The Catastrophic History of You And Me (24 page)

Somebody’s essence. A possession still connecting them to their old life.

I touched my collarbone.

My necklace
.

“But the bitch of it is,” she went on, “somebody’s gotta
give
you their soul for it to work. And if they
won’t
give it to you . . . then you have to take it.” She paused, and I could hear the shame in her voice. “You have to steal it.”

Steal it?

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I just wanted a second chance so badly. I just wanted to be somebody else.” Her eyes were begging for my forgiveness. “I wanted to be anyone but me.”

I just didn’t get it. How could such a gorgeous, smart,
fun
girl have felt so intensely alone for so long? Even worse, how had nobody even noticed?

My eyes filled with tears. “I wish I had known. I wish I could’ve been there for you. I wish there was something I could have done . . .”

“But you did. You did do something.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t.”

“I always wished,” she went on, “more than anything, that I had a sister. And after you found me in the city, I had one. I got my wish. Thank you for that.” She squeezed my hand and tried to smile. Then she reached up and touched my face, her hand barely there. “Will you do one more thing?
Please
?”

I nodded. “Anything.”

“Don’t forget me.” Her eyes glistened and I could see that she was scared. “It’s too easy to forget people here. Don’t forget me, Brie.”

“Shh,” I said. “Don’t talk like that. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be fine.”

But even as the words left my mouth I felt her beginning to fall away. I felt her hand relax, slipping out of mine and onto the sand. I watched her eyes flutter once, and finally, go still.

“Larkin?” my voice echoed out over the beach. “Larkin
?
” I shook her, but she didn’t move. I leaned down and wrapped her up in my arms, the tears spilling down. “Why? Why does everyone always have to leave?”

In that moment, I felt something begin to heat up against my neck. I looked down and noticed a soft, blue light.

My necklace was
glowing
.

Lightning flashed in the distance, and the wind began to pick up. The voices around me had gone silent, as if out of respect for the dead. I touched her face, and pressed my lips to her forehead.

“I won’t forget,” I told her. “I promise.”

Then I used my finger to scroll out her name in the sand.

Larkin Ramsey

Friend and sister

I picked a small black thistle from the rocks and laid it across her hands. Then I brushed the sand from my face and looked back and forth along the beach. There were so many shattered souls. What had happened to them all?

Love,
I realized
. Love happened.

Any one of them could have been Patrick. I had to find him, but how? I couldn’t possibly check each face. And even if I did manage it, I couldn’t bear to see him in as horrible a state as Larkin. I wasn’t sure what it would do to me, if I had to say good-bye in a place like this. I looked up to the sky and imagined her flying off in some other galaxy. Shining. Or maybe in that moment she’d be born again as somebody else. Somebody with a whole new life and a whole new beginning.

Since apparently that’s an option.

I watched the stars and wondered if she could see me now. I hoped she was happy, wherever she had gone. And I hoped she was free.

All of a sudden, something moved out of the corner of my eye. I turned and focused in on the west end of the island, where a massive cliff plunged straight into the ocean.

“Is it you?” I whispered. “Is it really you?”

You fall, I fall, remember?

There, standing at the edge of the world, his face lifted to the sky, was Patrick.

CHAPTER 43

we belong to the light, we belong to the thunder

I
was running. Running as fast as I could through the rain and the waves and a shoreline packed with the living dead. Everywhere I stepped, writhing bodies tried to grab at my legs, pulling me down to join them. I could feel myself suffocating in their open mouths, invisible arms, and a million forgotten dreams and memories.

And I knew that if I didn’t run fast enough, pretty soon it would be a million plus one.

I couldn’t get up enough speed to zoom straight to him, and the air was strange here—sort of heavy and stale, like maybe the same rules didn’t apply. So I ran into the forest, ducking through the coyote underbrush until I came to a road. The pavement was almost completely covered in leaves, and the trees on either side had grown together to form a canopy that blocked out the moon.

But a road’s better than nothing
.

I pushed myself to my limit, twisting and turning my way up the side of the island’s only mountain. Finally, I came to a clearing that opened out onto an empty overlook, the nighttime Pacific stretching out in a 365-degree panorama.

