I'd Rather Not Be Dead (15 page)

I follow her to them. She's got
something in her hair. Confetti maybe, although who knows how
confetti could have gotten there. Rain's just the sort of person
these things happen to. I pick it out, feeling guilty when she
shivers from the draft of my touch.

She types in a search string for
books on feng shui, jots down the number for the one hit she gets
on a piece of scrap paper.

“Feng shui? You're kidding
right?” But I know she isn't. Rain would believe in it, would sigh
at me for rejecting something people have followed for thousands of
years. She reads Tarot cards too and lights candles on an alter in
her room. But, then, who ever heard of someone named Rain
discovering a scientific principle or being the CEO of a major
company? Compared to how many Rains are out there making crystal
jewelry for New Age shops? The girl was doomed the second our
parents named her, plain and simple.

She finds the place the book
should be in, but it's missing. The alternative religion section no
longer exists. About a year ago, all the books in it vanished over
the course of a week. We all know who took them, but nothing was
ever done about it. Has the intolerance spread to spiritual
decorative practices? Surely God doesn't care if you want a
goldfish in your money corner. Or whichever corner you'd put a
goldfish in.

There are tears of frustration
in my sister's eyes. She's thinking the same thing I am, that she's
been censored again. Not even by the library or the community in
general, but by one small group of jerks who think they have the
right to dictate what the rest of us are interested in.

Something catches my attention
and I bend to look at a shelf three bellow and one stack over from
where Rain is. “Beginning and Intermediate Feng Shui,” I read. It's
just misfiled.

Rain's turning, starting to
leave. She's not going to find this. So, taking a deep breath, I
slide it half-way out.

She gasps, her eyes huge as
saucers.

“You always did believe in
ghosts,” I say, letting go of the book.

Squatting down, she looks at it,
gasps again when she reads the title. Her hand trembles when she
draws the book the rest of the way off the shelf. “Thank you,” she
whispers. As she stands, the book cradled against her chest, her
eyes dart frantically around the area. But she doesn't see me.

When she gets back to the front,
she goes to the computer again and asks it about local ghosts. I
smile. “I don't think I'm in any of the books yet, kiddo.”

She checks out a few things from
the local lore section anyway, things I might should get around to
reading sometime. It would be interesting to see if any of the real
local spirits are mentioned or if the tales are all fiction.

Rain and I run into myself as
I'm walking her home. The other me's making out with Cris in his
front yard and seeing them makes my stomach churn with conflicting
emotions. I miss Cris like crazy, despite hating him. That sickens
me as much as anything does.

“Gross,” Rain pronounces. “Do
you have to be exhibitionists?”

TOM rolls her eyes in disgust.
“Screw you, flower child.”

“He wishes.”

Zing. I smile at the kid,
although TOM's expression is much less amused.

“I'll see you later, baby.” Cris
gives TOM's ass a squeeze. “You get the little one home safe. We
wouldn't want her eaten by a big, bad wolf.”

She kisses him again, then trots
after Rain, but I stay behind. I know exactly what their
conversation will be. Rain'll say she doesn't see what I see in the
loser and Tom will insist Cris isn't a loser, that he's just
misunderstood. I don't have the heart for it.

Instead, I sit down on Cris's
front steps. He's pulled out his shiny new phone and dialed a
number from its memory. “Hey, there gorgeous.”

Something inside me gives up on
life.

I'd almost managed to convince
myself he'd ditched the other girl. Stupid, stupid me. My body
shakes as I stare at him. There aren't strong enough curses in the
world to convey how I'm feeling.

A Mustang pulls into the
driveway and Cris turns the phone off, stuffing it into his pocket
as he saunters over to the car. The girl who rises from the red
sports car is tall, leggy. She wears an emerald and blue plaid
miniskirt and a pale green sweater set.

I could vomit. He's having an
affair with someone wearing a sweater set.

The other me hasn't been gone
more than five minutes and already he has his tongue down someone
else's throat, his hand up someone else's skirt. Someone who wears
sweater sets.

I don't have the willpower to
bother bursting windows or breaking cell phones. I don't throw
rocks at them. I don't punch him. I just leave, feeling sick and
somehow dirty, as if I were the one cheating.

