Spirits of Spring (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 4) (50 page)

She
said it with such honesty
that I answered
her
question and then some.
Without sharing intimate details, I
told her about some of the nice things Zach had done for me,
places he would take me. While part of me felt sad for referring
to him in the past tense as though he were already dead and
gone, part of me just enjoyed talking about him. I rambled on
about him and about our relationship until the bell for first
period rang. I realized then that even if he
did
die, I already had
what felt like a lifetime of memories to cherish.
I also realized
something else—Brooke wasn’t so bad after all. She offered to
handle all of the fundraising efforts by herself—
without
letting
Mr. Raspatello know about it—as a way to apologize for the
way she’d treated me. I happily accepted.

Like every one since the shooting, the day was a series
of up and down moments for me.
Everything I saw and heard
reminded me of Zach in some way. French class delivered the
hardest blow.
As
we took turns
reading
aloud and
then
translating what we’d read into English, I came across a phrase
I was unfamiliar with.

“Tu me manque,” I read and then gave what I thought
would be the English equivalent even though it made no real
sense to me. “You are missing from me.”

“Almost, Ruby,” corrected Madame Ross, “But the best
translation would be ‘I miss you.’”

You are missing from me.
That was exactly how I
would describe my situation with Zach. He wasn’t gone
completely but he wasn’t here with me, either. I began to cry
and asked to be excused.
The bell for the next period rang
while I was still pulling myself together.
Today was a terrible
mistake. I wasn’t ready to live again yet.

That afternoon, I had zero urge to care about the track
meet, or Misty, or what Misty might do to me
during
the track
meet.
I slugged across the finish line last during the one
hundred meter dash and plopped down onto the bleachers
without caring.

“Have I ever told you before that you run like a girl?”

Clay. It was weird now that we weren’t attached to
each other.
I never knew when or where he was going to pop
in on me but like now, his presence was never unwelcome.

“I vaguely remember hearing that once or twice before,”
I said with a weak smile. “But I don’t really care anymore.”

 

“Aw, come on, Ruby! You can do it—I know you can!”

 

“No, I can’t. And I really don’t care to try, either.”

When I was little I hated peas and refused to eat them
every time my dad put them on my plate.
One day, he got a
very sad look on his face and told me that I was making the
peas very sad by not eating them. He told me that every pea
grew up with only one wish—to be eaten, not to be thrown
away. But that since all they could do was lie on the plate and
look cute, they counted on little girls like me to help them get
their wish. From that day on, I ate my peas without having to
be forced. Clay gave me the same look as my dad did that day. I
had a feeling
I was
about to swallow a whole
plateful
of
proverbial peas.

“Do it for Zach, Ruby. You know that he would want
you to keep going and not give up. He still loves you. He just
can’t tell you that himself. He’s counting on you to feel it and be
strong for both of your sakes.

I tried to fight it. I tried to push those peas as far across
the table from me as I could get them. But they wouldn’t stop
staring at me with those innocent little pea faces. “Why should
I? He isn’t doing anything for me. He isn’t fighting for
me
!”

Clay’s eyes were almost as irresistible as Zach’s were
when he said, “You don’t know that, Ruby. You don’t know
what kind of battle he’s facing or how hard he’s fighting. Don’t
give up.”

Oh, quick somebody hand me a spoon—I have to eat
every pea on that plate. Now. Coach Hunter called for us to get
into position for the relay and I practically flew to my mark. As
I passed Jordyn, she gave me a head nod and said, “You got this
one, Ruby!”

And we did. Perfect form, top speed.
Clay ran beside
me, motivating me the whole way to the finish line. At the end
of the day, Coach Hunter informed us that we broke the school
record in that event by a mere tenth of a second. I
did
have this
after all.

37. Conventional Wisdom

As the days rolled by, it felt more and more like Zach
was gone forever. Some days I was strong, some days I wasn’t.
Some days all I wanted to do was talk about him. Other days I
couldn’t even speak his name. I did everything I could think of
to try to coax him back to consciousness but to no avail. Soon,
my efforts became more for me and less for him.

I started spending time at the shelter taking care of the
animals he loved so much.
It made me feel closer to him in a
weird way. I even offered to help Andy with the dog show that
Zach had planned. Andy was grateful for the help and I wasn’t
even bitter when Mrs. Tuttle’s Shih Tzu, Mandy, took first prize.

Zach’s parents spent a lot of time at the hospital with
him and I got to know each of them a lot better than I already
did.
They both shared things with me that they felt they
couldn’t share with the other members of the family. Garrett
was taking it the hardest. Once he saw that he could lose his
only son, he regretted the things he’d said and how he’d
punished Zach for what happened in the past. But even that
didn’t wake Zach up.

One Friday night, I went home with Rachel after school.
I wanted to spend some time in Zach’s room, surrounded by all
of the things that he loved. Even their dogs seemed sad.
Sadie
and Sequoia may not have known what was going on but they
undeniably sensed his absence. When I went into Zach’s room,
Sequoia padded in softly behind me and lay down on the floor
beside Zach’s bed.

His room was untouched.
The clothes he was wearing
in the few days before the accident were still in a heap on the
floor, unwashed. His math book lay on his desk, his homework
still half finished. The only thing that looked out of place to me
was his drum set. Though a few weeks’ worth of dust had
settled on them since, it was clear that he had dusted them off
recently. The cymbals were shinier than I remembered them
being and I found a small can of polish lying on the stool beside
his drumsticks.
He may not have been playing recently but he
was definitely thinking about it.

I set the can of polish on the floor, picked up the sticks,
and sat down. I tried to imagine how he felt when he sat in this
spot. What kind of joy did this bring him?
What kind of
sorrow?
Delicately, I tapped the cymbal and listened to its
response. Then, I did the same to one of the drums. He had
talents I’d never gotten to experience. Why couldn’t I have
gotten to hear him play?

