Seven Weeks to Forever, page 14
“We’re moving in a month,” she finally says, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her sleeve. “We’re not going to live in Boston anymore.” It takes me the better part of an hour to get the whole story. Her father is going to head up his law firm’s new office in L.A., and her parents are taking her away from me. To hear her tell it, they’re absolutely ruining her life.
Selena sleeps over at my house every night that week, refusing to be separated from me for a second longer than she has to be. Finally, her parents make her come home. When I’m alone again, for the first time in days, it hits me how distraught Selena is about moving thousands of miles away. It’s only distance, I know, but she doesn’t see it like that. If she’s this upset about moving to another city, I don’t want to think about what she’ll be like if we’re still close friends when I leave for The Life-After in a couple of years.
It takes a few days, but I make the decision I know I must. On the night of her family’s going-away party, I do what I have to do. I let Amarleen see the party and the conversation in the garden. I let her see me walking away, and I let her see the tears I don’t show Selena or anyone else. Then I let the memories fade.
It’s the touch of Amarleen’s hand on my shoulder that makes me open my eyes.
“I understand,” she tells me, her voice softer than usual. She keeps her eyes on me. I can tell there’s something else she wants to say.
“But?” I prompt her.
“But it’s time to let go and let yourself be open. You keep yourself from seeing that. The past is a tricky thing and we let it define us when we should embrace the here and now, and all that’s still coming. You need to let yourself live from a place of love, not from a place of fear over the things you can’t control.”
That all sounds good. Well, in theory. But it doesn’t tell me what to do when it’s the thought of hurting someone I love that makes me afraid.
Amarleen studies me. I know she heard that.
“I know that you think your fears and what you’re doing come from a place of love. Just remember that true love comes from love only, and that it isn’t based in fear. You’ll know what to do when it’s time if you can rise above the fear and let love win.” I’m about to protest, but she stops me. “Trust in yourself, trust in the energy you’ve been working on, and trust what your heart and the voice inside of you tell you to do. And most importantly, don’t let a downward spiral of energy influence what you do, or what you decide. Otherwise, it might not be your inner guidance helping you make your decision at all.”
I feel warmth wash over me and know she’s connecting her energy with mine. We sit there for a minute or two and I can feel my energy get stronger, little white and golden sparks dancing around me.
“Now if I’m not mistaken, I think you have some people waiting for you on the patio? You should go join your friends.”
My friends. Maybe it’s the strength of her energy connected with mine, but the thought makes me smile as I collect my yoga mat and head for the door.
Chapter Fifteen
Countdown to The Life-After: two weeks.
I was a morning person for most of my life as Anna, rising early to jog along the beach and watching golden light streak the sky as the sun came up. I loved the peace in the space between darkness and dawn, and weekend mornings were my favorite.
Even now when I wake up early enough on a weekend day, the world feels like my own. There’s a stillness in the morning that holds an entirely different kind of energy than is usually found here in The Before. I felt it during my time here as Anna, even though I knew nothing about energy then.
The early hours cleanse me somehow. I jog along the sand, listening to the ocean waves crash to the shore and taking in every detail. This is the beach I’ll come to on the morning I leave for The Life-After. Sunlight licks at the edges of the sky. I breathe in the salty air that’s already warming in the daylight.
I jog for about a mile before I see a figure far off down the beach, moving closer toward me. Even from this distance, and even with sunglasses shielding his eyes, I recognize him.
“Riley?” I call out.
He looks up and I can tell that I’ve startled him. When he sees me, he slows to a walk and raises his arm, waving once.
“Hey,” I say, when I get closer.
“Hi,” he answers. I expect a hug, but he puts his hands on his hips and turns his head to the ocean. There’s a look on his face I can’t quite figure out. He’s probably thinking about The Satellite, since we haven’t hung out since then. It’s been a week. I know that’s what I’m thinking about.
“I didn’t know you came out here to run,” I say. He turns his head back to me.
“I usually don’t.” The look on his face is still there.
“It’s a nice place for it,” I comment. He nods. I wish I could see his eyes, but they’re hidden behind his sunglasses.
I take a drink from my water bottle, not knowing what else to do. After swallowing my mouthful of water, I study him. His lips are pressed together and his jaw looks like it’s clenched. I tune in to his energy to see what else I can find. The sparks of color I see are about what I expected. He’s uncomfortable and maybe even a little anxious. Guess I have my brilliant comment about him kissing me one day to thank for that. Genius. He probably regrets repeating it back to me. I did this, and now I have to undo it.
“Want to run with me?” I ask.
“Yeah, sure.” His arms still look a little stiff at his sides.
“Is everything okay?” The question slips out of my mouth even though I probably shouldn’t ask.
“Yeah,” he says again, and tries to smile at me. “Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
I give him a small smile in return and start jogging in the direction he came from. He keeps pace at my side, both of us moving in silence for about half a mile.