Not cheating, I remind myself.
We were never dating.

Semantics.

“Drew?”

My name drifts through the cloud
of despair and I look up. Finn's watching me, his eyes neither
brown nor green, but equal parts of both. The other girl was
wearing green.

Without a word, Finn grabs my
arm and leads me into his house. He tosses the mail he was outside
collecting onto a side table and sits me on the stairs. “Drew?”

I whimper.

“Drew, I am so sorry.”

I squint at him. “What?”

“I'm sorry.” And he does look
apologetic. And miserable. And a lot like a person who hasn't been
sleeping very well lately, but has spent a lot of time figuratively
pulling his hair out. But what's he sorry about? “I can't tell you
how sorry. I should have told you earlier. And not like that. That
wasn't the way to tell you.”

It takes me a few seconds to
decipher what he's going on about.

Mad laughter fills the room. It
seems to be coming from me.

“That was at least three
heartbreaks ago, Finn.”

His eyes narrow in concern.
“What do you mean?” The words are gentle, kind. He watches me
closely, eyes narrowed and lips parted in curiosity, but he doesn't
rush me.

I shake my head. The tears in my
eyes aren't falling. There's too much pain for me to cry. “I didn't
believe you anyway,” I say, choosing not to elaborate on the rest.
“Or, the other me didn't. After I heard what he said to you, I
didn't have much choice.”

“Still...” Finn sits beside me
on the stairs, not in danger of touching me, yet closer than he's
usually been willing to get before. “If I'd told you as soon as I
knew, at least I would have tried.”

I smile very weakly. “For all
the good it would have done.”

The wood beneath us creaks as
Finn shifts his weight. “But that's not what you're upset
about?”

“No.” I stare down at the thin
line of carpet running up the middle of the stairs. It's pink.
“Truthfully... If he'd offered it to me, I'd have taken it.”

Now Finn's the one staring at
the carpet.

“I was just scared,” I go on.
“Not really unwilling. So...”

Finn moves his stare from the
carpet to me and I struggle not to cower in fear from it. “I can't
believe you're defending him.”

My insides churn. “I'm not. It's
just his crime... It wasn't rape. It was something less
horrible.”

He moves his eyes away from me.
“Whatever.”

The pain inside me stabs and
rips.

“Would it make you feel better
if I told you what he's doing now?” I ask.

“Why?” Finn tilts his gaze
toward me. The dangerous glint is still in his eyes, which are
solid brown.

Taking a breath, I try to tell
him. But I can't. The words just won't come. So, instead I whimper
and breathe as though I'm crying, even though there are no
tears.

Finn's hands have knotted into
fists. Something pulses in his throat. When he speaks, the words
are gritted out from clenched teeth. “What is he doing?”

“More of a who,” I whisper, my
heart continuing to fall into little pieces. “She was wearing a
sweater set.”

His anger switches to sympathy
like someone flipped a switch. And then he does something that
confuses me so much I stop feeling hurt while I try to figure out
what's happening. His arms are around me. His hand strokes my hair.
He's making wordless, soothing noises. Cooper Finnegan is
comforting me.

My heart shatters and my tears
finally come, releasing themselves in huge waves as I sob against
Finn's shoulder and he holds me tight. An eternity later, when I
finally stop, he gives me a soft smile.

“I'm sorry,” I say, feeling like
a fool for the thousandth time today. My hand wipes at my face,
trying to dry my cheeks.

Finn runs a gentle finger along
the side of my nose, removing a line of moisture I'd missed. “It's
alright. It's one thing to be a cheating bastard, but cheating with
a girl who'd wear sweater sets...”

I laugh, my chest opening up a
little. “Exactly. I mean, if she'd been cooler than me... Had
purple hair and lots of tattoos, that would have been one thing.
But...” I shake my head with a rueful near-smile. Cooper Finnegan
understands. What were the odds?

“Come on.” Standing, he holds a
hand out to help me up. “I was about to let the ferrets out. They
liked you.”

He doesn't say anything about
how I stormed off last time I saw the ferrets. It's something I'd
just as soon not mention either.

