The Reaping of Norah Bentley (20 page)

“This isn’t a joke,” I said. “What about Sam?”

“Sam…” With a sigh, Eli took a step forward and put his arms around me, clasped his hands together against the small of my back. “I don’t know that Sam could
be
any more pissed off at me. So I sort of feel like it doesn’t matter what I do now.”

“That’s terrible logic,” I said.

“Well it’s not just Geometry then, I guess,” he said, still smiling. “I’m bad at pretty much any kind of math.”

I tried to smile back at him, but Sam’s warning from last night was already playing through my mind again. I didn’t want to bring that up now, though. True, I didn’t think Eli should be grinning at me like that—not right now, not given the circumstances. But I definitely wasn’t going to be the one to drive away that perfect smile. So I just bit my lip and said,

“Okay…but still, why Helen? God, of all people—she definitely did
not
need to know about us.”

He shrugged. “Maybe not, but it didn’t seem right. My being here like this without her knowing, I mean.”

“…I guess.”

“I wanted to ask your parent’s permission, too.”

“Their permission?”

“To take you out tonight.”

“You asked their permission?” The corners of my lips started turning up on their own. “And they say chivalry is dead.”

“Well, technically…”

“Oh, haha.” I was shaking my head at him now, but I’d given into the smile. “You’re hilarious, you know that?”

“I did know that, actually.”

I leaned against his chest, and he unclasped his hands and let his fingers wander, sliding their way up my back, and down again, hesitating for a few seconds before sliding underneath the bottom of my shirt. They lingered there, just underneath the hem and just barely touching my skin. I shivered—but not from the cold that usually came with his touch, that cold I’d been anticipating.

“Your hands aren’t as cold as they normally are,” I said.

His hands moved a little further up my back, and he tilted his head toward me, close enough that his lips almost touched mine. “I’m more human than I normally am,” he said.

I don’t know if it was his words, or the fear that gripped me when I suddenly realized how fast my heart was beating, and how badly I wanted this in spite of everything that was wrong with it—but something made me push him away.

“Stop,” I said. In probably the least commanding voice ever. And I could tell from his mischievous smile that Eli knew my actions didn’t reflect my thoughts, or anything I
wanted
to be doing just then. But he stopped anyway. He just stood there, wearing that knowing smile, looking way too innocent for his own good.

I cleared my throat. “I’m serious,” I said. “We can’t. Sam told me to stay away from you. You probably shouldn’t even be here.” I took a step back and tried to reorient myself, tried to slow my breathing back to normal. “Because this is pretty much the complete opposite of staying away from you.”

I walked over and collapsed down onto my bed, tossing the beach photo onto my pillow. Eli’s body heaved with a silent sigh, and then he closed the door and walked over to sit beside me.

“I’m sorry,” I said as soon as I felt the mattress sinking beneath his weight.

He picked up the photo and studied it for a few seconds before he asked, “What are you apologizing for?”

“I’m just scared,” I said. “And I’m sorry.”

He sighed again and reached over and took my hand, pulled me against his chest and wrapped me in a loose embrace. “You don’t need to be scared,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

I wanted to believe him so badly it almost hurt—a deep aching in my chest, agitated by every quick heartbeat. I wanted this to all be normal, to just be able to lay here in the comfort of his arms, maybe take a nap without worrying about anything we had to do when we woke up.

I looked up at him, and I wanted to apologize again; I hadn’t meant to do it, but I
did
drive away the smile from his face, and now his eyes were clouded over and looking painfully far-away. Every now and then he’d take a deep breath and his embrace would tighten for a few seconds. His whole body was radiating heat. Normal, human-like heat. Normal. That must have been why he’d come here like this—because he wanted normal just as bad as I did, was probably wondering, just like me, what it would have been like if we’d met when he was still alive. When I was still
supposed
to be alive. When we were just two, normal people.

We couldn’t know those things, though. I knew that, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I knew that no matter how much I thought about it, no matter how badly I wanted it, that wasn’t the hand we were dealt. All we had was now. So, very quietly, I said,

“You asked my parents if we could go out tonight?”

He looked down at me, pushed a few strands of hair back behind my ear.

“If you want to. But…”

“But what?”

“But that would also be doing the complete opposite of what Sam said.”

I reached up and took his hand, held it against my cheek and leaned against it. He was watching me carefully, his eyes shining their vivid blue again, looking at nothing but me. And I stared back into them, still afraid, still so unsure. But I didn’t look away.

“I know it would be,” I said. “But I still want to. Maybe just tonight, maybe…I think that would be nice.” Nice and Normal.

He nodded, but didn’t say anything right away; probably afraid to question my change of heart too much in case I decided to change it again. He just kissed my forehead, and after a minute he asked, “Anywhere in particular you want to go?”

My eyes fell on the picture frame lying face down on my bed, and I nodded slowly.

“…Yeah,” I said. “It’s a bit of a drive, though.”

#

It was a bit of a drive in Sutton-Springs terms, where you could get anywhere in town in about five minutes. But really it was less than an hour’s drive to Wilmington, and then maybe another fifteen minutes to get to where I really wanted to go—Kure Beach. That was where the beach house was, nestled amongst the row of bright and pastel colored houses, itself a vibrant turquoise with bright white trim overlooking the ocean. Traffic had been light in Wilmington, and now we were already driving by a familiar landmark—the bright purple house with an anchor on the door and the dolphin-shaped mailbox, which told me we were getting close. Really close.

There was still one major landmark left on the Kure Beach trek—the huge drawbridge we had to take to cross over the channel. I’d never liked bridges much before, but now the thought that we were quickly approaching it was a million times worse, because at the center of the bridge I knew what I’d have to face. My first completely unobstructed view of the ocean. It would be right there. There would be nowhere else to look.

I gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly, trying to focus on remembering the way to the house. I think it was a right at the first light off the bridge. Or maybe it was a left. It was whichever way was Myrtle street…because I knew you took Myrtle to Oceanshore Boulevard…

I sighed, reached down and turned the radio up. Eli turned it back down a few seconds later.

“Are you sure this is where you want to go?” he asked, ignoring the irritated look I was giving him.

“Yes. Positive.”

“Do you want me to drive?”

“We’re almost there now.” I took a deep breath. The bridge was looming just ahead. “It’s not far, once we get over the channel…” We were both quiet after that, letting the radio fill the space with oldies music that became mostly static as we turned onto the bridge. I was gripping the steering wheel so tightly now that my knuckles were starting to turn red. I had all these crazy scenarios in my head—what if the bridge collapsed? And if we
did
make it over the bridge, what if my gas pedal stuck and we couldn’t stop and we drove straight into the ocean? What if I passed out the second I saw the water, and drove the car
off
the bridge?

Oh my God. Why had I decided to come back here again?

Then, while all these thoughts were still crashing and tumbling through my head, it happened. We were suddenly there. At the top of the bridge. And it was there in front of us, of course: the ocean, stretching into the horizon, white caps breaking up its gray blue surface—the only indication from this distance that it was moving at all. Still moving, still rolling in and out like it had been doing since the beginning of time, like it would keep doing even if I’d never came back here to see it.

And I was still moving too, I realized. Feeling a little nauseous, a little nervous, a little like slamming on the brakes and doing a u-turn right there in the middle of the bridge—but I didn’t. I just kept driving, and when I reached the stoplight at the bottom of the bridge I was feeling more than a little triumphant.

It was a right at this stoplight, I suddenly remembered, and I turned and we winded through the familiar, sand-dusted streets until we reached the turquoise house, the driveway flanked on either side by a short and stubby palmetto. The driveway was empty, as were most of the ones along this street—the houses slowly being abandoned as summer came to an end.

“This is the same house from that picture,” Eli said. I hadn’t really explained to him the details of where we were going, and he hadn’t really asked.

“Yeah, it belongs to Luke’s grandparents. We come here a lot during the summer.” I pulled the emergency brake up and cut the engine, reached into the back seat and grabbed my jacket. “I don’t think they’ll mind if we park here for a while.”

Eli nodded and stepped out, letting in a rush of cool ocean air along with the dull roar of distant waves. I shuddered, and looked away from the windshield, away from the sand and sea grass and the collection of shells lining the pathway to the backdoor. I took a long time putting my jacket on, putting my arms in the sleeves one at a time, fumbling with the zipper—long enough that Eli had time to walk over to the driver’s side and open the door for me. I took one more deep breath of the vanilla air freshener hanging from my rear-view mirror, held it in and carried it with me as I took Eli’s hand and let him pull me from the car.

We walked hand-in-hand around the house, left our shoes on the brick sidewalk and rolled up our jeans before stepping onto the cool sand and following the path over the sand dunes. At the top of the dunes I stopped, not so much from fear now; now it was just that awe that always hit me when I got this close to the ocean. No matter how many times I’d seen it before, it was always like I was seeing it for the first time.

“You okay?” Eli asked. He was behind me, his arms around my waist.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I think I am, actually.” And it was the truth. It might have just been because of him, and the calming effect he always had on me, but I was doing a lot better than I thought I would. I sort of figured I would have passed out by this point, but that breeze was actually kind of refreshing, and the heavy, humid air wasn’t as suffocating as I remembered. I took several deep breaths of it, watching birds diving, skimming for fish along the choppy surface.

“Is there anything like this in the Afterworld?” I asked.

He leaned a little closer, so I could hear his quiet voice over the breaking waves and crying birds. “There’s an ocean,” he said. “An endless ocean—but it’s not like this, exactly. It’s perfectly calm, without any waves.”

I imagined the ocean from my photograph, glassy and still.

“That sounds peaceful,” I said.

“It’s very peaceful,” he said. He pressed his cheek against mine and took a deep breath of the salty air. “It’s kind of boring, though.”

I laughed a little. “Boring?”

“I prefer the waves, myself,” he said. “Less predictable.” He pulled away from me, his lips sweeping across my cheek in a quick kiss.

“Where are you going?”

“Down to the beach,” he said, “Aren’t you coming?”

I hesitated, scrunching my feet further into the sand. I was comfortable here, a safe distance from the water. No sense in pushing it.

“I can see the ocean from here just fine,” I said.

“You can’t feel it, though. Did you come all this way just to look at it?”

“…It’s worth it, don’t you think? Just to look at it.”

“Come on.” He took a step back toward me. “At least race me down there. Down, touch the water and then run right back. If you run fast enough, it’ll be like you never left this spot.”

“I’m not that fast.” I laughed, glancing down at myself. “It’s the short legs.”

“On your mark—”

“I’m not racing you.”

“Get set—”

“You’re going to look really stupid running by yourself.”

“Go!”

“Hey!”

And suddenly I was standing there alone, and
I
was the one looking kind of stupid. He wasn’t slowing down any, either—so there was nothing to do but run after him, laughing and tripping my way through the uneven dunes until I got to the harder, wet sand and then I was sprinting, my bare feet not even touching it long enough to sink in.

He was already there, ankle deep in the water and smiling at me, and I couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop, so we collided with the full momentum from my beach-length sprint and both of us almost went tumbling face first into the foamy water. He managed to stay on his feet though, and he caught me and held me above the water, cradled me in his arms while I leaned against his chest and tried to stop laughing and catch my breath.