“Did you have a good time the other night?”
I jump at the sound of his voice, stumbling over my feet. Nothing but grace over here. Riley’s hand shoots out to steady me and we both slow down a little.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I wave it off, even though that’s exactly what happened. “I was just off on another planet somewhere.” A planet decorated like it’s space alien Christmas in 1972. It counts.
We round the side of a cliff. I can’t see the part of the beach we came from anymore. This is like some private little cove. Riley slows to a walk and I do, too. I can tell he’s still waiting for an answer.
“I had a great time,” I finally say. That’s the truth, because I really did have a great time. If only the part of my brain that controls my mouth hadn’t decided it was a good time to go rogue. Minor technicality.
“I’m glad. John said they have another show coming up in a few weeks, if you want to go.”
A few weeks. As much as I want to yell out that yes, I want to go, I know that I won’t be here when that show happens. Whether I’ll be in The Life-After or just gone to wherever it is unsuccessful second-timers go is another story.
“I’d love to go,” I hear myself say. I even smile. Way to lie to him.
We’re almost shoulder-to-shoulder now, so close that his arm bumps against mine when he crouches down to pick up a conch shell from the beach. He holds it up to his ear.
“Can you hear the ocean in it?” I ask.
He moves the shell away from his ear and presses it against mine. I listen to the sound inside of the shell, my other ear still picking up the sound of the ocean waves beside us.
“That’s amazing.” I turn to him and see that he’s staring at me with the same intensity he did outside of his car at The Satellite. My eyes drop to the sand. I wonder if he can hear my heart pounding, because right now that’s the only sound filling my ears.
He lowers the shell from my ear and places it in my hand.
“It’s all yours.”
My fingers brush against his when he moves his hand away and I feel the tingle that tells me our energy is connected again.
We walk for a few more minutes. I wonder if I should reach for his hand and then wonder if I’m crazy for thinking that. I try to keep my eyes focused on the beach ahead of us instead of on him, and a flash of pink ahead provides a welcome distraction. I crane my neck to see what it is. It looks like a bouquet of pink roses.
“Did someone leave flowers on the beach?” I ask.
Riley doesn’t answer. I’m a few paces ahead of him when I realize that he’s come to a complete stop.
“Do you want to go—” I start, cutting off my words when I see his face. There’s that strange look again, like he had when I first saw him walking toward me on the beach. “Is something wrong?”
He doesn’t answer. I follow his eyes with mine and see him looking at the flowers.
Wait. It’s Noah’s voice I hear.
I wait like he tells me, and it takes only a couple of seconds before everything in front of me blurs. When my surroundings come into focus again, the bouquet is no longer where it was. I see Riley approaching from far off down the beach, carrying the bouquet in his arms. He stops when he gets to the spot where the flowers were when I noticed them, and kneels down in the sand. He sets the bouquet down, his head bent forward, and I see something I’ve only seen on his face in another vision. Anguish. He remains there, motionless. What I’m watching fades away and then I’m back where I was before, Riley still standing beside me and the flowers still ahead of us on the beach. Now it makes sense.
“Did you bring the flowers here?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer, just closes his eyes, and I feel his energy retreating. I know who the flowers are for.
“Is this where your friend died?”
He turns to face the ocean, leaving me staring at his back. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“She’s here with you, you know. You just don’t feel her.”
“She’s dead.” There’s an edge in his voice that’s warning me to back off, but I don’t.
“Do you think that this body is all we are, and that this is all there is?” I spread my arms out wide, trying to ignore the way he’s looking at me like I’m crazy.
“This is all I can see, hear, touch, feel, and smell. So yes, I think this is where it all ends.” His voice is flat.
You can see, hear, touch, feel, and smell me, I want to shout at him. I don’t.
“You have to stop and let go,” I say instead. It’s almost laughable that this advice is coming from me, but I paid a big price for what I know now. It’s my job to make sure he doesn’t make the same mistake I did, and get so caught up in grief that the lower energy overpowers him and eats at him until he’s left with a dead spot just like mine. If that happens, this life is done for him and he’ll have to come back here.
And if that happens, I’ll never see this place or The Life-After again.
“If I could, don’t you think I would?” There’s a waver in his voice. I know I should take that as my cue to stop. My mouth seems to be under the control of something other than logic, though.
“I don’t think you’re trying.”
He rubs the side of his face. “Like you would know.”
“I know a lot more than you think.” I don’t mean for him to hear me, but I may as well have hollered the words. He looks up like someone slapped him.
“You were six when your parents died. Not to take anything away from that, but how much can you really remember? Try losing someone you love when you’re eighteen, like you are right now. There’s no way you can understand what this is like.”
I want to tell him that I didn’t mean my parents, and that I know all too well what he’s going through. He’s handling it better than I did, though, because how I dealt with it cost me my life and robbed me of at least eighteen years in The Life-After. Eighteen years that I should have spent feeling happy and being surrounded by love.