And there, standing right in front of me, a boy.

His back was completely bare and I couldn’t help grimacing when I saw how translucent he’d become—the rain literally soaking him to the bone. As if the light inside him had almost completely burned out. His words echoed through my mind.

Don’t you know I love you?

The answer was yes. Because I loved him too.

He didn’t see me at first, and I came up slowly from behind, not wanting to scare him.

“Patrick?”

But he couldn’t hear my voice. The storm had grown too loud. So I went to him instead. Reached out even as the wind and the rain began to rub my shoulders raw. And when my fingertips finally reached his arm, an unbelievable warmth shot through me.

I looked down, and saw that my hand had begun to glow the same pale shade of sparkly blue as my necklace, as if my veins were full of stardust. I felt Patrick’s body tense beneath my hand.

“It’s me,” I said. “I’m here.”

“Why?” His voice was hoarse. “I didn’t ask you to come.”

“Patrick, I—”

“You should go. You don’t belong here.”

“Wait,” I said. “You don’t understand.”

“I do.” He lowered his head. “It was stupid of me to wait for so long. I’ve held on for so many years,” he said. “It wasn’t worth it.”

“Don’t say that. Please.”

I felt his shoulders slump. “I knew someday you’d come through those doors,” he whispered. “And then you finally did. You finally walked back into my life after almost thirty years . . . and you didn’t know me. You didn’t know me at all.”

“How could I?” I pleaded. “Patrick, I wasn’t the same girl.”

He nodded. “That’s right. You’re not the same. I know that now.”

“That’s not what I meant. You’re not listening.”

“I was stupid to think I could ever get you back. To ever have things the way they used to be.” He paused for a moment, watching the horizon. “It’s my fault. I screwed everything up.”

“Don’t you get it?” I said. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did
everything
wrong. You didn’t want to go for a ride that day . . . You
were so scared. But I knew you’d love the feeling, if you’d only give it a chance. So I convinced you to go.” His voice cracked as he lowered his head. “It’s my fault you died. It’s my fault we could never be together.”

“The motorcycle,” I whispered. “The nightmare was real.”

I pressed my head against his back and wrapped my arms around his wavering soul.

“Can you ever forgive me?” he whispered.

I squeezed him as tight as I could. “You don’t need me to forgive you. You need to forgive
yourself
.”

A giant boom of thunder echoed overhead as I felt him begin to turn toward me. Felt his hand on my cheek. And when I opened my eyes, I couldn’t believe the sight.

Finally, I saw what he had been hiding for so long underneath that T-shirt and bomber jacket. I finally understood why he’d almost never taken it off in front of me. I could see now that the scar on his arm—as deep, and jagged, and horrible as it looked—was NOTHING

Not compared to the rest of him.

Patrick’s entire front torso was covered with gruesome stab wounds. Like he’d been run through again and again with a sharp knife—and it hadn’t been an accident.

“Oh, love,” I whispered. “What did you do to yourself?” Hot tears stung my eyes as I began to trace his scars with my fingertips, leaning in to kiss them softly, one by one.

“Sui Caedere,”
he said. “I couldn’t live without you.”

I reached up and touched his cheek. Brought my forehead close to his, so our faces were only inches apart. I looked deep into his eyes, trying to close the distance between us. “I’m so sorry, Patrick. I never meant to hurt—”

The sky flashed with lightning, and a massive bolt struck the beach below us, igniting some of the trees. Within seconds, the island began to burn.

“You didn’t know me,” Patrick said. “I wanted to tell you so badly, but I was afraid you’d think I was crazy.” He paused. “You know, crazier than you already thought.” He gave me a small smile, and in that smile I saw our whole catastrophic history playing out before my eyes. All the days we’d spent together. All the plans we’d made. The way he’d cried and rocked me in his arms in the minutes after the accident; how he’d begged the sky above us to let him go in my place.

Every single moment and memory came rushing back, and I remembered Patrick’s words as my life had slipped away from me on that beautiful summer day back in 1983—the wreckage of his motorcycle still burning beside us on the highway.

Wait for me forever. Wait for me, for always.

