The Ghost and the Goth

9 Alona

I stretched out my newly solid legs, bending them at the knee and rotating my ankles, rejoicing in their, well, thereness, and then turned to stare at Killian leaning back in his seat, his eyes closed. “How did you do that?” I demanded. I’d tried everything to keep from disappearing — well, if everything meant screaming, shouting, and cursing for it to stop — and it hadn’t even slowed the process a bit.

He opened one eye to squint at me. “I didn’t do anything. You did.”

“Oh, no, no.” I pointed a finger at him. “Don’t even try that with me. You knew it would work. How?”

“Positive equals energy,” he muttered under his breath.

I frowned. “What?”

He sat up slowly. “Nothing. Forget it.”

“I will not forget it. I need to know how you did that.”

“Why? So you can scare people and then pull yourself back together at the last second?”

“Well …”

“Sorry, it doesn’t work that way, sweetheart.”

I glared at him for the endearment, but his gaze was already focused on something in the rearview mirror.

“Cops,” he said. “Time to go.”

Glancing back over my shoulder, I found a squad car doing a slow roll down Henderson. It sped up and pulled even with us just as Killian started the engine.

The policeman, an older, grizzled-looking type, rolled down his passenger-side window.

“Everything okay here?” he asked. His sharp gaze took in Killian’s hair, his dark clothes, the car.

“You better smile, or we’re toast,” I said. “Everything about you screams social malcontent with a grudge and a trunk full of weapons.”

Killian’s hands tensed on the wheel, and I knew he was dying to tell me off. Instead, he forced a reasonable-looking smile on his face. “Yes, officer. Everything’s fine. Just waiting for someone who never showed.”

“Oh, ha, ha,” I said.

The policeman nodded after a long moment. “The street is not a parking lot, son. Move along.”

“Yes, sir.” Killian turned off the hazards, flipped on his turn signal, put the car in gear, and pulled away from the curb — textbook driving.

“Well, aren’t you a good citizen?” I smirked.

“Shut up.” He kept his gaze on the rearview mirror as we proceeded down Henderson at three miles under the speed limit. He turned right onto Elm, cut in front of the school, through the teachers’ parking lot, and into the last aisle of the student lot. I knew it as Burner Row. He parked and slumped back in his seat with a loud sigh of relief.

“If he could arrest someone for looking guilty,” I said, “you would have been it. You weren’t even doing anything wrong.”

“Doesn’t matter. I can’t risk any more trouble right now.”

I turned sideways in my seat to face him, grateful for the first time for being invisible to everyone else. Hardly anyone was left in the parking lot by now — all of them moving toward the building and class — but still. Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever imagined a scenario, even life after death, that would have me in Will Killian’s car in Burner Row. Though, it did offer a pretty view of the track and the football field. “So, why am I here? And no smart-ass answers, please,” I added quickly.

Killian didn’t answer right away, tapping his hands restlessly on the steering wheel, pale-skinned but nicely shaped biceps pulling at the sleeves of his T-shirt. Wow, so goth boy found time to work out. Interesting. “I have a proposition for you,” he said finally.

To which I responded the only way I could. “I’m not sleeping with you, even if you are the only one I can touch. I’m dead, not desperate.” I flopped back in the passenger seat and checked the tips of my nails for damage, more out of habit than anything else. I’d worked very hard to grow them out for prom and graduation, not that it mattered now.

He made a disgusted noise. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I’m not the one who keeps staring at my legs,” I pointed out.

Two red spots rose in his pale cheeks. “What happened to being nice?”

I lifted a shoulder idly. “Break glass in case of emergency, you know?” I waggled my fully formed, noninvisible hand in front of him. “I’m not disappearing yet.”

“Unfortunately,” he muttered.

“Hey!” I sat up. “I was only disappearing because you wouldn’t help me in the first place. You can’t take credit for fixing a mess that you made.”

He raked his hands through his shaggy black hair, which might actually have been attractive with the right cut. “Whatever. I’m ready to help you now.”

I let my hand drop. “What?”

“You heard me.” He refused to meet my eyes.