“They're cute,” I offer. It was
just plain creepy the way they could see me and everything, but
Finn's way too fond of them for me to say anything like that while
he's being so unbelievably nice to me.

Why is he being so nice? He
doesn't let go of my hand as we walk up the stairs, merely shifts
his grip to make walking easier. The world seems so surreal right
now that I'm glad he doesn't. If he let go of me, maybe I'd float
away in a Lucy in the Sky sequence.

Entering his room, he turns on
the lights. The stereo comes on too this time, playing Social
Distortion.

“Your friends allow you to
listen to Social D?” I tease. Blending rockabilly with punk isn't
something folks do in Pine Ridge. It's probably the work of the
devil.

Finn drops my hand, but he's
smiling as he shakes his head and goes to the ferret house. He
chatters at Juliet but sings along with the music rather than
quoting the bard at her. Folding his legs, he sits in front of the
cage and Juliet scrambles up to his shoulder. She looks at me with
an emotion I can't interpret. If she were human I'd call it
jealousy.

Her brother eases his way out
and crawls onto Finn's leg, then looks down at the ground
nervously, perhaps wondering if a fall of a few inches could kill
him. Finn pets him with a light, gentle stroke, much like the one
he used on me earlier. “Yes, Drew is back,” he tells the critters.
“Try not to scare her off this time, huh?”

He smiles at the reference to
last time I was here, which I guess he does remember. There must be
something wrong with me, because I don't assure him it wasn't the
ferrets that made me run away.

The surreal feeling stays with
the evening as we play with the ferrets. They really are cute now
I've gotten used to the idea of weasel mediums. “So, do you have
them because they can see dead people or can they see dead people
because you have them?”

“No idea.” Finn shrugs, then
grins, the greens in his eyes flaring. “They scare the hell out of
my grandfather though.”

Dangling a ball on a string in
front of Juliet, I watch Finn from the corner of my eye. “I met his
girlfriend today.”

“Glory?” There's a hint of
nervousness in his voice. My teeth grind together.

“Yes, Glory.” I reach out to
tickle Juliet as she wraps her paws around the fuzzy ball. “What
does she think of your little ghost-viewing fuzzies?”

He laughs. “I took Juliet into
the store once. Glory saw her, shrieked, and ran away. Wouldn't
talk to me for over a month.”

I drag the ball along the
ground, making Juliet chase it. “She usually talks to you a lot?” I
try to sound like I don't care about the answer but I'm not sure I
manage it.

“She's fundamentally my
step-grandmother.” The corners of his mouth tug upwards, like he
wants to smile at my question, but doesn't want me to know about
it.

“She has dirt on you, doesn't
she?” I chuckle wickedly as he visibly flounders for a response.
“Good dirt, huh?”

“Let's watch a movie.”

I howl with laughter. “Nice use
of subtly to change the subject, Cooper Finnegan.”

“Thank you, Drew McKinney.” He
grabs a huge book from the shelf over his computer desk and flips
through it. He grins back at me as he slides something from it.

“What're we watching?” I ask,
but he puts me off with a shake of his head, moving to keep his
body between me and the disc.

It's not until
we're sitting on the futon couch under his loft bed and he presses
play that I get to see what it is. Laughing, I smack him. Hard.
Then I pull my legs up in front of me, hug them close, and watch
the 1980-something classic
Ghostbusters
.

Chapter Fifteen

Finn switches off the TV and
stands in front of it, looking at me as I lay propped half-asleep
against the arm of his sofa. I guess this would be the point where
I'm supposed to leave.

There's a strange numbness at
the thought. Earlier in the week, the prospect of wandering
exhausted in the middle of the night would have made me cry but it
would appear I've finally moved away from that. Should I be worried
about the apathy?

“Would you want to stay
here?”

He doesn't ask where I've been
staying or if I have anywhere to go. Tactful. That's why he's so
much more popular than I am. It's not just that most of the school
thinks I'm evil because I showed up in town clad in black and
wearing an ankh around my neck. They all like him better than me
because he knows how to say things without offending everyone in
earshot. Assuming the everyone he isn't offending doesn't consist
entirely of me...