Certainty (20 page)

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“Get up.” The voice cut through the darkness, but I didn’t move. It came again. “Get up.”

It sounded so real, like someone was in my room. Once more I heard the voice, but it was fainter, like a song on the radio losing its signal.

I opened my eyes, my room flickering with the light of an infomercial. Had I heard a voice? Or was I dreaming?

“You don’t have much time.”

I sat straight up, my heart pounding. Someone was definitely in my room. I looked towards the door and there was Kyle’s
Yurei
, standing next to my dresser. He watched me intently, his faded blue eyes commanding my attention.

I should have been scared out of my wits, but I wasn’t.
Yurei
didn’t scare me, even though this one was breaking every preconceived notion I had about them. All they had done in the past was appear and I would know certain events about them. They certainly didn’t speak to me. But this one was different. Maybe it’s because I
asked
for him. Maybe he had a whole different set of rules.

“Time for what?” I asked.

“Time to save him. No one knows but you. You have to stop him, if you can.” I could sense the terrible urgency that emanated from him, waves of desperation and sorrow that threatened to drown me.

However, I was in a bad mood, angry at myself over MacKenzie. I already knew I didn’t have much time to help Kyle, I didn’t need the Ghost of Christmas Future to tell me that. But what could I do about it?

“I don’t know how.”

The
Yurei
shook his head at me. Obviously he thought I could change the future, which wasn’t true. I just saw it, right? There was no one to tell me anything. I was figuring it out as I went along. He faded away and left me to my infomercials and my frustration. Would I be responsible for Kyle’s death if I didn’t act?  What was I supposed to do?

CHAPTER TWENTY

MacKenzie

On Sunday Dad took us to church and then we visited Mom and Derek in the hospital. Mom wore a charcoal gray dress that brought out the blue in her eyes. I thought again that we made a good-looking family—Dad broad-shouldered in his dark suit, crisp white shirt and tie, James in a white shirt, tie and khaki pants.  I wore a red wrap-around dress with black tights and boots to keep warm. We sat next to Derek’s bed, each of us taking a turn to say something, except for James. Mom said it was okay if he didn’t know how to talk to Derek. James usually found a way down to the cafeteria when we visited Derek. I told Derek all about the dance, and about my fabulous dress.

I was getting used to seeing Derek asleep. I could barely remember him when he was healthy. He didn’t look like anything was wrong with him at all, except he never opened his eyes. Everything about him was just as perfect as it was before the accident, even the wound on his head was slowly fading away. His skin still looked tan, although it was gradually losing the summer glow. He breathed so quietly it was almost silent, his chest barely moving at all. I touched his fingers to make sure they were warm. They were, but they lay limp and motionless, whether I held his hand tightly or gently.

Mom kissed his forehead before we left. She winced, as if she were in pain, or as if she hated to leave him. I wondered if she always looked that sad when she had to kiss him goodbye.

We collected James and Dad from the cafeteria and went home. We made grilled cheese sandwiches and watched football, all of us on the couch.

I thought about Ren, though, nonstop. Where he was, what he was doing, if he was thinking about me. Maybe he was with his family, too.

I found a split in one my nails and pulled it off, wondering if he compared our kiss to other girls he had kissed. There was no doubt it was not his first kiss. He was too confident. If he graded my kiss, would it score low? Perhaps he could be generous and give me a C-. I was running out of nails to split.

Someone scored a touchdown and I joined the celebration just a fraction of a second late. I don’t think my parents noticed.

When the game ended we put on a movie we’d seen before. We had popcorn and sometimes Dad would blurt out the next line before the character said it and we’d throw stuff at him. It’s impossible to watch old movies with him. He says every line.

After the movie Dad called for prayer and we knelt around the coffee table. It had been a while since we prayed as a family; we forgot about it sometimes. James said it this time, asking that Derek would get better and come home.

I could feel Derek’s absence, and our family felt so much smaller without him. It wasn’t even like were missing one fifth, it was more like half. They should have another math for this—emotional math that had its own proportions and equations. I hated this equation, though. Whatever it would like on paper, it was hard in real life.

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Monday morning I slept in on purpose so I wouldn’t be able to walk to school with Ren. No need for all that awkwardness first thing in the morning.

My parents didn’t know because Dad went to work earlier and Mom had driven James to school. Besides, I wasn’t going to be
that
late, just a few minutes. I walked out the door, glad that I could avoid meeting with Ren before I was ready.

Since I knew I wasn’t going to see him I wore my big puffy jacket. It was enormous. My mom thought it was rugged because it had feathers in it or down or whatever. It looked like it was stuffed with an entire flock of birds, not just the feathers. Maybe some penguins. I think Happy Feet was in there somewhere. At least it was warm.

All the trees were bare now, but I liked them that way. I tried to draw a bare tree once, following the trunk line up to the last little branch—it’s surprising how intricate a tree is. I stuffed my hands in my puffy pockets as I walked, my eyes down on the sidewalk. I looked up when I got to Ren’s house. I was surprised he hadn’t come looking for me when I was late. He didn’t text me either. Had the kiss ruined our friendship? Is that what we were? There should be some kind of alarm that sounded when you crossed from the friend zone into the boyfriend zone.

As I walked by I heard someone’s door open and slam. Someone on their way to work, probably.