“Why?” I asked suspiciously.

“What does it matter?” he asked with impatience. “Just—”

“Oh, no, it matters. Yesterday, you kept trying to send me away. I had to twist your arm to get you to give me ten minutes of your time, and then you went and got yourself knocked out for the day. Plus,” I added with a little extra indignation, “you said you thought I went to hell.”

He sighed. “Are you going to keep bringing that up?”

I pretended to consider it. “Yeah, I think so.”

“All that matters is …” He fidgeted with a gash on the steering wheel plastic, his fingers tracing it over and over. “Look, do you want to get out of here or not?”

“Depends,” I said slowly. “Where are you going to send me?”

He made an exasperated sound. “It’s not like that. I don’t have that kind of influence over … You have to understand …” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he turned slightly in his seat to face me, his face serious.

Feeling a tingle of anticipation for what he was about to say, I leaned forward.

“Not everyone who dies ends up here,” Killian said, with the air of someone imparting some great secret.

I flopped back in my seat with a sigh. “Duh.”

He scowled at me.

“Seriously, do you expect that to be a shock to me?” I shook my head in disbelief. “I’ve been here for five days, and I have yet to see any of the dead people I know … knew.” I frowned. “Whatever. Plus, it would be way more crowded.”

He looked startled. “That’s true. How did you—”

“Just because I care about what I look like”—I took in his black T-shirt and ratty jeans with some distaste—“doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

“Fine, fine.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Just listen, okay? Not everyone who dies ends up here. Some of them go directly to their final destination. Do not pass Go, do not visit your own wake.” He gave me a sharp look.

I shrugged. Yes, I’d attended my own visitation and funeral, so what? Who wouldn’t? It’s literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — actually less than — to see who really cares about you and how much.

Thinking about it now, I did not remember seeing Killian at the funeral home, the church, or the cemetery. Yeah, it had been gratifyingly crowded at each location — the superintendent had even let everyone out of school early just so they could go — but trust me, you pay a lot of attention to who’s coming and going when you’re the guest of honor, so to speak.

I felt a weird sort of pang in my chest — almost like hurt. So, I was good enough to argue with, stare at, and fantasize about — since sixth grade, and yes, it was obvious — but not special enough to warrant a fifteen-minute side trip in the course of his day? Granted, the number of other spirits that probably hang around a funeral home and church might have made it a bit uncomfortable for him, but still.

Whatever. Like it mattered. Who was he to mourn for me? Just a lame-ass social nobody I never even would have realized was missing from my funeral, if I hadn’t died and needed his help. Right, okay, a small logic problem with that, but you know what I mean.

He waved a hand in front of my face to catch my attention. “I’m not doing this just to hear myself talk. You with me?”

I swatted at his hand. “I’m sorry, was my glassy-eyed boredom distracting you? Please, keep going.”

He gritted his teeth for a long second, but eventually continued. “Like I was saying, for people like you”—he made it sound as if nobody was like me, but not in the good way—“who end up here, one of three things happens.”

Now this is what I needed to hear. Forcing aside the odd little flare-up about Killian missing my funeral — being dead really screws with your emotions — I sat up straighter and turned toward him again, folding my legs underneath me.

“Most people aren’t here very long—”

I frowned. “But those ghosts … spirits at the school—”

He let out a breath between his teeth, an impatient hiss. “Hang on, I’m getting there.”

“Well, hurry up.” Sheesh, wasn’t like we had all day. Actually, one of us had much longer than that, but again, listening to Killian babble was not exactly how I wanted to spend the rest of eternity.

He glared at me. “Are you always this pushy?”

“Only when my immortal soul hangs in the balance,” I shot back.

“I knew you were Catholic,” he muttered.

“Watch it.”

He ignored me. “Like I was saying, when people land here, they don’t stay very long. For the most part, they’re gone in a few days.”

“Gone how? That’s the part I need to know.”

He clamped his mouth shut, and his jaw muscles twitched beneath his skin. To be sure, he had a nice jawline, firm and square. Too bad he ruined it by being all pale and spooky-looking. “For some of them, someone or some …thing comes to get them.”

