One Day More (4 page)

With every ounce of strength I can muster, I bring my face to the surface one last time, but the effort is all my arms have left to give and when the current drags me under again, my fingers let go of the rubbery surface.

Then I'm under the waves, immersed in both the noise and silence of the ocean world. I force my eyes open against the salt water's sting, but there's no sunlight to guide me to the surface.

I can't find it. My head is spinning, and even if my legs had the energy to kick, I wouldn't know which way to go. I flail weakly as my whole body begs for air, but I don't know where to find any. Even underwater I feel the heat of my tears.

No!

I won't give up. I can't. And I
don't
. I fight every second, every moment, for the life I didn't know I wanted.

But it's too late.

My lungs spasm and I open my mouth to breathe, and seawater rushes in. My nose burns; my chest is a ball of fire that expands until every corner of my existence is agony. I can't bear it another moment, and blackness mercifully envelops me until there is nothing.

Until I
am
nothing.

No one will miss me.

No one ever does.

I jerk upright, gasping for breath, and my hands fly to my chest. Where that terrible pain still radiates.

No. The pain is gone.

I suck in breath after breath of air as sweet as the finest chocolate. For a few moments I just
breathe
.

I'm alive.

Aren't I?

My vision seems to fade in slowly as I look down and take stock of myself. I'm in my Whitestone uniform, my favorite black platforms. My hands fly to my hair and I can just see the blond ends hanging by my shoulder.

They're dry.

My hearing comes next. People. I hear people. Voices. I turn my head and see kids all around me. Whitestone students I've known my whole life. I clear my throat and mutter, “Hello, hello?” under my breath until I'm certain I can, in fact, speak.

That the terrible, stinging ache in my throat is gone.

I blink and slowly realize it's daytime—sunlight is streaming in from the row of square windows above the lockers. I'm at
school
. I'm sitting on the ground at Whitestone. In the middle of the main hallway. I must have slipped, hit my head. Blacked out for a few seconds. I laugh nervously as understanding dawns on me.

It was a dream.

The most awful, realistic dream
ever
. I may never be able to go swimming again.

I curl my feet under me and push up off the floor. I expect my muscles to be sore, but they're not.
A dream
, I tell myself again, almost giddy with relief
. Just a dream
. I know the other kids have got to be staring—I must have pulled the stupidest klutz move ever when I fell—but for once, I don't care. Couldn't care less, actually. I put my chin in the air and can't stop a little smile from curling my mouth into a
U
.
Stare away, jerks. I'm alive!

I need to find Langdon. Practice or no practice, he's coming out with me now. I don't want to go drinking, though. I want a freaking milkshake or something. To act like a little kid and make myself sick on sugar. That sounds good.

I don't even care that it's Thursday. Because tomorrow it will be
Friday
, not the end of my existence.

Worst. Dream. Ever.

Even though I'm not actually sore, I'm a little shaky as I set off down the hall. Like everything is different now. It's as though I had an actual near-death experience and my whole—I don't know—outlook on life is different now. I feel new. To be honest, it's a little creepy, like something you might see in a cheesy feel-good movie.

I glance over my shoulder at the kids just milling around, not looking, not pointing. Which I guess is good. But why didn't anyone help me up? Take me to the nurse or something? Self-centered brats. What else can I expect from a bunch of private-school Special Snowflakes? If I'm honest with myself, I probably wouldn't have helped someone if I saw them biff it in the middle of the hall, either.

I peer around. What time is it? What class period is it? Is it still Thursday? It must be, but I'm not sure where my memories of today turn into the stupid blackout dream. Going home was obviously part of the dream. The mall, too, I guess. Maybe that means I don't have to go to the mall today. Don't have to steal anything. I can do something else. Like Scrooge after his visions of the future or whatever in
A Christmas Carol
, I can make new choices now.

Just as soon as I figure out what time of day it is. Is school over, or should I be hurrying to class? I need to duck into a classroom and find a clock. I reach for the doorknob on the first classroom I come to.

And miss.

I giggle. I must be seriously whacked from that dream. I reach again.

And miss again.

Am I drunk? I don't feel drunk.

I stand carefully balanced on both feet and glare at the doorknob. I reach out slowly this time.

And miss again.

No. I'm not missing.

I curl my fingers around the doorknob, not quite touching it, and after a deep breath, close my fist.

And jump back with a yelp.

My hand went
through
the doorknob.

That makes
no sense
. I grab for the knob over and over again, but my hand keeps passing right through it. Angry tears are building up in my eyes, and in a burst of frustration I slam my fist into the door.

And stagger right through.

I gasp and spin back to the door I just
walked through
. I hear voices behind me and whirl around to find several seniors gathered in Mrs. Campbell's room, laughing at something I didn't hear. Their voices echo like they're far away as I swirl in a vortex of panic and confusion.

“Excuse me?” I say tentatively when I find my voice again.

They don't move. “Excuse me!” I say louder, just shy of a shout.

They still don't turn. Not even Mrs. Campbell. Mrs. Campbell has always liked me, always listened to me. What's wrong with her?

“Hey!” I scream, abandoning all decorum. “Hey!”

Not even a twitch.

I storm forward, not paying attention to my feet until I realize I'm walking
through
desks. “No, no, this isn't funny!” I'm shouting again. “This is impossible!” Is it possible I'm
still
dreaming? There's no way . . . right?

When no one responds I turn and run. I pause at the door but decide a good smack in the head might be just what I need to set me to rights again, so I don't even try to open it.

I burst right through it. I pivot and stare at the door, willing all of this to stop happening. The hallways are even more crowded now and it takes me several spins before I'm completely certain that people are
walking through me
. Their shoulders mist through my arms, and backpacks that should hit my face pass through me with no resistance.

