The Summer We Came to Life (17 page)

WE'RE BACK ON THE DOCK. I DROP MY HEAD into Mina's lap and sobs pour from my mouth like lava. Everything everywhere hurts. We've seesawed back to this strange world where I can feel my body, but now the downpour of sensation only makes me nauseous and raw. Crying here hurts worse than anything when I was alive. It hurts worse than dying. I think it will never stop. I think it will never stop hurting.

“No, it won't, Sammy. Not as far as I can tell, anyway.”

The cries turn to whimpers in my throat. As Mina strokes my hair, the heaving feeling slowly passes. When I sit up, I curl my knees to my chest to anchor myself somehow. I force myself to feel the warmth of the sun, to be still like the glassy water. “So you go anytime you want?”

The look in Mina's eyes is as old as time. “What do you think I've been doing?”

“It's torture. Why do it to yourself?”

Mina looks wounded. “It's the only way to be with them.”

Her response trips me into a dirty puddle, muddling my thoughts
. But I don't want to visit. I don't want to watch. I want…

“What, Sam? What do you want?”

“I want to go back.”

“Let's go. This is the most time I've spent here yet! I'm worried about Isabel—”

“That's not what I meant. I mean I want to go back to before.”

“You mean you wish you hadn't died.” Mina tries her best to look comforting. But she frowns. “You wish you never ended up here, with me.”

The look on my best friend's face is a poisoned arrow, infecting me with shame. If I hadn't died, wouldn't Mina have been forced to watch us for eternity, a fish in an invisible fishbowl? “Of course I'm glad to be with you.” I poke her shoulder. Then her leg. I poke her repeatedly until she smiles. A thought strikes me finally. “Does Kendra know about me? Does Remy?”

“Kendra, yes. Isabel emailed Remy and left a voicemail. He hasn't responded.”

“Why not? What is he doing?”

Mina looks away. “I don't know. I visited you two when you were alive and with him. But I can't go now.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know, Sam.”

“Can I go?”

“I would think so. Do you want to try?”

I look out across the green water. “Let's go see Kendra first.”

 

“Where are we?” Blue. Blue everywhere. And the smell of chlorine.

“Kendra's swimming.”

There she is. Third lane from the right. Swimming hard, like the devil's chasing her.

“Yeah, she's upset. But, Sam, there's something else… something you don't know.”

Kendra finishes her lap. She yanks herself out of the pool, and stomps a path toward the changing room. She checks the clock.

I'm in the changing room when she comes in the door. She sits down on a bench, unlocks her locker and takes out a towel. Still dripping wet, she covers her face with the terry cloth. Then she leans forward and bangs her head on the locker five times. When she stops, she tips her head back, eyes wide-open. It startles me. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen Kendra Jones cry. She stops as soon as she starts. She wipes her nose and sniffs hard. Tough girl Kendra. Never a big fan of naked emotion. She opens the locker again. She slips quickly out of her swimsuit and into a dress, conspicuously averting her eyes from her body. She dumps everything in her bag and leans hard against the locker. Her face is all angles and shadows. Then it starts to shimmer. Everywhere.

“Mina?”

“We have to go, Sam.”

I can barely make out Kendra heading for the exit. But then she turns sharply and looks back. I can see her clearly now and I follow her gaze. On the floor is a single green clover leaf.

“YOU DID THAT. HOW?”

“I don't know.”

The dock is just as before—the sun shining, the clouds still unmoving but perfect. It's like a scrapbook picture of my childhood. Mina's as still as the clouds, as if she's part of the photograph, too. I touch her shoulder.

“Why did we have to leave?”

“We can only go when they're thinking about us.”

“Mina, how many times have you seen Kendra cry? Of course she was thinking about us.”

Mina kicks her feet in the water, rippling the photograph. “She was at first. But then she was thinking about something else.” Mina hugs herself like she's cold. “Tomorrow is her appointment.”

“For what?”

Mina looks up and frowns. “Kendra's going to have an abortion.”

I think of Kendra's voice in our last phone call. “Why didn't she tell me?”