“A bright white light?” I asked eagerly. I’d seen no sign of that around me at all, but at least I’d know what I was looking for.

Killian, for once, didn’t seem annoyed by the interruption. He shook his head thoughtfully. “No, not like what you see on television. It’s hard to describe. At a distance, it feels sort of warm and welcoming, like someone captured a perfect summer day in a jar and poured it out over your head.” His eyes stared off at some point above my head, a faint smile pulling at his mouth.

“How poetic,” I said with a smirk.

He snapped back to attention then, glaring at me. “You asked.”

“What about the others?” I persisted. “You said one of three things happened. The happy golden light is one alternative. Getting stuck here forever or at least for a bunch of years, like the people at school, that’s clearly option number two.”

He nodded begrudgingly.

“So what’s the third thing that can happen?” I bet he just loved having me pull all of this information from him, making him feel special and important and crap.

“Most of them just disappear,” he said, sounding like that’s what he wanted to happen to me right then and there.

Alona gone, poof. But for once I didn’t feel the slightest bit woozy.

“How long does the disappearing thing go on?” I really hated this sliding in and out of existence. It was annoying, like never being able to finish a sentence before having to start over again.

Killian shook his head. “That’s what’s weird. For most of them, it’s a one-shot deal. When you disappear, you’re done.” He looked over at me, his pale blue eyes distant and cool, like he was imagining me gone.

“So what happens when you completely disappear? I mean, is it bad there?” I felt tears pricking my eyes. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t been perfect, but surely, I didn’t deserve to be completely obliterated, right?

“I don’t know,” he said, lifting his hands palms up. “I’ve never had anyone come back and tell me.”

“But I don’t understand—” I stopped, a sense of horror dawning on me as his words made another piece of the puzzle click into place. “That’s why you laughed at me yesterday. Before school started. You didn’t care if I saw you see me because you thought I was gone for good.” I felt the truth in it even without his response.

He glanced away, staring out the side window at the parking lot. “I shouldn’t have laughed. That was wrong.”

“You’re damn right it was.” I couldn’t believe him, parading around as this nice, albeit freaky, guy when secretly he wanted nothing more than to see me gone … permanently. “I’ve never done anything to you to deserve—”

He laughed bitterly. “Oh, right. The great and golden Alona Dare, the original Miss Perfect.”

Stung, I jerked back. “I never claimed to be—”

But he wasn’t done yet. “One cross-eyed look or nasty word from you destroys lives, and you take pleasure in it—”

“I’ve had enough of this.” I turned away from him to pass through the car door and into the street, but my foot, followed closely by the rest of me, smacked solidly into metal and plastic. “Ouch.” I reached for the car door handle.

“Becca Stanhope.”

I stopped, my fingers wrapped around the metal handle. “The fat …” I paused and rolled my eyes. “Big-boned girl from pre-calc who wears the baggy sweaters? What does she have to do with anything?” I tossed a triumphant look over my shoulder at Killian. “She came to my funeral, and she cried.”

“Probably with relief because you were dead and wouldn’t be bothering her anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You made her cry.”

It took me a second to remember what he was talking about. I’d said something to the her, I didn’t even remember what. Only that she’d run from the room, crying, her sweater flapping behind her. “Once, and that was, like, months ago.”

He gave me an accusing look. “You told her she should buy her clothes in the right size.”

“So?” I shrugged, feeling surprisingly defensive. “She should. There are plenty of cute things in the plus-size section. It just takes a little effort and—”

“Her grandmother makes her those sweaters.”

“Her grandmother should know better. It’s like she’s trying to make the girl look even worse.” I frowned. “How do you know that? About the grandma sweaters, I mean?”

“Because she cried every day at the end of PE when she was getting dressed for her next class. Pre-calc,” he said flatly.

“You’ve taken to spying in the girls’ locker room, Killian? I didn’t think you were that desperate.” My comeback lacked punch. The image of Becca Stanhope sobbing in the aisles of the girls’ locker room made my conscience twinge. I hadn’t necessarily meant to be cruel. It just bugged me how little people cared about themselves and how they were perceived. You don’t care what the world thinks? Fine, but don’t expect the world to accept and applaud you solely for that fact.