“Always and forever,” I whispered. It was the same promise I’d made to my best friends, in a whole different life. Sadie, Emma, and Tess. All of whom would have to figure out their own paths and their own struggles and their own heartbreak. I felt my charm necklace grow warm around my neck, just like it always did whenever I thought of them. But this time it didn’t hurt. This time, the memory made me happy.

“Is it really you?” Patrick pulled me in tight. “I didn’t think you’d ever remember.”

War is sweet to those who have never fought.

“I remember now.” I looked into his deep, dark, familiar eyes. “And I’ll never forget again.” All of a sudden, I felt the concrete wall inside finally beginning to crack open. I felt my frozen insides finally beginning to melt.

“Maybe we can start over,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’m Brie.”

He laughed a little, then shook it lightly. “Patrick.”

“Nice to meet you.”

He smiled. “Again.”

I leaned in slowly, for what I suspected might literally be the Best Kiss of All Time. But in the second before our lips met, another bolt of lightning crashed down, tearing us apart.

I grabbed for his hand, but was too late—the force of it had already thrown Patrick backward over the ledge. Out of my sight.

“No!!”

I crawled as fast as I could to the edge. And when I looked over the side, saw him barely hanging on. I lunged for his hand, holding on as best I could.

“Patrick!”

The fire was beginning to spread below us. Even with the rain pouring down, the shore was now almost entirely engulfed in flames—hundreds of poor, dying souls writhing in agony.

Larkin. Larkin’s down there
.

Fire flicked up at Patrick’s feet, and pain shot across his face. “I can’t, Brie! I’m falling!”

I felt Patrick’s fingers beginning to slip through mine as I cried out. I reached down deep inside of me, squeezing my eyes shut to dig up every last ounce of strength I had. After what felt like hours, I finally managed to get his body halfway back up over the ledge. Gave his arm one more giant tug before pulling him up all the way and collapsing on the ground. We lay there together, gasping for air, the rain coming down in icy sheets.

“If you wanted to go out with me,” he said, coughing, “you only had to ask.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time,” I wheezed back.

Patrick sat up, and for the first time I got a good look at his shoulder. There, carved into his skin, was the same mark Larkin had had—a tiny circle with a big
X
right in the center.

My mind flashed back to our first meeting.

“I’m Patrick . . . Resident Lost Soul.”

“You’re one of them,” I said sadly.

“I’d do it all over again if I had to.”

So it was true. He had bargained away his soul.

And he had done it for me.

I understood now that he was stuck, an eternal prisoner of the Great Beyond. He would never move on. He would never find acceptance. He would never be at peace.

He lowered his head. “It was the only choice I had, Angel. Your life had only just begun. You deserved a second chance.” He reached up and stroked my hair, which the rain had matted to my face. “It was the only way I could make it up to you, Lily. You never wanted to get on that stupid bike.”

I could smell the fire burning closer now. It had almost reached our ledge. In less than a minute, it wouldn’t matter if the storm overhead destroyed us or not. We would still have the inferno to deal with.

As I gazed into Patrick’s eyes, I finally understood why he had seemed so familiar from the very first moment I’d seen him in the pizza parlor. Why his
voice
had seemed so familiar.

It wasn’t because he reminded me of Tom Cruise in
Top Gun,
and it wasn’t because he had a knack for cheese-themed nicknames. It was because—in life and death and everything in between—Patrick had always been there.

He had
always
been there for me.

And suddenly I knew what I had to do. Without a second to think, I ripped the chain off my neck and held it up to the sky. It was my turn to make a sacrifice. He’d given everything up for me, and it was my turn to give something up for him.

Because love is worth it after all.

“My heart belongs to you,” I whispered. “It has
always
belonged to you.”

“Wait,” he said, reaching for my hand. “Angel, no!”

A blinding bolt of heat crashed down, straight into the golden charm, sending one billion volts of electricity pulsing through us both. I felt myself ripped from Patrick’s arms, falling once again through time and space and stars and sky and everything in between. I fell until I forgot I was falling.

And then the entire San Francisco Bay—
and all of heaven above and hell below—
exploded into light.