Before I Wake

Finally he squeezed her hand and met her gaze across the table. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing,” she said. “You don’t have to do anything but let them set their own pace. You don’t have to condone anything. You don’t even have to change your open-bedroom-door policy. Just…let them figure things out for themselves. Please.”

I stopped breathing so I wouldn’t miss anything. I was too nervous to move closer, even though they couldn’t see or hear me.

My dad inhaled deeply. Then, at last, he nodded. And I snuck back to my room, reeling from what I’d just heard.

* * *

Checking Scott’s coffin turned out to be impossible, because he didn’t have one yet. After a little digging in the online versions of the local newspapers, I’d figured out which funeral home his parents had chosen, but after a glance around the place—incorporealty has its advantages—I discovered that the body wasn’t scheduled to be picked up until the next day.

Scott was still at the hospital morgue.

That night, I made up for the morning’s chaos with a tray of fast-food tacos in front of the TV with my dad. I had to pretend to be surprised by the brownies Harmony had brought over. Fortunately, he seemed no more inclined to discuss her visit than I was to ask about it.

After dinner, I made sure he saw me doing my homework for a couple more hours, then I made sure he didn’t see that Tod was in my room when he went to bed. My dad had agreed not to stand between us—though I wasn’t supposed to know that—but he hadn’t changed any of the rules.

“You know what tonight is?” I said when Tod settled into the big bean-bag chair in the corner of my room. That was the only place he could sit without giving away his presence with the loud creak of springs or the squeal of metal.

Tod tugged me down into his lap, facing him, and his hands settled at my waist. “What is tonight? And by the way, whatever it is, it can’t top this.” He pulled me down for a kiss and I lingered there, enjoying the moment.

“Tonight is take-your-girlfriend-to-work night,” I whispered into his ear as his hand slid beneath my shirt and splayed across my back. “So… You should take your girlfriend to work.”

“Why would my girlfriend want to spend all night in the company of the sick and dying?”

“She wouldn’t.” I kissed my way up his neck, and he craned his head to give me better access.

“Should I assume the lure is a certain attractive young dead man?”

“Yup. Scott Carter’s in the morgue. But maybe after I’ve made sure he’s resting in peace, I’ll come visit you, too.”

His hands slid higher and we settled deeper into the bean bag. “Change your mind about playing doctor?”

“No, but I hear candy-striper uniforms are pretty cute.”

“We don’t have candy stripers.” Tod frowned. “Why don’t we have candy stripers?”

“Emma was a candy stripper for Halloween. I thought I might borrow her costume for next year, but I doubt it’ll look the same on me as it did on her.” I shrugged. “Maybe after we’re done in the morgue I could try the costume on, and you could help me decide whether or not it fits… .”

Tod’s eyes widened, and his irises swirled in tight twists of blue “Well, I don’t see that I have much choice, considering that’s part of Reaper Law.”

“There’s a Reaper Law?”

“Of course. ‘A reaper is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous…’” He shrugged. “It gets boring after that. But this situation is clearly covered under the ‘helpful’ category.”

I rolled my eyes. “I think that’s the Boy Scout law.”

“They took it from us. But they left out all the good stuff. The point is that I am both honored and obligated to take an early peek at your Halloween costume. A thorough peek. A good long look, just to be safe. Don’t want to be accused of shirking my duties.”

I laughed. This wasn’t like me. I hadn’t even dressed up on Halloween, and now I was considering it for purely recreational purposes, because everything I’d enjoyed before I died—books, movies, music—had lost most of its appeal. It all seemed pointless, and those long hours between the time Tod went to work and the time my alarm clock went off for school had become almost unbearable.

The old wasn’t working, so I needed to try something new.

“Tell Em we won’t need the costume for very long. And tell her I owe her. And—”

I arched both brows at him in amusement. “I’m not telling her any of that. Just come with me to ID the body, and afterward, we’ll take a break from all the morbid for a few minutes of teenage normal.”

“On what planet is it normal to prance around the hospital in a sexy Halloween costume with your undead boyfriend?”

“I won’t be prancing, and I’m only considering trying it on at all because no one else will see me. Besides, normal is a relative term. And I desperately need some normal.”

Tod frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just… I feel so good when I’m with you. I feel alive, and normal, and real. But then you go to the hospital every night, and my dad goes to bed, and I can’t sleep, and I start feeling like I’m all alone, and that feeling gets stronger and stronger. It feels like the air around me is heavy, and it takes too much effort to breathe, much less move. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to watch anything. I don’t want to eat anything. I’m alone with my thoughts, and my head feels like a radio playing at top volume, while everything else around me is just…dead. It happens every night, several hours before dawn, and when it’s time to go to school in the morning, I’ve forgotten why I ever wanted to go back in the first place.”

“That’s pretty normal, Kaylee,” Tod insisted. But I could see concern swirling slowly in his eyes. “You’re still adjusting to being dead. When I was new at this, I noticed that in the middle of the night, when work got really slow, I kept forgetting to breathe. Which should be no big deal. I don’t need the air, anyway, right?” he said, and I nodded. I knew where this was going. “Except it is a big deal, because when I’m not breathing, I feel extra-dead. And the dead don’t fit in here.” He spread his arms to indicate the entire human world.

“Exactly. But last night, with Nash and Sabine here, none of that happened. I had a problem to think about, and someone to talk to—even if it was Sabine—and that 3:00 a.m. melancholy never came. In the morning, I didn’t even think about skipping school. I just got dressed and went, because I felt alive again, and that’s what living sixteen-year-olds do. I felt almost normal for the first time since I was brutally stabbed to death in my own bed.”

“The first time?” Tod frowned, and I realized what I’d said.

“You don’t make me feel normal. You make me feel amazing, like I’m more alive now than I was back when my heart beat on its own.” I leaned down to kiss him, and he leaned back in the bean bag until we were almost horizontal.

“This is my very favorite moment.”

“Ever?” I said, staring down at him, watching the blues in his irises swirl.

“Ever. Of every moment I’ve ever not-lived through, this one is the best.”

My heart beat faster and the endorphins felt wonderful, yet not as good as Tod felt beneath me, his chest firm under my hand, his fingers warm beneath the hem of my shirt. I leaned down to kiss him and his hand slid farther up my back.

Then my father cleared his throat behind me, and I froze. “Tod, go to work. Kaylee, go to bed.”

“He can’t see me,” Tod whispered against my chin. “Can he see you?”

“Nope. He can’t hear me, either.” I didn’t dare move, for fear of confirming what was surely only a hunch for my father at the moment. And somehow, sharing that moment of stillness and silence with Tod made me feel closer to him than ever.

My father sighed. “It’s suspiciously quiet in here, and there’s a Tod-shaped dent in the bean bag. For the sake of both my sanity and my temper, I’m going to pretend I can’t tell that you’re in his lap, so could you pretend that this is still my house and you are still my daughter, and I’m within my parental rights to kick your boyfriend out after 11:00 p.m.?”