After a few frustrated taps on the foot pedal, I decided
to lie down on his bed for a minute.
The last time I was there,
things were so much different. Zach was with me and we were
both happy. Now, I was alone. Well, almost alone.

As if on cue, Sequoia sat up on his haunches and placed
his front paws across my chest. He looked into my eyes and
began to whimper. He felt my grief and empathized with me.
Grieving the still living was much harder than grieving the
dead. I patted him on the head and started to cry. I didn’t want
Zach to die but it was hard to watch him not live, too.
Every
morning
I woke up hopeful.
Every
evening
I
fell
asleep
disappointed. How long was this going to continue? I was torn
between two conflicting schools of thought.
If he loved me, he
would wake up. But if I loved him, I should be willing to wait.

So waiting is what I did. I waited yet tried to go on with
my life at the same time.
I required constant reminders of
things I needed to do—time wasn’t moving in my head but the
calendar said otherwise. Two very big events were just around
the corner but I’d forgotten about them entirely—the
paranormal convention I promised Rita I would attend and
prom.
I was
dreading
one and
excited for the
other but
opposite of the way you would expect.

When I vehemently declared that I wasn’t going to the
prom, Shelly and I got into a huge argument. I said I wasn’t
going without a date. She said that I would someday regret that
decision. We battled back and forth over the issue until I finally
agreed to at least go pick up the dress I’d bought.
It would
make a fine addition to the collection of things that reminded
me of Zach and made me cry. I could always use another one of
those. Insert giant eye roll here. The dress was gorgeous but it
was going somewhere where I would never have to see it again.

The convention was an entirely different story. I was
anxious to spend time in a roomful of people who didn’t think I
was weird. As a matter of fact, I was certain that I would be
less
weird than most of the other people there. Plus, the convention
was in Ohio and only thirty miles from where Sophie’s family
lived. Clay was going with us.
Rita knew about our little side
venture—Clay did not. I didn’t want to get his hopes up just in
case.

Rita posted a sign in the front window of Something
Wick-ed stating that it would be closed for the day then the
three of us set out for Ohio.
We left super early so that we
could make a quick pit stop in Pittsburgh first. Rita wanted to
pick up a few new ghost hunting supplies at an electronics
store there before the convention so that she could get some
advice from her colleagues on how best to use them. (Un)lucky
for me, the store where I got my prom dress was in the same
shopping center so Shelly asked Rita to make sure that I picked
it up while we were there.

We couldn’t spend a lot of time in Pittsburgh so we split
up to get everything we needed to do done faster. Clay wanted
to go with Rita to look at gadgets but I forced him to go with
me, instead. If I had to be miserable, so did he. I walked up to
the counter and told the cashier what I was there for.
The girl
returned a minute later with a dress. Not
my
dress, but
a
dress.
A green one.

When she proudly handed it to me and asked me to try
it on to be sure it fit, I proudly handed it back. “That’s not the
dress I bought. Mine was red.”

She inspected the tag and read aloud, “Matthews, Ruby,
correct?”

“Yes, that’s correct but the dress certainly isn’t. The
tags must have gotten switched or something. Mine was red,” I
stated again.

With a look of confusion, she disappeared into the back
room again. When she didn’t emerge right away with
the
correct dress, I knew something was wrong. Ten minutes later,
the store manager appeared and began to apologize profusely.

“I’m so sorry but there seems to have been a terrible
mix up. The tag clearly says that your dress should be red but
there aren’t any red ones anywhere in the back. It appears that
this one has been altered to your measurements, though.
I
don’t know what happened but I do apologize for the
inconvenience. Would you like to try this one on?”

No, I definitely wouldn’t but I didn’t know what else to
do. Shelly would never believe me if I told her the truth—she
would assume I was lying to get out of going to prom. Now I
not only had to go dateless but in the ugly green dress that she
tried to get me to buy in the first place.
I was going to have a
miserable time there anyway, what did it even matter what I
was wearing or how well it fit? It didn’t matter one little bit.

“Just give me the stupid dress,” I said with a sigh.

Since it was their mistake, the manager refunded half of
what we’d paid for the original dress and let me pick out a new
pair of shoes. I took the only silver pair they had in my size and
stomped out the door.
Clay tried to make me feel better by
telling me how beautiful I looked in it when Shelly had me try it
on, but I wasn’t buying it. It was
green
, for heaven’s sake!

Once we were back on the road, Rita was all aflutter
about her new equipment and how excited she was that I
decided to join her at the convention. I was in a bad mood and
less than ecstatic courtesy of
the mermaid costume in the
backseat, but I tried not to let it show. She’d been looking
forward to this day for months and I didn’t want to ruin it for
her.

When we got to the Ohio border, Rita stopped talking
about her equipment and started talking about wraiths.

“I will give the presentation on wraiths because I know
you don’t want to, Ruby, but if you change your mind, let me
know. Everyone I’ve talked to so far is saying it’s the one they
are most eager to listen to.”

I still found it inconceivable that I had more experience
in one realm of the supernatural than anyone else in recorded
ghost hunting history.
It was unfathomable actually.
Unlike
me, those people
chose
to hunt ghosts. While it was just a side
project for Rita, some of the people I would meet today made it
their career. Rachel was quite impressed when I told her that
the team from Ghost Stalkers would be there today. I was not.

“That’s okay—you can take the spotlight.
I neither
want nor need it.”

When we pulled into the Hastings Convention Center, I
immediately saw that this wasn’t going to be anything like I
expected it to be. There wasn’t a single weirdo in a tin foil hat
in sight. No one I saw was dressed in a hideous ghost costume,
either. Everyone looked so professional, so…
normal
. They all
looked as normal as…me.