“I think she's ashamed.”

“Of getting pregnant?”

“Of being more concerned about ruining her perfect life than creating a new one.”

“Michael doesn't know?” How could Kendra not tell him? And not tell us? She must have been going crazy.

Mina looks at the water. “It's what he wants.”

The water suddenly appears to boil around her feet. Mina yanks her feet out of the water and looks at me curiously.

“How can she be with such an asshole?”

Mina laughs uneasily. “Ye who live in glass houses—”

I cock my head. “Remy? You don't like him?”

Mina's answer is surprisingly soft. “Did you?”

I want to shoot her an angry look but it fizzles. The news about Kendra is overwhelming, but now Remy moves through my mind in countless flittering memories. “Should I go see him? Do you have to go with me?”

Mina pats my hand. “I'll wait here. Just think about him as hard as you can. You can do it.”

 

Remy. Remy. Remy getting out the shower, singing a silly French song with my name in it. Remy in bed, snoring like a bear. Remy's smile with his gleaming teeth. Remy's hand on my waist, possessive but so reassuringly confident.

 

Wow, he looks great.

Remy is in front of a fancy crowd, making a toast. He is obviously drunk, but carrying it well, dressed impeccably in a tux.

Not exactly what I expected. He's at a
party
? But if I'm here, he must be thinking about me—

“Merci! Merci beaucoup. Ce prix me signifie le monde.”

People applaud as Remy clutches an award in his hands
and thanks them profusely. The ballroom is filled with tables covered in white linen tablecloths and towering flower arrangements. Photographers wind amongst the guests, setting off firefly blasts of light. Camera crews zoom in on Remy walking down from the stage, a trophy in hand. Beautiful women in ball gowns stand clapping and wiping fake tears, beside their cheering, handsome dates.

A busty blonde in a slinky black cocktail dress breaks off from the crowd and makes her way towards Remy, shifting her hips as she glides through the adoring spectators.

“Tu le mérites,” she croons into his ear with a disgusting familiarity. She lingers a second longer to exhale onto his neck.

Remy closes his eyes and does not respond to her passionate praise. When he opens them, he looks ill. “Excusez-moi,” he mumbles, and claws his way through the smiling people.

When he gets to the bathroom, a distinguished gentleman is just about to step inside. He stops when he catches sight of Remy and smiles. “Ah, Monsieur Badeau—”

Remy puts his hand on the doorknob and averts his eyes. “Pardonez-moi,” he says as he slips past the startled congratulator.

Inside, Remy barely makes it to the toilet in time to vomit. His face is splotchy and dripping sweat. He flushes the toilet and wipes the seat with a wad of seat covers. He clenches a fist and punches the metal wall. He smoothes back his hair as if trying to calm himself down, but then he kicks a gilded trashcan and it careens to the floor clattering like armor. The kick sends Remy staggering until he slumps down on the toilet seat in his tux. With the growl of a grizzly, he drops his head into his hands and sobs.

It's heartrending to see. I long to touch him, comfort him. And I need to be held, feel his strong arms wrap around me and confirm my existence. But there is no me here. Here I am, a freshly completed last chapter. And a source of pain.

Helplessly watching Remy cry is the ultimate confirmation of my death. There is nothing to separate us, none of the usual barriers between lovers. No skin, no eyes staring into another's, no discordant heartbeats to denote the boundary between us. I am not him, I am not here. I am an observer of a world where I no longer swim. I'm a visitor to the aquarium.

“HE'S NOT AN ASSHOLE.” THE SOLIDITY OF THE wood dock soothes me, moors me to a world where at least I
feel
alive.

Mina's floating on her back in the lake. She looks over, surprised, but then her face sinks into dullness, her eyes gun-metal gray.

“Well, I suppose it doesn't matter anymore, does it, Sammy?”

It's like she punched me in the stomach. But she's right. “Will this go on forever?”

Mina sighs and looks up at the sky. “I don't know.”

“Will it stop when they stop thinking about us?” The tranquility of our snow globe is beginning to irritate me.

“I don't know.”

