“Morning,” I said, flipping on the light. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“Not ready to face the day yet, I guess.” He shrugged as he rubbed his face with his free hand.
“Oh.” I frowned in understanding. There had been many mornings since mom’s accident when I’d woken up and felt the same way.
“What are you doing up so early?” he asked in a lighter tone and then took another sip of his coffee.
I went to the cabinet and pulled out a Pop Tart before answering. “I had a really strange dream, but the more I think about it, the less I remember. It’s like it’s all hazy or something in my mind.” I scrunched my nose in annoyance as I opened my breakfast.
“You look just like your mother when you do that.”
A small smile twisted the corners of my lips at his words. I was glad that I looked like her. She’d been beautiful, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel saddened because I knew I was merely a walking reminder of what—of who—our family had lost, especially to my dad. Awkwardness built in the room. It was hard to talk about her, hard to remember her, because her absence from our lives still hurt too much. My gaze shifted from my Pop Tart to my dad. I looked at him, really looked at him, and was able to see clearly how much that was true.
Bags that never used to be there before had grown beneath his eyes. His cheeks were unshaven, and his shoulders seemed to slump forward more than they ever had before when he was tired. The gray T-shirt he wore was rumpled—his entire appearance unkempt. He was still grieving and so was I.
Dad sighed loudly and sat his coffee down on the counter. “I’d better go take a shower.”
I picked at the crumbling edge of my Pop Tart absently as he left the room. It had only been a few months since my mother’s car accident. However, it was long enough for my peers and teachers at school to stop watching my every move as they anticipated a breakdown. It was long enough for them to stop staring at me with sympathy in their eyes every time I walked past. And, it was long enough for what happened to me to fade into the recesses of their minds and nearly be forgotten. It was long enough for my best friend to feel that my grief period should have ended a while ago and long enough for me to realize that it more than likely never would—not for me and not for my dad.
I tossed my Pop Tart in the garbage, suddenly craving nothing besides the greasy goodness of a McDonald’s hash brown and an iced coffee. Scooping up my keys and books off the counter, I headed out the door.
After driving painstakingly slow to school, cautiously avoiding icy patches of road, I parked my car in the nearest spot I could find and loaded my arms up with books. I’d nearly reached the main entrance when I heard Kami call my name from behind. I paused and waited for her to catch up.
“Hey, so it’s Friday… Do you wanna do something tonight?” she asked, her voice oozing bubbly enthusiasm. “Come on, we are
so
overdue for a girls’ night. Please say yes!”
I shifted my books in my arms. “I don’t know.”
“Come on…one night,” she continued, her bottom lip poking out slightly.
I smiled at her attempt at pouting; she always reminded me of a big-lipped fish when she did that. A girls’ night did sound like fun, though, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had any fun. “Okay. What do you wanna do?”
Kami stiff-armed me to a standstill. “Oh my God,” she said, her face twisting into one of complete shock. “Seriously? You’re finally ready to have some fun again?”
“Yeah.” I nodded and forced my lips into a small smile as I tried not to grimace from her comment while reminding myself that Kami didn’t mean to sound so insensitive, she was just shocked.
“It’s about time!” She grinned widely.
Something shifted inside of me and my heart began to pound rapidly in my chest.
Time.
If I felt like I was ready to finally have some fun, did that mean the pain and grief from my mother’s loss was dissipating some? If so, then feeling like it was okay she was gone was right around the corner.
I couldn’t let that happen. I would
never
allow myself to think it was okay for her to be gone.
“We could go to the movies or we could go bowling… What do you feel like doing?” Kami asked, unaware of my frantic thoughts.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged, wondering how I could get out of this now without hurting her feelings as we continued down the crowded hall toward my locker.
A claustrophobic feeling permeated my anxiety-ridden thoughts. Suddenly, the hall was too narrow and filled with too many people. Kami was talking too loudly, while others’ laughter and conversations buzzed through my mind. My skin grew damp with sweat, my legs growing more wobbly beneath me with every step. A girl with dark hair bumped into me roughly as she walked with her head bent, texting while trying to avoid the teachers’ view.
“Watch it!” Kami yelled at the girl from beside me. “Stupid Goth, I can’t stand that girl. She’s so weird.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to, because Kami started right back in with whatever plan she was forming for the night. “We could go someplace to eat, and then rent a movie and head back to my house...” she suggested, still ticking things off her fingers, oblivious to my inner turmoil.
I touched the cold metal of my locker and spun in my combination from habit while my insides continued to twist with anxiety as I listened to Kami keep brainstorming for ideas. I knew that my mother would want me to have fun, that she wouldn’t want me to always live beneath this gray cloud that had appeared above my head since I’d found out about her accident. The thing that I didn’t know was when it would be okay to move past the gray cloud and back into the sunshine again. I hadn’t been given a guidebook on how I should feel and for how long when my mother died.
A faint trace of her jasmine perfume tickled my nose like earlier this morning, and a cold chill swept through me as though an icy breeze had found its way down the hall. Something white landed on my shoes—a piece of paper. I bent to pick it up and read the writing typed in bold black letters:
“Life is short. This is why we must embrace every moment for what it is and live.”
—
Anonymous
“What’s that?” Kami asked, glancing over my shoulder. She rolled her eyes. “Oh, it’s another one of those inspirational quotes the teachers decided to post all over the freaking walls to ward off teen suicide or whatever.”
I held onto it for a moment, rereading it again and again. I didn’t know why—I didn’t even know if I believed in that sort of thing—but I had the eerie feeling that I was supposed to see this, that it was a message from my mom.
