Hereafter

“What the hell was it?” I asked.

Two crows swooped over and perched on the back of one of the outdoor chairs. A third joined them, forcing them to bounce sideways and adjust their talons on the wrought iron bar.

“That’s what happens when you touch the next person you’re going to usher,” Krista told me, twisting her long blond ponytail around her finger. “Since their death is something they can’t tell you about themselves, it gets ‘revealed to you,’” she added, throwing in some air quotes. “It lets you better understand them so you can help them through whatever they need to get through.”

I barely heard a thing after the words next person you’re going to usher.

“Wait a minute,” I said to Krista, waving my hands in front of me. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you telling me that my next charge is…Aaron?”

Krista bit her bottom lip. “Looks that way,” she said. “I’m really sorry.”

The door behind her opened, and Joaquin’s “grandmother,” Ursula, stuck her head out. “Krista, hon? You got orders up.”

“I gotta go,” Krista said apologetically. Then she paused as she held the door. “You’ll be okay. I mean… right?”

“Sure,” I said, nodding absently. “I’ll be fine.”

She squeezed my hand once before turning in a swirl of gingham and lace and heading back inside. Ursula, however, stayed.

“Can I get ya anything, hon?” she asked sympathetically, her leather bracelet clinging to her thick wrist.

I tried to smile. “No, thanks. I’m good,” I lied.

As soon as she was gone, I sank to the sidewalk, sitting with my back against the wall of the building as the crows cawed and screeched. My insides were hollow, numb.

Aaron was leaving. Before I knew it, he’d be out of my life for good. And I was going to be the one to make him go.

Confession

“Do you think Darcy will come out and join us?” Aaron asked me that night, folding both arms behind his head.

We were both on lounge chairs on the back deck, staring up at the stars. My pulse pitter-patted nervously. In the pocket of my jeans, Aaron’s coin pressed heavily against my thigh.

We’d spent all day together, and as much as I wanted to focus on enjoying the time I had left with him, the same thoughts kept hovering in the back of my mind: When? When was it going to happen? How would I know it was time? I felt constantly on edge, like at any second a bomb was about to go off.

“Probably not. She has a date with Fisher,” I said.

Aaron lifted his head, intrigued. “Really?”

I sighed. “Second one in two days.”

“You don’t approve?” Aaron joked, narrowing his eyes.

“It’s not that,” I said, only half lying, picking at my fingernails. Overhead, a cloud of gnats hovered around the outdoor light. “It’s just…I miss her, I guess. I’d rather she spend time with me.”

“Aw! That’s so sweet!” Aaron said, nudging me with one hand. “So tell her!”

I scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

Aaron pushed himself up on one arm and rolled to face me. “No. I’m serious. You should. Just be honest about how you feel. That’s what I’d do if I could talk to my dad.”

His eyelids fluttered down for a second, and I could sense his whole body tightening at the thought of his father.

“What happened with you two?” I asked gently, somehow speaking past the lump in my throat. “You never said.”

“I know,” Aaron responded. When he opened his eyes again, they were full of tears. “It’s because I’m embarrassed. He was just trying to look out for me, and I—”

Out of nowhere, Aaron started to sob, a silent, racking kind of sobbing. He rolled over onto his back again and placed his hand over his eyes. I sat up and placed my feet on the ground, twisting my leather bracelet around my finger.

“Oh…god. I’m so sorry, Aaron. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Suddenly I felt hot all over, and I was grateful for the cool ocean breeze on my back. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No, I do.” He took a deep breath through his nose and sat up, pulling his knees up to his chest. “I do,” he repeated in a calmer voice. “I was going out with this guy,” he said with a sniffle. “Charles. My dad never approved of him. Said he was disrespectful and immature. I thought it was just that he didn’t want me with any guy, so I ignored him. I liked Charlie because he seemed dangerous. I thought it was exciting that he drove a motorbike and lived in this tiny shack by the water. I thought it was cool.” He said the last word with venom in it.

I inched forward on my seat, leaning toward him and placing my hand on his back. The second I did, all of his anguish, all of his sorrow and self-doubt and anger, rushed through me so fast the pain was almost too much to take.

And just like that, I knew. It was time. Aaron was getting ready to move on, and this was how I was supposed to help him. I was supposed to listen, to be here for him, to let him confess everything.

“So what happened?” I asked quietly.

“One night my family went out to dinner, and we came home early because my sister had taken ill. We found the door to our house was open,” he said, giving me this knowing look, as if he expected me to see where this was going. “My father told everyone to wait outside, and he went in on his own. Two seconds later we hear shouting, and all of a sudden Charlie comes running out of the house and tears off down the street. We heard the motorbike getting away before my father even made it back down the stairs. Charlie had known we were going to be out all night and had used the opportunity to try to rob us.”

My heart gave a horrible, sick thump. “Oh my gosh. Aaron, that’s—”

“Awful. I know,” Aaron said. He swung his legs over the side of the lounge chair and faced me, which forced me to pull my hand back. “But the worst part is, I defended him.”

With that, Aaron buried his face in his hands and cried. I covered my mouth, unsure of what to say. All I knew was I didn’t want to interrupt him. He needed to get this out of his system, and I was going to let him. After a few minutes, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand and sighed.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” I told him. “Go on.”

“Well, I told my father that he deserved it. That he was such a closed-minded prig it was no wonder Charlie felt the need to punish him,” Aaron said. “I accused him of shoving our wealth in Charlie’s face all the time, of practically tempting him into doing it. Then I told him I was going to run away with Charlie and I wasn’t coming back.”

“Wow,” I breathed, staring at Aaron’s blotchy face. “What happened?”

His eyes took on a distant blankness, as if he wanted to hold himself apart from whatever he was going to say next. I reached out and took his hand, entwining my fingers with his. My fingers instantly began to throb with the strength of his regret.

“When I got to Charlie’s, he was gone. The place was wiped out,” Aaron said, looking down at our hands. “He just bailed. And when I tried to call him, his number had been changed. No explanation, no apology, not even a breakup e-mail. He just left.” He breathed in shakily and let it out. “So I came to America to stay with my uncle and get away for a while. It was a chat with him that made me realize how wrong I was, actually. But then the fire happened, and I haven’t had a chance to call my father since.”

The fire. The fire that had taken Aaron’s life. And because of that, he would never have a chance to call his father.