They were armband — less too.
Swallowing the urge to throw up, I turned in a quick circle, looking for the trademark glossy black hair that belonged to my BFF and cheerleading cocaptain, Misty Evans.
After an endless moment, when my heart would have stopped if, you know, it already hadn’t, I found her on the bench farthest from me, half hidden by Leanne and the others.
I could only see Misty’s left shoulder and the side of her head, her ponytail bobbing as she talked to whoever was next to her. That was enough, though, because at the top of her left arm, I caught a glimpse of familiar black fabric and pink lettering.
With a smile of relief, I started toward her, carefully avoiding Miles Stevens as he paced back and forth talking to Ben and Leanne (who refuse to speak to each other for reasons unknown to the rest of us), and then dodging Ashleigh and Jennifer, who decided to ditch Leanne and leap, giggling and squealing, on Jeff Parker’s lap, nearly crushing his guitar in their hurry to pretend to be his groupies.
Ashleigh and Jennifer had been friends since kindergarten, and they did everything together, including buying matching — or at least color-coordinated — outfits for the entire year. It stopped being cute in about seventh grade, but they’d figured out their gimmick and they were sticking with it, no matter what. Just one of the many reasons Leanne called them the Idiot Twins. To their faces. Their response? “Duh. We don’t look anything alike.” Um, yeah. Leanne might be a bitch, but that didn’t make her wrong.
As it turned out, Leanne wasn’t wrong about much.
“God, Misty’s such a whore. Alona’s not even cold yet,” Leanne said to Miles, just as I passed by.
I froze at the sound of my name. In that moment of distraction, Ashleigh — Jennifer right next to her — darted through me; they were trying to get Jeff to chase them. The sensation of her all-too-solid and warm body passing through me stole my breath and rocked my stomach. But even that was not enough to let me miss Miles’s response.
He snorted. “Alona was cold even before she was dead.”
“True dat.” Leanne grinned at him, her freckled face crinkling by her eyes.
I stared at them, stunned. Neither of them had ever talked about me like that before … at least not to my face. I wouldn’t put it past Leanne to talk trash when my back was turned, but Miles? I was the one who freaking brought him into the Circle when he was new here last year. He was the only black kid in our school who wasn’t an athlete. He’d actually been a member of the chess club, for God’s sake, before I saved him. Not that it was entirely selfless or anything. He’d helped me with trig, and in the process, I discovered his ability to run wicked commentary on just about everyone in school. Including me, it seemed. God, what else had he been saying about me?
“Ungrateful dork,” I said in disbelief.
Years of habit had me striding toward Misty to tell her what I’d overheard, before two very obvious things clicked with me. First, Misty wouldn’t be able to hear me. Second, the Leanne and Miles bitchfest about me had actually started as an insult about Misty. Leanne had called her a whore, something Misty would deny, despite her string of one- or two-week relationships with fraternity boys from Milliken, the college in town. High school boys weren’t worth the effort, according to Misty.
I couldn’t figure out what would have triggered Leanne’s assault on her character. It wasn’t like there were any college guys here or that I would have been interested in any of them, even if there were.
But then, when I finally ducked and dodged my way to Misty, everything became clear.
Misty’s black armband with my name on it stood out crisply on the white long-sleeved T-shirt she wore under her cheerleading uniform top. Her black and glossy ponytail (“Condition with mayonnaise and rinse with beer,” she used to advise me) still bobbed with her movement. But she wasn’t talking. She was kissing. My boyfriend.
“Misty!” I shrieked. Of course, she didn’t react. She just kept kissing Chris in front of the whole school. ONE day after my funeral.
I didn’t know if it made me feel better or worse, but he, too, was still wearing his armband. Misty looked exhausted with dark circles under her closed eyes, and her mascara had dried on her cheeks in long tear tracks. But they were
“Do you think Alona knew about them?” Leanne asked Miles, her words drifting back to me. “I mean, I heard that’s why she threw herself in front of that bus. She found out and couldn’t face them and everybody knowing.”