The smooth water reminds me of the swimming pool. “Is Kendra going to go through with it?”

“I don't know, Sammy.”

Anger hisses up from my stomach like vapors from a tomb. “Why don't you know?”

Mina looks me flat in the eye. “I. Don't. Know.”

I want to slap her. The clarity of that thought scares me. She challenges me with her obsidian eyes.
You can hear what I'm thinking.
She nods her head. We stare each other down like rival tigers. The water is so still it makes Mina look like a bust on a mirrored platter. “Does it ever rain, Mina? Does it change? A dock. A lake.”

Curiously, the lake begins to tremble. Mina notices when waves start to lap at her chest. But I can't slow down. My anger is a hurricane barreling through my ribs. “Billions of people arguing about God, and this is it? An unfinished memory. A sliver of puberty. This is what we get? Why did you stick me here?”

“Samantha, stop.”

It's too late to stop. “What if you'd listened to your mother? Maybe you broke the rules and now we're cut off from whatever was supposed to happen! What if now I'm stuck here for eternity? While everyone in the world slowly forgets I ever existed—”

My blood runs cold at the thought of such a fate. In tandem, my skin chills, like that instant when the sun dips behind the clouds. I cover my face with my hands and drop to my knees with a thud. It's impossible to make out Mina's reply over the sound of my tears and the rushing sound of rain.

Rain? My eyes spring open as the first drops hit my shoulders. The rain begins to hammer, much like the tempo of my heart, striking my cold skin the temperature of warm tears. Black clouds swarm in the sky, churning like the outrage in my belly. In the distance, lightning crackles in fury.

“Stop!” Mina's trying to ride a lake turned into a dark roiling ocean.

The water is rising. I jump to my feet but it rises to my
waist and then to my chin and I have to tread water. We're swimming in a hurricane from hell—no dock, no land, no grass. Just an infinity of storm.

A swell rises behind Mina, like the tidal wave from my nightmare. She's screaming something at me, but I can barely understand over the roar of thunder and water. She points at me, then at the sky. “You. You're—” Her words are swallowed again by the wind. The glinting wave curls above me and I raise my arms to shield myself. Mina puts out her arms. “Your emotions! Sam—”

The sea dumps Mina on top of me and we go under. But Mina's hands find me in the darkness, hooking under my arms, and drag me to the surface. Her face is twisted in remorse, lit up in flashes of lightning, as she struggles to keep us afloat. “I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!”

I try to consider what she said. My emotions command the water and clouds?

“I'm sorry I didn't spend more time on it,” Mina sobs. “I—I spent all my time with you.”

With those words, the wind of the world is snuffed out. The waves drop and the water stills. Mina watches in awe as we find ourselves standing on the dock with the water draining to our knees, our feet, and then gurgling through the wood boards to settle into its prior level.

I reach out and put a hand to Mina's cheek, already drying in the sun. “I thought about you every day, didn't I?”

Mina nods. “I was horrified when you and Isabel got trapped in the water, terrified when I realized you might die. But then…then I was just so amazed that it worked, that I got you here. I knew, though. I knew that you'd have a million questions. You're Samantha the scientist. You always have a million questions. I didn't want to mislead you into thinking I had all the answers.” She sits down on the dock. “But that's not to say I haven't come up with some theories.”

I sit next to her.

“I think there's a reason I ended up here.” Mina's hand lingers at her throat; she's thinking. “I think we were on to something with our research. Everything you taught me about thought, intention, belief. We must have been at least partly right. It gave me the power to hold on, and the power to create from my mind.” Mina looks up and realizes the clouds move now, drifting lazily across the sky. She grins at me. “And it kept us connected. The first time you tried to reach me, that's the first time I learned I could go watch.” Mina's smile widens. “And now you're
here
.”

My heart is as calm as the lake. “Love lasts.”

“What?”

“The journal. What you wrote. Love lasts.” I clasp my hands together like Jesse always does when she gets a neon lightbulb of an idea. “Mina.”

“Yeah?”

“I know why
I'm
here.” I smile so big Mina can't help but imitate me. “To bring you back.”