B.C. Johnson - Deadgirl

“How do you know?” I asked him. I blinked, trying to clear away the sudden blur. “It’s only been a few days.”

Zack took a deep breath. His eyes hadn’t left the table. He hunched forward, like he was exhausted. His shoulders were rounded, his arms tucked in. He smelled good. I could smell him from across the table. It made it worse.

“I—something changed. I look at you,” he said, though he didn’t. “And I see you. You’re still beautiful, you still crinkle your forehead when you’re thinking…still smile—”

“—like a little girl?” I prompted, and he nodded, a tiny heartbreaking smile tugging the corner of his lips.

“You’re funny and smart and perfect,” he said. I closed my eyes. “But I don’t…I can’t feel you anymore. It’s like looking at picture—like you’re not there.”

“Because…because of—”

“No,” he said. “It’s not what happened to you. More like, what happened to me. I— I’m sorry.”

“Are you saying you feel nothing?” I said. The barest breath, like someone whispering two tables down. I opened my eyes but I couldn’t see anything but wet shapes.

Zack said nothing. He folded his hands on the table, right over the spot he was staring at. He wasn’t crying. He looked upset, and terrified, and guilty but—he wasn’t shaking. Not like I was. Not shivering, not clutching my own hands. Not on the edge of a hysteria I couldn’t control. Not like the floor had just dropped out.

“I’ve never been kissed like how you kissed me that day,” I said, suddenly, pathetically. My voice sounded stretched, tinny, weak. “That wasn’t nothing. You’re goddamn kiss brought me back from the dead.”

Zack shifted in his seat.

“I loved you that day, Lucy,” Zack said, in the barest whisper. “I don’t think I’ll ever love anything like I loved you that day.”

Zack closed his eyes.

“What about today?” I asked him. I didn’t have to.

“Lucy—”

“What about today, Zack?” I said, louder. A few of the employees turned our way, and Zack shifted again. Good. Great. I hoped the world could hear me.

“Please. I don’t want—”

“What. About. Today. Zack?”

Zack shook his head. He looked up at me, and his face raged more than I gave him credit. His eyes shined with tears, making them look even more like lapis lazuli, and his lips were thin and pale. He locked my eyes with his and would not let go. In those eyes, I saw pity, and remorse, and fear, and guilt. But not sadness. Not gut wrenching loss. He sucked in a breath. It caught in his throat.

“Nothing.”

I stood up, slowly, and everything seemed louder, and brighter. My chair scraped across the tile floor, and it could have been an entire desk being dragged. I could hear strained whispering behind the counter. The light from outside dazzled me.

When I saw just how badly my hands were shaking, I tucked them into the pockets of my jacket. I looked down at Zack. He looked up at me.

“Please, Luce, don’t go.”

I felt my body convulse in a sob, and I touched my lips to hold it in. I wasn’t going to do this. Not there. I wasn’t going to break down. I growled, low in my throat, trying to find some well of resolve or willpower or strength, inside of me. I dug deep for sterner stuff, even as it felt like my guts were shriveling away.

Zack felt nothing for me.

I turned and walked out the door, as gently as I could, as deliberately as I could. I watched my hand, still shaking, unfold from the jacket pocket, reach forward, and grasp the door handle—a robotic gesture, the movement stilted, unnatural. I opened the door and walked, step by step, to the car. I thought only of my feet moving, of my steps carrying me away.

I touched the handle of the car. I opened it. I sat down in the car. I put on my seatbelt. I looked up when Mom asked me a question. I answered it with a lie. My dad asked the same question, and I answered it with a lie. I told them I wanted to go home. They took me home.

I walked in the door. I walked up the stairs. I told my Mother I would sit alone for a while. I closed my door. I looked across the room, at my dresser. There were three pictures on my dresser. One was last year, at the beach. It was me and Zack and Morgan and Daphne in bathing suits. Zack was pretending to cringe in terror while Daphne and Morgan and I pretended to hit him with giant Day-Glo Fun Noodles.

I thought about Zack. I thought about the little nugget of heat still in my belly, the one that belonged to him. The last glowing piece of what I’d taken. Of what had broken me today. Of what Zack would never feel, or have, or know again.

I took that tiny spark of what could have been, of what had been, of everything Zack felt for me, all that was left after using it to destroy Abraham. I took it and reached out, toward the picture of the four of us. The frame cracked under an invisible hand, then glass exploded over the dresser and onto the floor. The metal twisted and jerked, squeezing into a little ball. I kept pushing, kept squeezing, kept folding the silver frame in until it was no bigger than a golf ball. And inside it, crushed and squeezed and obliterated was, I knew, that picture. The ball lifted off the dresser and flew into my hand.

That little coal in my belly was gone.

I wished I could dump myself out. I fell onto my bed, and I cried myself into oblivion. I let them come out. I thought of every kiss and ever shy touch and every smile and every time he held me and everything he said to me. I thought of the times he’d saved my life, and the times I’d saved his, and the way his smile made my stomach feel.

Eventually, when I was all used up, when my body shook with tiny after-shocks, I fell asleep.

My first time, since I’d died.

I didn’t wake up until morning.

Interlude

Goodfellow

My eyes came open. Sunlight streamed through the window above my head, a bright band of blinding light. Grogginess—I’d almost forgot what that was like. I rubbed sleep out of my eyes and sat up slowly. I had one thing to do, before I tried my best to tackle a future without him. Without Zack.

The thought resounded inside of me, like a scream at the bottom of a well. I pushed it away, because there was something more important.

There was one person I had to thank.

I showered and dug through my closet for the girliest sundress I could find. It turned out to be a cornea-burning shade of yellow, complete with a print of white flowers and vines. I put on a pair of sandals, and slipped a white cardigan over my shoulders. I put my hair half-up and half-down, with a thin braid extending from each of my temples to tie together behind my head.

I put on light make-up, outdoor make-up, just enough to round me out. I looked at myself in the mirror and managed to find something like a smile. Look at that, Lucy Day. Just like a real girl.

I dug through a chest in my closet, filled to the brim with jewelry I never used anymore. I found what I was looking for, and ran to my picture drawer. A few bits of glue and some scissors later, and I was ready. I stood in the center of the room, closed my eyes, and flipped.

Beach sounds, first. Waves committing suicide against the sand, over and over, an endless parade. The cold wind of the ocean, slicing across my skin like a razor. The out-of-place beach party smoke smell. I opened my eyes, and I wish I could say I was surprised to see him.

He stood in the waves, just at the edge, his brown slacks rolled up above his knees. The grey ocean licked at his bare feet. One hand cradled a pile of white seashells, and his ancient, lined face was tilted down toward them. He picked at them, tossing the broken ones back into the tide.