“I did not throw myself in front of anything,” I shouted at Leanne, though I couldn’t tear my gaze from Misty and Chris. “It was … an accident.”
“I kept waiting for her to see them, and come here and throw some big screaming fit.” Leanne paused. “Now, that would have been something, right?” Her voice held as much disappointment as evil glee.
“Please, Alona didn’t see anything but Alona,” Miles said.
Pushed to my breaking point, I turned away from Misty and Chris, feeling like I was going to throw up. It didn’t seem likely considering I hadn’t actually eaten anything in three days now, but I wasn’t about to bet against it, given how things had been going. Cold sweat covered my skin, and my stomach lurched alarmingly. I swallowed hard.
“Why else would she be running away from school in the middle of zero hour?” Leanne continued.
“Shut up!” I bent in half, arms cradling my stomach, and realized I could see through my legs. As in, completely through them, like they weren’t even there. From the knees down, I’d started to disappear.
“No!” I howled. This wasn’t fair. I was being taken away now? Why not yesterday when I could have died, or passed on, or whatever, in happiness? And there wasn’t even a white light … not anywhere!
“Maybe she forgot her backup mascara and had to run home for it,” Miles offered, a sneer in his voice.
I jerked my head up to glare at him. I’d told him about my backup-makeup theory in confidence.
Leanne snickered.
I tried to run, to get out of there, but my legs, half gone as they were, wouldn’t work. I collapsed on the grass, watching the line of invisibility climb to the bottom of my shorts. At this rate, I’d be gone in less than a minute.
Unable to help myself, I turned my head to see my former best friend tangling tongues with my former boyfriend, something that was not even a new development, apparently. How long had they been hooking up? How long had they been laughing at me? Misty knew almost everything about me, stuff I didn’t want anyone else to EVER know. She was the only person I’d allowed to come over to my house for years. Had she told Chris all about it? Had Leanne been mocking me behind my back this whole time? Worse yet, what if people had felt sorry for me, Alona Dare?
Hot tears slipped down my cheeks, but when I reached up to wipe them away … no hand.
“No, no, no. This is not fair. This is such bullshit. I do not deserve this. I did everything right!” I sobbed, losing control completely. Crying ruins your makeup, not to mention the eventual cascade of snot you have to deal with, which was why I’d never allowed myself to shed a single tear in the company of these people. But none of them could see me now, and I’d never see any of them again, so who cared, right?
The bell rang, and everyone around me scrambled to gather up backpacks, purses, and guitar cases. Then they walked right through me on their way to the door. First, Jeff, who was quickly followed by Ashleigh and Jennifer (whose minuscule purses did not have any room to hold any kind of candle-wax sculpture, no matter how small). Then Ben sauntered through with an arm around his two chosen underclassmen virgin sacrifices. Leanne actually stood on me and checked her lipstick in her reflection on the shiny surface of her cell phone.
“Bitch,” I spat.
Chris and Misty, holding hands, did not walk through me, but only because they were already close to the door. And besides, hadn’t they walked
With only my head left, I watched as the entire school paraded past me, laughing and joking and worrying about pop quizzes like I’d never even existed. Like I hadn’t just tragically died only THREE days ago.
“This is hell. This must be hell,” I said, my voice nasally and clotted with tears.
As if to confirm that fact, Will Killian, the biggest weirdo loser of all time, looked right at me and smirked as he ambled by, just ahead of his pot-smoking buddies.
“Hey,” I shouted, furious. Like he had the right to laugh at me! Even dead, I was more popular than him. He was total loser material, skin so pale he practically glowed, and shaggy black hair that hung down in front of his creepy blue eyes. Seriously, they were so pale, they were almost white. And hello, he acted like such a freak, always wearing headphones and pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up, even inside the building. Rumor had it he’d