I folded the paper in half and tucked it into my notebook with a smile. Maybe this was my answer, the okay that I needed to understand it was all right to live and be happy without her. After a few deep breaths, my anxiety washed away just as quickly as it had come on.
“Let’s go bowling,” I said as I closed my locker door.
Kami locked her arm through mine. “I hate the shoes, but I love the game.”
We wove our way through a group of perfume-bathed freshman girls and headed to homeroom. I sat at my designated desk, all the way in the back and directly beside Kami, feeling a hundred times lighter. Something had shifted inside of me again, but this time it was for the best. It was as if a peaceful, calming bliss had settled within me all of a sudden.
“Did I tell you Reggie Warren texted me last night?” Kami asked, her pupils dilating at the mention of his name. He must be her latest crush. I tried to picture him, but failed. I’d have to have her point him out to me at some point today.
“No. He did?” I asked, feigning more interest than what I actually felt at the moment. Her expression lit up and made my attempt worth it.
I propped my head against the palm of my hand and listened to her talk about it, happy for this little taste of normalcy that I had been granted, realizing this was the beginning of my healing. This was when life began again.
If it works, do you think I’ll remember you after?
The words fluttered through my mind, said in a soft whisper. It was my voice. A remembered sentence from my dream?
Probably, I’m sort of a hard one to forget.
The boy with the glittering sapphire eyes said in a cocky tone against my ear. I struggled to remember what was said next, but it was as if my mind were frozen, unable to move forward in the dream even the tiniest bit.
“Rowan—hello, are you in there?” Kami called, waving her hand in front of my face like a lunatic. “Mr. Moore has called your name like twice now,” she whispered, looking all embarrassed to be my friend at the moment.
I sat up straighter. “Oh…here,” I said, glancing at an irritated Mr. Moore standing at the front of the room. My checks flamed from all the attention I was getting from my peers.
“Are you feeling okay?” Kami asked in a hushed whisper, her eyebrows drawing together in concern.
“Yeah.” It wasn’t a lie. I was feeling fine, but only because of the little pieces from my dream I was beginning to remember. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”
Who the heck was this dark-haired boy, and why was I so obsessed with remembering him? Why did he make me feel so…happy?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My morning progressed in a normal fashion with only a handful more of the vivid clips from my dream resurfacing. They came just enough to become the only thing I could think about as my teachers droned on about things I hadn’t focused on in months. By the time lunch came, I was completely engrossed in piecing the clips together to find out what exactly the dream had been about and who the dark-haired boy that starred in it had been.
“Oh my God, have you seen the new guy?” Kami squealed as she sat down beside me.
I shook my head and bit into my apple. “Not yet, no.”
“He is
so freaking hot!
I can’t believe you haven’t seen him yet. He’s in my second period and he sits two desks away from me!” she informed me in a voice I imagined she’d use to tell me she won the lottery. “You are going to flip when you see him.”
“I’m sure I will.” I smiled, doubtful, and took another bite of my apple. I’d never been as boy crazy as Kami, but I had missed this normalcy.
Lunch ended too soon, forcing me to leave the glowing sunshine of Kami’s aura once more and head to third period. The tardy bell rang just as I plopped down in my seat. I shift my eyes to the front of the room, ready for Mr. Sandberg to begin his nasally sounding roll call. That was when I noticed him—a dark-haired boy with a creamy complexion. He’d slipped into the room just after the bell. He stood beside Mr. Sandberg with his hands shoved deeply into his front pockets and his head lowered.
This must be the new guy. As much as I hated to admit it, Kami had been right—he was gorgeous.
He glanced up almost as though he could feel my eyes on him and met my stare. The hint of a smile twisted a corner of his lips, and I felt my heart flutter against my chest at the sight of it.
Dark hair. Sapphire eyes.
The words burned through layers of my memory, through each clip of the dream I’d remembered from last night…until coming to rest on one memory in particular. The memory seemed so real, but couldn’t be because it had never happened. It was something that surely was part of my dream. It had to be.
A complete stranger, who couldn’t have been much older than myself, stood beside a paramedic who knelt at the head of someone lying on the road. The expression on the stranger’s face was one of utter calmness as he gazed down at the mangled, bloody face of the guy on the ground. No one seemed to notice him, this stranger, but me, and the more I stared at him, the more I noticed how incredibly out of place he seemed.
He was dressed in black and I stared, captivated by him, as he bent down in one fluid motion. I watched as he extended his arm and touched his middle finger to the dying guy’s forehead. Something happened and in the next instant, I witnessed the dying guy’s soul step out of his body to stand beside the dark-haired boy.
This boy standing beside Mr. Sandberg was the dark-haired boy from my strange memory—he was the boy from my dream. I knew him, I didn’t know how, but I knew my
soul
remembered him from someplace. The dizzying sensation of déjà vu flooded my senses.
“Class, this is Jet Mathews. I hope you all can make him feel welcome,” Mr. Sandberg said, talking through his nose as always.
Jet
—I knew that name. I remembered those eyes…that face. How I knew him was on the tip of my tongue. It was just beyond my reach in my mind. Right there.
I watched Jet closely as he sauntered from the front of the classroom to the back where I sat, captivated by everything about him as he made his way to the empty desk beside me. My eyes locked directly with his as he grew closer. My mind raced almost as fast as my heart. I couldn’t know him; he’d obviously just moved here.
I gripped the edge of my desk, confused by the cascade of emotions that poured through me from his presence. Jet’s eyes remained as fixated on me as mine were on him. The closer he got to me, the more I noticed how intense the shade of blue his eyes was. His mouth curved into a smile, I’m sure due to my weirdness in the moment, and I forced myself to look away. I was being creepy. I knew this, but I couldn’t help it.