Chapter Nine
Nine
The crash isn’t like in the movies.
The scenes are always the same. The parents in the front seats are fussing over a map or the navigation, and the kids are yelling or bickering in the back seat.
Someone turns, usually the driver, to shush them.
The audience sees what the driver doesn’t: a patch of ice or a deer leaping into the road.
Everything slows down. The sound cuts out. Glass hangs in the air and bodies lift gracefully off seats. And then it cuts to black.
When Harper and I crash, there is no warning. We aren’t even talking. She’s singing along to the old CD I found in this car when I got it off the used-car lot. I’m drumming my fingers on the wheel. It’s an entirely unmemorable moment.
Until it isn’t. Until we’re skidding, spinning, crashing through the road barrier.
It’s like every organ is trying to tear out of my body—the drop on a roller coaster times a thousand. I think Harper is screaming, or maybe I am. The stereo is still playing.
Then we hit the bottom of the ditch. It happens in a second, maybe two. So fast, it doesn’t even become reality until everything goes still again. There is no fade to black, no escaping even for a moment. I am awake through it all.
Upside down. I am upside down. Hanging from my seat belt.
Pain erupts throughout my body, every kind I can think of.
Sharp and stinging, hot and blazing, dull and throbbing.
Pain I didn’t even know existed. The kind you can taste.
The kind that burns away who you are, who you’ve been, and leaves nothing behind.
The road. The CD. The crunching metal. Impact. The images return to me slowly, but not like my own reality, like a movie I saw a long time ago. Not mine. It can’t be mine.
Beneath me is a sea of glass and dashboard. Blood, too. More blood than I’ve ever seen. It’s darker than I expected. Staining the snow.
We are both bleeding. But I’m the only one moving.
A loud, piercing shriek rings in my ears. It takes a long time to realize the person screaming is me.
And then the lines between memory and dream blur, and the perspective changes, like a camera panning to the side, to outside the car. I am no longer inside but flying above.
A girl stands amid the destruction, wearing a dark blue hospital gown, barefoot in the bloody snow. Her chin lifts, dark brown eyes finding mine. Her hair is a snarl of strawberry blond curls hanging halfway down her torso.
I have seen her before. Not on this stretch of road but somewhere else.
Find me, she says, her voice as thin as the cold wind. Then she lunges toward me with her hands outstretched, crying, and I’m hit with a wave of hot, fiery rage and sharp terror. It rushes over my skin, into every pore, threatening to swallow me whole. She is going to swallow me whole.
Find us.
I jerk upward, damp with sweat, my cheeks sticky with tears.
Only a dream. It’s only midnight, so I’ve been asleep less than two hours. Plenty of time for my subconscious to torture me, apparently.
I swing my legs over the end of the bed, sweeping the sweat off my skin and flicking the hair off my forehead.
It takes a few seconds to realize one of the shadows in the room doesn’t belong—it isn’t a shadow at all.
There is a boy standing in the center of my room. The same one I saw in the kitchen.
Not real. This is not real. I’m still dreaming. I pinch my thigh, but still the boy is there.
“I know you can see me.”
My heart skips a beat in its hurry to hammer.
I have seen this face before. Know those eyes, too. Every day at the Stacks, working at the counter or restocking in the back.
And every time I stop to stare at the corkboard full of posters.
The blurry curls from the photo are black, not brown. His nose is long and bumpy, like it’s been broken at least twice, but I’ve seen the thin pink—in his sister’s case, red—lips and high cheekbones every day in the bookstore.
He’s supposed to be gone. Missing for three years. Dead, though no one has said the word. And yet, he’s standing in my bedroom.
I push off the bed onto wobbly legs and fold my arms tight over my torso. My thoughts batter around my skull like a pinball in a machine, all impossible to catch.
“You’re not her,” I say—the wrong words. I’d meant to say you’re not real. But I didn’t.
You’re not her. Not Harper.
Finn. The name jumps into my messy thoughts. Finn Shipman.
A stitch forms between his brows. He doesn’t remark on my odd statement.
“You’re not real,” I say.
The boy, Finn, inclines his head. “If we’re being technical, no.”
I turn around. Count to ten in my head. Tell myself the room will be empty again when I turn back. It isn’t.
“Still here,” Finn says.
“No, you’re not,” I say, and chide myself for indulging this figment of my imagination. “You’re not real, and this isn’t happening.”
“Denial is only natural,” he says. “Let me know when you’re past it.”