“MacKenzie?” I stopped in my tracks at the sound of his voice. I turned to look behind me. He was staring back at me. Stunned, I didn’t answer right away. He was supposed to be in school already. His hair was all messed up, like James when he woke up with bedhead.

“Hey, you’re late,” I said. Oh no. I was wearing the puffy coat. Not good.

He walked up to me and I waited for him because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to see him, but it would be ridiculous to walk ahead of him all the way to school. And suddenly I remembered the kiss and my heart was beating faster. Under layers of feathers and penguins.

“I…slept in,” he said. “What are you doing so late?”

“I slept in, too.” It was mostly the truth.  I wasn’t going to tell him I did it on purpose to avoid him.

We stood for a moment in the cold. He was wearing a sweat-shirt, his hand in his pockets, hunched over as usual. He didn’t know about puffy coats yet, apparently.

He pulled one of his hands out of his pockets and rubbed his head like it hurt. “Look, MacKenzie, I’m so sorry…I wanted it to be better.”

Oh no. He was talking about kissing me. He wanted it to be better? What did that mean? It was bad? I’m a bad kisser?

“It’s no big deal. We can still be friends.” I thought I said it with just right mix of who-cares and oh-look-there’s-a-bird-over-there.

He stared at me and he had the same expression on his face when I’d told him it was my first kiss. Horrified, maybe. “You think kissing me was a mistake?”

“No! I mean, I don’t know. You said it was a mistake.” I was so confused. Maybe a rogue meteor would fall out of the sky and smash me into blissful oblivion.

“I’m trying to say I’m sorry for giving you the worst first kiss in the history of …first kisses. I wanted it to be better for you. I wanted you to remember it as something special.” He was pleading with me, his eyes searching mine.

Shocked, I blinked at him. “Oh. Well, it was. I mean, I liked it.”

“I should have asked you first.”

I realized he must have liked kissing me and he was going to give up on that particular activity if I didn’t do something fast. I grabbed his sweat-shirt and he looked at me, a faint hope dawning in his eyes.

I said quickly, “I think we should do it again…you know, whenever. You did a good job at it. It was a great kiss. Definitely…good.”

I knew I was babbling. His mouth was twitched in a smile.

“Really?”

I was blushing, unfortunately. I pushed my hair behind my ears and looked away. “Yes. It was…I liked it. Can we go now?”

“Absolutely not.”  He leaned down and closed his eyes and kissed me, his mouth moving over mine, sweet and long.

Naturally all my brain cells died. I think we started walking again afterwards and he was holding my hand. I’m not sure how he found it in my puffy sleeve.

“Is everyone this awkward?” I asked, stepping on a stray leaf that had escaped our neighbor’s efforts to rake it up.

He laughed. “No way.”

“Why are we so bad?”

There was that thoughtful expression on his face again, as if he were meditating on the secrets of the universe. “Because we matter.”

I was so stunned that I couldn’t say anything. He mattered to me more than I could ever tell him, but I never expected him to feel the same way. It seemed like too much to ask.  “How do you know?” I blurted out.

His eyes held mine and I knew he was going to tell me something important. I held his hand tighter and waited.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Ren

I woke up late. My mom had warned me all morning but I was so tired, and feeling sorry for myself so ignored her until I finally looked over at the clock and realized I’d ignored her too long. I was late. Very late. I stumbled downstairs in the clothes I’d slept in. My mom was tight-lipped and irritated at me. She was probably thinking about grounding me. I was so late that I was sure MacKenzie had left without me, and that made me mad at myself.

Something was wrong between us and I had no idea what it was. She hadn’t texted me or anything. How big of a mistake was that kiss? Between her and the Ghost of Kyle’s Future I was miserable.

It was cold out. Unbelievably, freaking cold. It should be against the law to live anywhere this cold. I checked the thermometer on the porch. Thirty degrees? That didn’t sound that cold. It sure felt like it. I remembered some old guy at the Wal-Mart when we first moved here, telling my mom that the East had a wet cold, which was colder than a dry cold. At first I’d thought it was funny, but now I understood. It went right to my bones, and stayed there, chilling my insides.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a familiar figure. MacKenzie? What was she doing going to school this late? I called out to her and she looked like she was seeing a ghost.

She was cold and distant, almost as if we’d just met. I hated the look in her eyes. She’d never looked at me before, like I was ordinary.  Her admiration scared me most of the time, but now that it was gone I missed it.

I apologized for the way I kissed her and she said it was no big deal, but she was still distant, like she didn’t want to talk about it. She was killing me. What had I done? Had I ruined any chance with her? Who would she end up with if it wasn’t me? I didn’t want to know.

There was no way I was giving up on her. When she blushed and admitted I did mean something to her I was so relieved I could have kissed her again. Well, okay, I did. And then she wanted to know why she was so important to me.

I’ve seen some terrifying futures before—lives that scared me stupid. I’ve carved waves that could kill me and I even dislocated my shoulder once when a wave pulled it out.

Telling her the truth was by far the hardest leap I’ve ever had to take. If she believed me, and she accepted me for what I was, I wouldn’t be alone anymore. If she believed me, I could do anything, maybe even save Kyle. If she didn’t then it didn’t matter how much she liked me, she wouldn’t respect me anymore. She would think I was crazy. Was it worth the risk?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MacKenzie

“I’m going to tell you something that is hard to believe,” he said, his dark gaze so intense I could only wallow in it, mesmerized.