I feel a sob building in my throat as I spread my hands wide and start shouting, “Please, someone, I need help. Can you hear me? Please!”

And then I see her.

Sera.

She hates me. I hate her. She'll see me. We could never leave each other alone—whatever's happening can't change that. She won't be able to bear to walk through me. I narrow my eyes and set myself in her path, arms folded over my chest. She's pretending to ignore me, but it won't last. She'll step around me—I know it. I grit my teeth as she gets closer, closer, and I kind of hate that the new supershort haircut I forced her to get actually ended up looking cute on her.

Bitch.

I hold my ground until she's only inches away. She's talking to some other cheerleader and not looking at me. Then, when she's only inches away, she smiles at something Cheerleader B says and turns her face forward.

To me.

At
me.

But her eyes don't focus on my face; she's looking
through
me. And by the time I realize that, it's too late to move. She walks straight into my chest and passes right through me. Her hair
almost
tickles my nose as I suck in a breath and brace myself for . . . something. A feeling, a pressure.

But there's nothing.

I close my eyes—I can't bear to watch—and after counting to five, I turn and open them.

And there she is. Walking away like nothing happened.

Nothing but me. And somehow, I'm nothing.

Nothing.

I'm . . .

I'm . . .

“I'm dead,” I whisper. “I'm a ghost.”

I hate this school
.

No, that's not exactly true. I hate that this school is my life. My unlife. The echo of the life that I once had. But being here, seeing people who knew me, well, it's the only place where I feel even somewhat alive. And so I'm still here. Every day.

It's been more than a year since I first woke up on the hallway floor.

I blink and rub my eyes even though, technically, they don't feel dry or tired. They don't
feel
anything. But it's something I did when I was alive, and I can't seem to stop doing it.

It's been a long night. Yesterday a new girl named Kati—a freshman who never knew me—put this cute little cat hair clip in her locker before she left school.

I want that hair clip.

I tried to think rationally. I can't use a hair clip, even if I
could
steal it.

Besides, chances are, that's what got me into this whole ghostly mess in the first place.

It was already after last bell and all the normal kids had gone home. Then all the extracurricular kids, who apparently have nothing better to do than hang around school and sweat or act or sing, went home. Then the teachers. Then—long after everyone else—the janitors. It's a schedule I know well, one I've watched for months and months.

And the whole time, I just stood there in front of Kati's locker, wishing I could take that hair clip. Lockers aren't easy to break into, but you can do it.
I
can do it. Or, at least, I could.

In my other life. My real life.

Now I can't touch anything. And so I just stood there, all night. I guess that's the beauty of being a ghost. I don't have a real body—no muscles to get tired, no spine to spasm, no feet to ache. My new life. My life after theft.

I shouldn't have let myself stand there all night. I should have gone somewhere else, tried to distract myself. I could have gone to the mall, followed Langdon home, gone to one of Khail's wrestling matches just . . . because. I know dozens of little survival mechanisms to keep myself from going crazy.

Crazi
er
.

Because for that first month, I honestly thought I was going to go insane. Like bat-shit crazy insane. I've developed some coping techniques that keep the crazy at bay. They don't do much else, but it's just barely enough to keep my life from being an actual hell.

But I wasn't in the mood to
survive
last night. I was in the mood to yell and scream and ache and wallow in the pathetic misery that is me.

And I definitely did some of that.

But I didn't leave. So now, when the early-morning orchestra members start to arrive at school, right on the janitor's heels, I'm still standing here, in front of this locker, wishing I were alive. Not just to open the locker and steal the pathetic hair clip, but to breathe, to talk and have someone hear me, to touch something. Anything.

It's superearly and I don't know if Kati is in orchestra, but just in case, I force myself to slink away. The last thing I need this morning is to watch her open her locker so I can see the hair clip again. That will just start me obsessing all over and I certainly don't need a repeat of last night's hell.

I put my head down and start the long loop through the school that I sometimes walk fifty times in one day. Just for something to do. Along the first-floor hallway, up the stairs, down the second-floor hallway, loop around to the gymnasium balcony, back down to the ground floor. Familiar. Almost hypnotizing in its sameness.

I reach my tongue back behind my teeth and pull out a pink piece of gum and start chewing. Apparently God . . . or whoever . . . decided I should have
one
thing to amuse me.

I'm not impressed.

But I'm pretty damn good at bubbles.

Up stairs. Down stairs. Through the long hallways. I walk very, very slowly, so the whole loop takes me almost an hour. When I finally come back to the main hall it's about ten minutes before the bell and the halls are getting crowded. Which is annoying. I actually don't like walking through people. It creeps me out and sometimes it creeps them out, too. It makes them look back. Sometimes they shiver. That sort of thing.

When I noticed
that
, I got excited and thought I was getting closer to being seen, or heard, or something. But they never see me.

So once the halls get crowded I just close my eyes and lie down for a while. Because despite the fact that other people can sometimes feel me, I can't feel them. I don't know why I always lie down right there in the middle of the hall, exactly. Habit, I guess? Maybe because I woke up there.

I plop down onto the light-brown tiles and lie flat, with my ankles crossed and the uniform of my skirt falling neatly onto my legs. Not that modesty counts for much; it wouldn't matter if I went around flashing the whole school. A tired sigh escapes me, as though I were actually weary from standing all night.

I'm not; it's all in my head. I
can't
sleep. I wish I could. Sleeping away half of my pointless existence would be heaven!

Well, figuratively.

I don't know. Maybe you
can
sleep in heaven. I've never been there. But I know for a fact that you can't sleep here in hell.

My eyes flutter closed and I start blowing bubbles. It's actually kind of relaxing. Cathartic. It might simply be because this gum doesn't stick to me. Just blow, pop, blow, pop.