“Joonie has class with her. She told me,” Killian said in that lofty voice of the morally superior. He sounded like Father Rankin.

“I’m sure Becca and Joonie are close friends, right?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Joonie probably went right over, gave her a big hug, and told her it was going to be okay.” Becca wasn’t in my lunch hour, so I had no idea where she sat, but based on the look of her, I’d guess the fourth or fifth tier of caf tables, probably floating between the band geeks and the Spanish club. Nowhere near the courtyard full of burners like Joonie and Killian.

Killian looked away. “She overheard Becca telling Mrs. Higgins.”

“Yeah, see, you and your friends exclude people, too.” Actually, Becca probably would never have spoken to Joonie anyway, so it was more of a mutual exclusion, but my point was the same. Everyone does it.

Killian shook his head. “We’re not deliberately mean.”

I gaped at him. “I’m not—”

“Joey Torres,” he said immediately, as if he’d just been waiting for me to deny it.

“Pizza-faced Joe?” I frowned.

Killian winced. Whatever. I didn’t give Joey that nickname. “He asked you out, and you made fun of his skin. He had to transfer schools because of you.”

“That’s what people are saying?” I asked incredulous.

He arched an eyebrow. “That’s not what happened?”

“First of all, I had a boyfriend at the time, which he knew.”

“Not everyone keeps up with the minute details of your social life.”

“Fine, then he should have known. Isn’t the first rule of asking someone out — make sure they’re single?”

“You’re saying you would have gone out with him if you didn’t have a boyfriend?”

I shuddered. “Of course not. He is so not my type.”

“Why, because he sits at the wrong cafeteria table?” Killian sneered.

“No, because he dresses up as a storm trooper on the weekend,” I snapped. “He invited me to some kind of sci-fi convention thing.”

Killian looked startled.

“The point is,” I continued, “it doesn’t matter. He asked me out, knowing I had a boyfriend, and hoping he could count on guilt or pity to force me into going. I said no, that’s it.”

He shook his head. “You are a piece of work.”

Now I was getting angry. What was this, Beat Up on Alona Day? Someone should have told my mother she’d created a new holiday. “Oh yeah, how is your good friend Joey doing now?”

“What do you mean?”

“He goes to St. Viator, right? In town?”

Killian shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know.”

“I do.” I sounded smug, and I didn’t care. “I saw him at a basketball game a few months ago when we played their team. His skin was clear, and he had his arms around a cute little nerdette, very early Jennifer Garner, as a matter of fact.”

“You take credit for that, I see.”

“Of course not. I was just honest with him and said no. The world is cruel, Killian, and you should know that better than anyone. People don’t get jobs if they show up looking sloppy. Having physical flaws doesn’t mean you should rely on pity for dates. Just because your life doesn’t automatically work out the way you want it doesn’t mean you get to give up and expect the rest of the world to work around you. You have to play within the system to win.”

“Says the girl with the perfect face, the perfect body, the perfect life …” he intoned.

I should have been pleased that he’d bought into my image; I’d spent years cultivating it and countless, exhausting hours refining and tweaking it, buying just the right clothes, planning just the right thing to say, making it look effortless. But instead, I felt this wave of fury building in my chest. He was going to judge me? Like all this so-called perfection just fell in my lap and I should have been more grateful or something?

“Let’s go,” I snapped. “Drive.” It was still early. My mother would probably still be passed out. The empty vodka bottles I’d painstakingly arranged yesterday into the word STOP on the floor would still be in place. Let him get a good whiff of my perfect life.

He gave me a confused look. “Drive where? We’re already here. And”—he checked his cell phone with a grimace—“ten minutes late. Brewster’s going to kill me.”

I reached over and yanked the gearshift down one notch into reverse, and metal on metal shrieked.

Alarmed, he jammed his foot onto the brake. “Alona! The transmission is not—”

“You want perfect?” I said in flat voice I barely recognized as my own. “I’ll show you perfect.”