Death, and the Girl He Loves

But I couldn’t tell her that. She was so … grateful. So I nodded and offered her my best Sunday smile instead.

“Do you know where Grandma and Granddad are?”

“Oh—” She looked around. “—I sure don’t. But I bet they’ll be right back. In fact, they’re probably at the church, firing up the grills. You know how your grandfather likes to get a jump start on these things. On a day like today, who can blame him?”

She literally squeaked in excitement and pinched one of my cheeks softly.

I laughed with her, feeling more lost than ever, and said, “Then I’m going upstairs for a minute.”

Her brows slid together. “Upstairs?”

“Um, yeah, if that’s okay.”

“Certainly,” she said, a nervous laughter bubbling out of her. “It’s just, well, you haven’t been upstairs in a very long time.”

“Really? Like how long?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Never mind me. You go on ahead.” She shooed me away with a wave of her hand. “I’ll tell your grandmother you’re here when she comes in.”

“Thanks,” I said, already ascending the stairs. When I got to my room, my beautiful, wonderful room, I gasped. It was full of boxes and old furniture. My bed was there, but it had been covered up. My grandparents were using this room as a storage facility. Did I never stay with them anymore?

Sadness tightened around my chest. Sure we were practically neighbors, but even as a kid, I’d stay with my grandparents every chance I got. I could hardly wait for my parents to go out of town for this or that so that I could hang out with Grandma and Granddad. We’d watch movies and eat popcorn until midnight, though we never told my parents that. It was always our secret.

I stepped to the bed and cleared off the multitude of boxes that lay atop it. The comforter was dusty, so I took it in my hands and shook it out. A puff of dust filled the air, causing a sliver of panic to rush through me. It was the war all over again. Clouds of dust swirling around me. My throat started to close as the images forced themselves to the forefront of my every thought. I had to force myself to calm. To slow my heart rate. To relax my muscles.

Then I noticed something. In my memories, the images of the war were superimposed with other images, other memories, like a double-exposed picture. I saw two realities. When I was looking down at Glitch, at the blood dripping down his face and over his lashes, I saw myself at Tabitha’s house as she went on and on about a date she had with a college boy. A college boy who belonged to the Kappa Sigs, whatever that was. But I had to promise not to tell her parents. They’d seriously freak.

“Seriously,” Amber said, agreeing with her best friend.

I jolted to awareness, the shock catapulting me out of the memory. A memory that was just surfacing and yet had been there forever, like I’d led two lives. Like I was two different people. I rubbed my eyes, fought the weight of fatigue that had plagued me all day. The weight of sadness that followed me like a ghost.

I lay down on the bed. My bed. The one I’d slept in for a decade.

How could I not visit more often? How could I not be here, in the most sacred place I knew?

My lids felt like lead. I fought to keep them open. I needed to get home and explain to my parents why I’d left school at lunch. They’d be getting a call soon when I was reported absent in sixth hour. I didn’t want them to worry. I’d wanted them for so long, what if I fell asleep and they disappeared again? What if this were all a dream?

DUST AND BOXES

Even the horrid likelihood that I would wake up to find out I’d dreamed everything, that my parents weren’t really back, that the war hadn’t really been diverted, that Glitch and Brooklyn and Cameron and Jared were really still alive, didn’t stop my lids from closing and staying closed. They opened only when I heard voices downstairs. They catapulted me out of my slumber and I bolted upright. But I was still here. I was still in this reality, surrounded by dust and boxes. I blinked into the diminishing light. It was late, but I didn’t have a phone to check the time.

My parents would be worried.

I scrambled out of the bed and headed for the bathroom to splash water on my face before remembering there wasn’t a bathroom. My grandparents had put in a bathroom when I was in the fifth grade. I’d been living with them since I was six, and I’d complained for years about having to go downstairs to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. One weekend my grandmother took me on a shopping trip for school clothes in Albuquerque. We’d even stayed the night in a hotel room. It had a pool and a hot tub and I found the true meaning of happiness that weekend. But when we got back, Granddad and some of his friends had spent the entire weekend putting in a bathroom for me. My very own bathroom. It meant giving up most of my closet, but it was so very worth it.

Now it was back to being a huge closet, almost a room unto itself. Darkness crept in fast, but I didn’t want to leave. I sat back down on my bed. Rested my elbows on my knees and my face in the palms of my hands. And the double-exposed picture of my life came back to me. I remembered playing hide-and-seek in this room. It was full of boxes, but at the time, in the other reality, I’d been living in it. Two images formed in my mind, overlapped, melded. Two realities blurring into one.

“The older you got, the more you pulled away.”

I jumped at the voice and turned to the doorway. It was my grandfather. My wonderful grandfather with his gray hair and gray eyes and patient smile. He stepped inside, followed by my grandma. Her bright blue irises shone at me. I wanted to run into their arms, but I didn’t want to make a fuss. This was a different reality. Somehow, I wasn’t just in heaven; I was in more of a parallel universe with overlapping realities that made my head spin.