all feels so weird, like a nightmare that spits ugly true things into your sleep. “Why can’t I wake up? This is scaring me.”

“You are awake, silly. It’s just that you’re mostly dead now.”

My mouth drops, every thought evaporating through it.

Kim frowns as she watches my face. “You need to get used to all this.” Then she brightens again. “I know. Wanna help me dig to China?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, just drops down on her knees and begins scooping sand from her hole again. “Maybe we can find our real parents.”

Despite all logic, the “real parents” we used to hope to find were kings and queens who would be ecstatic to be reunited again. We always dug at holes like that together.

Just like me, Kim is a Chinese orphan adopted by a Canadian family. Her parents and mine discovered each other at a Red Thread meeting, a kind of meet and greet for adopted Chinese kids and their parents. When they saw how well we got along, they began planning playdates and other outings so we could be together. This way we would feel less alone in our new home. The playdates turned into sleepovers and the outings into holidays, until we were inseparable. Her parents became my uncle Jack and my auntie Bev.

Until that summer.

“I can’t stay, Kim. I have to get home. Mom will be worried.”

Kim looks up at me, tilting her head in a question. “I thought you missed me.”

“Seven years ago, sure.” I couldn’t eat or sleep at the time. My parents bought me a hamster to keep me company till I made a new friend, but I never liked it. Just used it for scientific experiments—timing its treadwheel jaunts, weighing it, putting it through mazes.

“Your mom will get used to you leaving, too. My parents did.”

“Stop this. I don’t believe you!” I snap.

She pats the sand next to her. “Sit a minute. I’ll show you.”

When I’m down beside her, she points to the hole in the
sand. It fills with water, just like they always do. She swirls her hand in the liquid mud, and suddenly it becomes a snowy darkness that fills my sight line. I hear a train blasting its horn, wheels grinding and screeching along tracks. I can make out its form, see the green-and-white logo. Bright orange sparks flash through the darkness.

A person walks in front of that train and I holler, “Get out of the way!”

The person wears my winter jacket and hat. She turns for a moment, and then her body flies to the side. Hard to tell if she’s been hit or if she’s jumped.

“That was you.” Kim’s voice returns as the picture swirls back into muddy water.

“And I died?”

“Not quite. Just your brain. You’re hooked up to a machine. Want to see?” She speaks so matter-of-factly, she sounds creepy.

“Listen to you! Don’t you have any feelings?”

Kim tilts her head again, looking confused. No wonder. It’s what people always say to me, and I never understand why they’re annoyed, either. You’re supposed to feel sad when bad things happen, but you’re not supposed to be a baby and cry about it. When my hamster died, I felt oddly guilty but announced it with a smile on my face, a nervous habit, and Mom freaked. Kim smiles that same way, too.

She seems so much like me. Maybe that’s why we were such inseparable friends.

“Look.” She points to the muddy water, and it swirls again. This time I can see into a hospital room. I can hear a machine
sish,
long in, and then
sish,
long out. A white sheet covers most of the body lying on that bed, but I can make out my head, all bandaged. My eyes are shut and swollen. One half of my face is purple and red.

It’s my worst nightmare.

My mother sits beside me holding my hand. Her silver-thread hair is tied back loosely. Her thin pointy face looks pale against her shaggy, dark eyebrows. No one ever says “Like mother, like daughter” about us. “Paige, listen to me. You have to wake up. The doctor says you can’t hear me, but I know different. Squeeze my hand if you can.”

I squeeze my hand hard as I watch, but of course that body doesn’t do anything.

“Wink hard, then, if you can’t move your hand.” My mother’s voice sounds strong, nothing crybaby about her. But the skin around her eyes and mouth wrinkles into winces.

“Mom, I’m not in there anymore,” I whisper. I reach out to touch her shoulder, and it feels as though I transported myself close beside her. Still, my hand passes through her.

“She can’t hear you.” Kim’s voice comes from somewhere up above the hospital room.

I frown. Kim is right, of course, but I want to do something for Mom: kiss her cheek—I didn’t do that a lot when I was alive—brush her loose strand of hair back, heck, throw her purse to the floor. Some gesture so she knows
there is something bigger to my life than that shell of me
sishing
on that bed in front of her. “What’s going to happen to me?” I turn toward Kim’s voice and the image of the hospital room disappears. My consciousness comes back to the beach. “Am I going to lie in that bed forever or will the rest of me die, too?”