Tara Hudson - Hereafter

“And your friends got there so fast because …?”

He gave an embarrassed shrug. “Because I … um … had the beer in my car.”

As he finished, I exhaled slowly. I was grateful that at least one of my theories behind our interaction was wrong: suicide wasn’t our commonality; it was only our mutual deaths, however brief his had been.

“Would it be weird, Joshua, if I said I’m glad?”

“Why, because I like beer?”

I smiled slightly. “No, because you didn’t mean to drive off the bridge.”

He laughed. “Then that’s not weird at all. I wouldn’t exactly choose High Bridge for my exit scene, you know?”

I gasped.

Seeing my strange reaction, he spoke quickly, almost apologetically. “Sorry. I’m … Look, I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m not trying to upset you or anything. I guess … I mean … you really don’t have to do this. To tell me anything, that is.”

“But I do,” I said, unable to keep the misery out of my voice. “I don’t really think I have a choice, if I ever want to talk to you again. If you’ll even want to talk to me, afterward.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to talk to you?”

His gentle tone, and the implication in his words, made me meet his gaze. With his strange blue eyes locked onto mine, I felt the little ache ignite again in my chest.

“You won’t want to talk to me because I’m going to tell you the truth.”

“And the truth will make me … what? Decide to shun you?” He grinned and raised one eyebrow, obviously skeptical.

“Something like that,” I murmured.

“I find that hard to believe,” he said as he momentarily broke our eye contact to walk over to the bench and finally sit beside me.

“Actually, you’re probably going to find what I’m about to tell you hard to believe. But it’s the truth.”

He clasped his hands and leaned closer to me, placing his elbows on his knees before raising his eyes back to mine.

“Good. I want to hear the truth, Amelia.”

Inexplicably, my breath quickened. A pulse, one I knew I didn’t have, began to race through my arms and along my neck. I could swear I felt heat from the nearness of his body—heat that threatened to turn into a blush on my unblushable cheeks. The kind of heat that could make me do or say just about anything. Words started to fall from my mouth almost before I thought of them.

“You said you saw me under the water, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re the only person who saw me at all?”

“Yes.” He kept his voice patient, calm. My voice, however, trembled as I continued.

“Well, I think you saw me because … well, because you were dead.”

He frowned again. “I know I was dead, at least for a few seconds. But I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“You couldn’t see me at first, right? Not before you … died.”

The more I spoke, the less I could breathe. Joshua seemed to be struggling too with where I was heading. He responded slowly, methodically, as if he needed to hold tightly to reason in this conversation.

“Amelia, I couldn’t see you because I was unconscious before my heart stopped.”

“No. Well, you were unconscious. But that’s not the only reason you couldn’t see me. Even if you were conscious, you still wouldn’t have been able to see me. Not yet anyway.”

“Huh?” His frown deepened, and he leaned away from me.

Suddenly, I couldn’t stop the flow of my words. It was like pulling a piece of thick tape from my mouth. I wanted to rip it off, tear through my explanation, so I could breathe again.

“I have a theory, sort of. I can’t be sure, but I think I can’t be seen unless someone is, well, like me. That’s why the people on the shore couldn’t see me, and that’s why Eli can see me. Because he’s like me.”

“Who’s Eli?”

I was in such a hurry to get the truth out that I’d lost control of the things tumbling from my mouth. “Sorry,” I moaned. I dropped my head into my hands and squeezed my eyes tightly shut. “I’m not making any sense, am I?”

Joshua’s response surprised me. He didn’t sound frustrated, or even confused. Instead, his voice was hushed, intense.

“Amelia, I’m trying very hard to understand this. I know something … strange has happened. Is happening. I’ll believe your explanation. Just go slow, okay?”

My eyes flew open and met his. His eyes were lovely, and serious; they reminded me of the night sky. I tried to shake the distraction of them from my head so I could focus on this horrible conversation.

“Joshua, I have no idea how to say this.”

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

I turned away from him, staring at but not really seeing the patch of red dirt in front of us. When I spoke again, I did so slowly. Painfully.

“I think you saw me, and you can still see me, because we have some sort of—I don’t know—magical or spiritual connection. You’re like me. Or you were, at least for a moment.”

Joshua’s eyes narrowed. “And by ‘like you’ you mean …?”

“That you died.”

The word “died” hung heavy in the air between us, like an ax waiting to drop.

Joshua’s forehead wrinkled as he tried to make sense out of my words, tried to follow the convoluted path I’d laid. He may not have connected all of the pieces yet, but he would. As each second passed, I could see it happening, piece by piece. He would rip off the bandage at any moment, would either call me a lunatic or—worse—believe me.

“Okay,” he started haltingly. “You and I have both died? Me in the river, and you sometime in the past?”

“Yes. In the same river, actually.”

“Wow.” He blinked in surprise but then composed himself again. “So you’re saying this ‘connection’ is the reason I was the only one who could see you? Some sort of magic, or something?” He said the last words uncertainly, as though he were trying out a strange new language.

“I think so.” I bent my head down toward my lap again.

“And the connection exists because you died?” he asked.

I only nodded.

“And you came back to life, like me?”

A heartbeat or two passed, and then—

“No, Joshua. Not that part.”

For a while there was only silence. Then I heard him suck in a sharp breath. Here it was—the moment. The finale. I finished it off with nothing but a whisper.

“You see, Joshua—I never did come back to life.”

At the worst possible moment, I had one of those new, unpredictable sensations. I could suddenly feel the warm breeze against the skin of my legs and arms. The air felt charged, electric, like the gray sky would tear open and let thunder and lightning and all hell break loose around us. Goose bumps rose on my arms. Real goose bumps, like the ones Eli had inspired.

I couldn’t look up at Joshua’s face, but I could hear him stammering, making incredulous little noises. Then he became very quiet and still. This stillness lasted for possibly a full minute before he spoke with an unnatural calm.

“Amelia, are you trying to tell me you’re …?”

“Dead.” I spoke immediately. It felt wrong to delay the inevitable any longer.

“Dead.” He repeated the word without any inflection.

Another heartbeat passed and then, unexpectedly, Joshua leaped off of the bench. He spun around to face me. I stared up at him, undoubtedly wild-eyed and frantic. His face, however, was expressionless. He wore a sort of mask—hiding terror, anger, disbelief, hatred? I had no idea.

I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand the frozen look on his face, the look I’d put there with the truth. He thought I was crazy, or he knew I was dead. Whichever conclusion he’d made, I would certainly lose him, however little I’d had him.