He sits down on the sand, his hands coming to rest on his knees. I sit down beside him.
“You can talk to me, you know. Talking about your friend and what you’re feeling might be good for you, and I’d like to know more about her. I can tell she meant a lot to you.”
“You don’t need to know everything, you know. It’s not like you’re my girlf—” he stops. It’s too late, though. The words are out there now, hanging in the air.
“It’s not like I’m your girlfriend,” I finish for him.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Maybe not, but it’s true. Right?” I realize that I’m biting my lip and stop before I draw blood.
He focuses his eyes on me. “That came out wrong.”
“It’s fine.” I stare out at the ocean. “You’re right that I don’t need to know everything. I’m not your girlfriend, and you’re not my boyfriend, and we’re not dating. I think that covers it.”
“I never said that we’re not dating.”
I look at him. “No, I did.” I try not to wince. Now that the words are out of my mouth, I know I can’t take them back.
He doesn’t respond, just takes a deep breath and releases it, raking a hand through his hair.
“I need to go,” he says. I watch him get to his feet.
“So go.”
He hesitates, either because he wants to say something or because he wants me to. I turn my head back to the ocean and pretend to watch the waves until I hear the soft thud of his footsteps on the sand, walking away.
It’s good that he isn’t attached to me, I try to tell myself. No matter what Noah says, it’s better this way. I just didn’t expect knowing that to hurt this much.
Chapter Sixteen
I holler out the chorus of a song I must have played at least ten times already today, stirring the boiling water in a pot on the stove. If I lose my voice later, that’s fine. It only gets me into trouble, anyway.
If I were my own neighbor, I’m sure I’d hate myself right now. I’ve had music cranked for most of the day, the bass thumping so loudly that it vibrates the pictures on the walls and my kitchen windows. I can’t hear myself think, and that’s entirely the point.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I jump. My hand that’s holding a wooden spoon and stirring a steaming pot of macaroni comes up with me, spraying water droplets all over my arm. I suck in my breath at what feels like dozens of tiny needles burning into my skin.
“Like always, your timing is fantastic.” I wave the spoon at Noah before setting it down on the counter and crossing my arms. “Was that really necessary?”
“To be here? Absolutely.” He reaches for the volume knob on the stereo and turns it down.
“To maim me,” I correct him.
“I think you’ll make it until all of your pain goes away in The Life-After.” I do a double take. Sarcasm is my thing, not his.
“Touché. What is it you think I want to talk about?”
“I’m pretty sure you know.” He takes off his fedora.
I turn back to the stove. “I love you, but you aren’t helping me much.”
“Someone else loves you, too, but I think you know that.”
“That’s doubtful, if we’re thinking of the same person. You were watching us at the beach this morning, unless you stopped right after that little vision of Riley leaving the flowers.” I pick up the spoon from the counter and stir the macaroni again.
“I saw everything, and don’t try to act like you weren’t a good part of that. People say things they don’t mean to when they’re provoked, and I think you provoked him on purpose.”
I stop stirring, my hand tightening around the wooden spoon. “Do you want to repeat that one?”
“Sure.” He leans against the counter, looking at me. I move my eyes back to pot of boiling water. “I think you wanted that fight today, but there’s one thing I can’t figure out.”
I start stirring again. “What’s that?”
“Are you afraid of what happens when you leave him, or are you afraid of him leaving you?”
“You’re really asking me this? Ow!” Water spits out of the pot and onto my arm. I grit my teeth together, holding my hand.
“Turn down the heat on that,” he chides me, reaching over and adjusting the heat dial for the element. The water in the pot slows to a gentle boil. “And yes, I’m really asking you that.”
“Why?”
“Because I think it’s a question you need to answer for yourself, and I hope you’ll be honest about it.”
I give the macaroni another stir. “Why is it you think you know so much?”
I feel Noah’s energy connecting with mine. He’s trying to calm me down. Good luck, buddy.
“Because I know a bit about what goes on in your head and heart,” he answers. “I’m not trying to be cruel.”
“So why are you asking me to think about this?”
“You need to. You’ll feel better when you do. There’s almost no point to you being here if you’re going to keep putting blocks in your own way, just because you’re afraid.” The guy is a broken record, I swear.
“I thought I was here to help Riley,” I say.
“You can’t be much help to him when you’re barely stumbling through your own life here.” He leans back against the counter, watching me.
“I’m trying. Riley’s not the greatest at opening up, if you haven’t noticed. He starts to and then he backs away.”
“And you?”
“And me?” I ask. “I don’t follow.”
“In those moments after you open up, do you also take a step back?”
“I don’t think so.” I put the wooden spoon down on the counter.
“Uh huh. Did he push away this time, or did you?”
“You were there,” I tell him.
