Chapter 19
The next morning, I snooze my alarm more times than I can afford, but I can’t talk myself into getting out of bed.
Yesterday, I jumped out of bed feeling like things were finally getting better, but each day seems to bring some fresh hell.
Why should today be any different? But staying in bed all day would invite more trouble.
I don’t think my mom would buy another random, nonspecific illness that causes me to be bedridden.
I have to at least pretend I’m still on track, rather than completely off the rails and requiring additional scrutiny.
I drag myself to the bathroom, brush my teeth and hair, and decide that what I wore as pajamas last night (sweatpants and a long-sleeve V-neck) is low-wrinkle enough to keep on as clothes for the day.
The house is silent. I check the clock. I’ve missed the bus.
My dad has already caught his ride to work; my brother is off to school with the neighbor kid.
Normally, I would wake my mom up now to drive me.
Sometimes, I even miss the bus on purpose because when she takes me we almost always stop at Burger King to get a Croissan’wich and hash browns.
But today, I’d prefer to walk. I put on the eighty-six layers required to be outside for more than five minutes at this time of year.
It’s just starting to crystallize that since Mason was taller than me, faster than me, and head and shoulders above me in Ping-Pong ability, he might have been keeping it close intentionally, when Mason falls into step next to me.
“You’re a bad girl,” he says in the way that makes bad sound very, very good. “Naughty.”
“So are you just stalking me twenty-four seven or is God sending you, like, mobile alerts on everything that’s happening to me when you’re not around?” I say this as if I’m teasing him, but I’m really curious.
“Maybe both,” he says without missing a beat. He starts to whistle, seeming to rub it in that any further information he might have about the existence of God is on a need-to-know basis and I definitely don’t. I decide to press. He didn’t show up on this sidewalk to not talk to me, after all.
“I may be naughty, but you could still do a friend a solid. I mean, I would think there’d be a few perks to knowing someone from the afterlife, like maybe I could get a heads-up on trouble barreling my way. No? No warnings? Nothing?”
“No, not nothing. I told you about human aspartame. You didn’t exactly sprint away from him after that.”
“Well, I did ski away from him, eventually.”
“Eventually. Which brings me to my next point. Did you already forget about who got you down that mountain? Guess your afterlife connection isn’t as withholding as you say.”
He’s trying to be provoking, but he’s just too darn cute about it for me to be annoyed.
More than that, he’s right. After that night in the snow it’s physically impossible for me to feel irritated with him.
I’m glad he’s back, even if his conversation can make me feel like I’m spinning around in circles.
I attempt to rise to the level of his banter.
“I got me down the mountain. You were just some sort of ethereal cheerleader. You might as well have been shaking pom-poms in a pleated skirt.”
“I do have the legs for it,” he says, considering his own legs. “And it won’t work.”
“What won’t work?”
“You know. That thing you do.”
“What thing I do?”
“Make like it’s you against the world. Put people in your life on the opposite side of a wall.” He goes from whistling to humming. He’s so proud of himself. Thinks he knows me inside and out.
“As usual, you are making zero sense. Me? Me put people on the other side? Dude, that’s you.
” I hike my backpack up on my shoulder as I pause at an intersection for a passing car, making eye contact with the driver.
Nothing to see here, just two kids headed to school.
One of them may or may not be dead. You probably can’t see him anyway, so forget I said anything.
“Guilty as charged.”
“That’s it?” I step off the curb and cross the street.
The crisp air and brisk walk, and, let’s be honest, conversing with a ghost, have filled me with energy.
I want to tussle with him, to push all his buttons and have him push mine, or I might have to start running to release this extra agitation.
“No, no, you don’t get off that easy. I know you’re thinking shit about me at a million bytes per second. Give me your full analysis.”
Mason kicks pebbles ahead of us, his hands in his pockets. “Did you know that I was scheduled for surgery next month? Guess it’s canceled now. The surgeon probably gets a free day to golf.”
The 180-degree in tone of this admission takes me so off guard that I stop walking. I look at him sharply. “You were?”
“They were going to take out a piece of my brain,” he says, then adds with a slightly Austrian accent, “They ver going to experiment on zee mind!”
“Oh, damn. To stop the seizures?”
Mason snorted. “I mean, that’s what they said, but who knows?
Every time they switched a medication, or added a medication, that’s what they said.
And every time, I felt like I was losing options but keeping the seizures.
My mom would say things like, ‘So you can’t go on roller coasters.
So what? Lots of people don’t like roller coasters.
’ Which is true. But I like roller coasters.
I never got to choose. I had no control.
I was always trying to forget it, but my life became more about seizures than anything else.
And after surgery? They said this wouldn’t happen, but what if the seizures were at the center of who I was?
What if I woke up an entirely different person? ”
This is the most I have heard Mason say about himself at one time in my entire life.
I realize I’m holding my breath for fear that any sound from me will interrupt his train of thought.
As much as I loved how funny he was the entire time I knew him, I always craved that he would be serious like this with me. It feels closer.
Unexpectedly, he laughs. “I mean, that was my take until I croaked. Now I know better. Now I know what zero control really looks like. Exhibit A.” He gestures to himself while turning slowly, like he’s the grand prize on a game show.
“But couldn’t you have told your parents? If you didn’t want the surgery? They wouldn’t have made you go through with it, would they?”
“I mean, if I didn’t give a shit about them, then yeah, sure, I could have told them.
But my parents, my mom especially, needed to do something.
They didn’t want to feel powerless, either.
Doesn’t matter now, right?” He paused, then said, “I don’t know if she’s free from all that with me gone or if she feels more helpless than ever. ”
“Oh, Mason.” I wince. I’ve spent our conversations thinking far more about how his death has affected me, and far less about how it’s affecting him.
“Forget it,” he says, his voice harder now. “I’m just envious of you, is all.”
“Envious of me?” Crazy talk.
“Yeah, you. You think you don’t, but you’ve got power. A lot. You just ignore it most of the time.”
“Power to fuck up, you mean? I’m fully aware.”
“Hey, don’t knock fucking up. Fucking up is everything. It’s exciting.” He regains his swagger. “Especially when you do it, Murph. Your fucking up is epic, it’s multilayered, it’s breathtaking. Speaking of which, let’s talk more about how I saved your freezing ass.”
It’s times like these when I wish Mason’s arm wasn’t just mist and shadow, so I could give it a good shove. Or a really long hug.