I flip my bedside lamp on, like the light will chase him away. Again, it doesn’t.
I shake my head. “You’re Nora’s brother. You’re—” I clear my throat. “You’re dead.” It’s quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever said aloud, and if my mom could hear me right now, she’d surely stuff me in the car and take me to a doctor.
He winces. A hand rises to palm the back of his neck, and the fabric of his shirt draws up to reveal the smooth skin above his hip bone.
“You know my sister?” he asks. I don’t know the rules of engagement when it comes to conversing with the dead; maybe I’ve crossed a line by stating the obvious.
“I work with her.” Some semblance of composure works its way back into my system. “You’re dead.”
He scrutinizes me. “And you can see me.”
The absurdity of it slams back into place—and my chest—like a cinder block. I suck in a breath, shake my head, and turn, reaching for an old candelabra sitting on my dresser. I clutch it in one hand like a weapon.
“You’re in my head. I’ve finally gone off the deep end, and I’m seeing things, and you are not real.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Count to five.
When I open my eyes, the space in front of the door is empty. An exhale pushes out of me.
“You’ve got a sick view.”
My stomach leaps into my throat, and I spin, tightening my grip on the candelabra. Finn stands at the middle window, arms folded as he peeks through the slit in the curtain. He glances my way, and his lips turn up in a bemused smile that makes my heart skip a beat in its frantic race.
“Pretty sure that wouldn’t even work.” He jerks a chin at the candelabra. Gestures to himself. “I’m not super sturdy.”
Curiosity jabs at me, but more than that is a sudden and unwavering commitment to prove I’m not afraid. Who I’m proving it to is unclear. I drop the candelabra and take a hesitant step toward him, prepared to bolt for the door, and reach a hand up.
My fingers pass through his like his skin is made of smoke. His tan fingers blur and resolidify as I snatch my hand back.
“Oh my god.” My voice barely rises above a whisper, but it twists Finn’s mouth into a frown. His broad shoulders droop.
“Yeah,” he says. “I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted to—”
“I doubt that—”
“—which I don’t.” He clears his throat and rakes a hand through his hair; I was right about the habit. “I’m sorry, this is new territory for me. It’s kind of freaking me out—”
“You’re freaking out? You?”
He motions at me. “You can see me. That’s not normal. Why can you see me?”
Why can I see him now, when I’ve been living in this house for a month and, despite my aunt’s and sister’s jokes about paranormal activity, neither has mentioned the specter of a teenage boy?
But I can see him. His edges are slightly off, like an actor against a green screen, and when he shifts, he’s somewhat translucent.
“You’re the one changing the radio.”
Finn shrugs, leaning back onto the bed, propped up on his elbows. Already too comfortable.
I’m still hovering by the dresser, trying to figure out if I’m hallucinating or dreaming or being massively screwed with. I have a dozen questions, but no control over which ones pop out. I take a breath and climb onto the end of the bed, folding my legs beneath me.
“Are you a ghost?” Voicing the word is even more ridiculous than it was in my head.
He sniffs, and says, “If the shoe fits.”
I suck in a breath, heat flooding my cheeks.
He gives an amused smile. “I’m not going to explode if you talk about people kicking it. I’ve been here for three years. It’s okay.”
He scratches at his jaw and averts his gaze.
His discomfort fills the room like smoke.
He pushes off the bed and gestures to the black spinet piano beside the dresser and my guitars—an old sand-colored acoustic I’ve had since I was ten and a black electric Flying V that I saved for two years for—resting in the corner.
“You’re a musician?” He bounces on his heels, inspecting the instruments and gently passing a hand through the fretboard of the acoustic.
His eyes fall shut, lips parting, and he takes a small breath. The hard edges of his face are lined with a pain I know all too well. And as quickly as it came the look fades, and he opens his eyes to give me a sheepish smile.
“I’m not, like, stalking you or something like that. I heard you play once or twice.” He shakes his head.
A morbid curiosity has settled into my bones like a chill. I’m having a conversation with someone who shouldn’t be here. But if he’s here, maybe Harper is out there somewhere, too. And I can tell her I’m sorry. Sorry for surviving when she didn’t.
“You heard me play?”
He swallows and shuffles his feet. He’s wearing a faded and scuffed pair of white Vans. I wonder if he is stuck with the same stained pair of shoes and tattered black jeans forever.
The weirdness of all of this is so gigantic, there’s almost nothing to do but lean into it. Or at least lean into it until I have a moment alone to properly freak out.