named Maria. She wasn’t beautiful, not on the outside, but she glowed inside. She was a perfect mother, but bad with money. I knew she hated peas but loved liver. He…Kent made fun of her for it.
No, not that.
I touched his hand, really touched it. I didn’t pass through him, but settled my icy fingers on his skin. He jerked under my touch, and his skin burned against mine.
I thought of Puck.
Kent had a little brother once. A little brother who had died in a flood. So long ago.
No. I can’t.
Do it.
I clamped my fingers around Kent’s wrist and took a deep breath. His heat flowed up my arm, blasting away the cold, warming everything with a honeyed thickness. Up my shoulder, across my chest, down my legs. My feet, my legs, my nose and my ears and my cheeks. My tongue. I took another deep breath, and the curtain of heat drew itself around me. I was submerged in it, drowning.
Kent screamed.
I ripped my hand away from his wrist and fell backward. I landed hard on my butt, and a lance of pain rocketed up my tailbone. I was solid. And…
Kent slumped back, his mouth open, his eyes wide. A band of black encircled his wrist, and the skin halfway up his arm was blue.
“Kent! Sir!”
I leaped to my feet and ran to him. Warmth filled every inch of me. My head swam like I’d drunk a pot of coffee. I shook him, and he moaned. Oh thank God.
I dug through his pockets and pulled out a tiny black cell phone. I went into his contacts and hit “M.” Maria’s name popped up. I hit the button and pressed the phone to my ear.
A voice picked up. Groggy, muffled, but aware.
“Maria, Kent has been in a car accident. I’m so sorry. I—I’m so sorry.”
“What? What are you saying? Who is this?”
Her voice rose hysterically. She was awake now.
“Corner of Broadway and Gilbert. Call the police.”
“Who is this?”
“I’m sorry. Call an ambulance. I’m so sorry.”
I shut the phone and tucked it into his hand. I waited with him, trying not to touch him. What had I done to him? Whose life had I ruined? Did I kill him? Could I?
When I heard sirens, I ran faster than I’d ever run my whole life. The warmth coated every muscle.
I closed my mind as I ran. I didn’t think of how I got to the intersection. I didn’t think of the cold, I didn’t think of my hand sliding through a car door. I didn’t think of my transparent legs. I didn’t think of Kent’s little brother. I didn’t think of Maria, digging through her clothes, putting on mismatched shoes, anything she could find. Digging through her desk for keys, groggy, flying out of her house in the middle of the night. Worried that her love was dead.
If he was, I killed him.
I didn’t think of any of those things.
My house wasn’t far, but Morgan’s was closer. I was miles from my place, but she lived just around the corner. I reached her apartment, threw open the gate to the complex, and sprinted up the stairs.
My fist paused just inches from the door.
What do I say? What could I possibly say to Morgan and her mom, Cheryl?
I was coming apart. I put my hands, nearly glowing with heat, against my eyes. Deep breaths.
I had no excuses, no explanations.
I pounded on Morgan’s door. After the third time, the door flew open.
Cheryl stood in the doorway, wearing only a flimsy nightgown she might have been too embarrassed to come to the door with if she hadn’t seen me through the peephole. She had that aging beauty-queen look to her, like Morgan after twenty-five more years and a thousand cigarettes. Her face broadcasted both confusion and fear.
“Lucy…what…”
“I need a ride home. I know…actually I don’t know what this looks like. And I…have no explanation. I just need. I want to go home. Can you give me a ride home?”
Only when she reached out to wrap me in a hug did I realize I was shaking. My sobs racked my whole body, but I didn’t notice it until I crushed myself against her steady shoulder. My face was soaked with tears. She whispered motherly nothings into my ear, promising that everything would be okay, that everything was okay. Her breath smelled like smoke, but it was wonderful. Her nightgown smelled like lilacs.
I took in a deep breath, and a trickle of warmth slid into my lungs. I saw her next to her boyfriend, Andy, in her bed. Just sleeping, pulled against each other in the night. Another wave of heat drifted through me.
“No!” I choked, throwing myself away from her.
“Lucy?”
I held up my arms in defense, trying to keep her away.
“Stay back…I don’t want to hurt anyone,” my voice broke. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Cheryl’s skin stretched against her thin bones. In the late hours, she looked even more fragile.
“I don’t understand. Lucy, it’s okay. Nobody is going to hurt you.”
I snorted, a mixture of a laugh and a sob. I felt snot, I felt tears. I was sobbing uncontrollably now. My legs gave out. I sank against the wall, falling to my knees. I heard noises, and when I looked up Andy and Morgan both stood in the doorway. Morgan pushed past them both and crouched next to me. She pulled me against her, and I let go.
“I’m so sorry…”
She held me against her, kissing my head, dragging her fingers through my hair. Morgan was insanely warm —I could picture her in those wool pajamas, wrapped under her electric blanket. I looked up at her, still hiccupping, still shaking. She’d just woken up, her hair stuck out at odd angles, and her eyes were puffy and dark.
She still looked gorgeous. I sighed, trying to calm myself. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cheryl and her boyfriend make a quick but awkward exit. They exchanged a look before turning and disappearing into the shadows of the darkened apartment.
“What’s going on, Luce?” Morgan asked me. She was calmer than I would have expected. I loved her right then.
“I don’t know.”
When she saw that I had no more to say just yet, she coaxed me to my feet and led me into the house. She sat with me, holding me, letting me cry my guts out. When the final few shudders stopped, a good ten minutes later, we talked.
It took a little convincing to stave off the obligatory parent phone call, but I explained that they had no idea I was gone, would have no idea I was gone, and likely were deep asleep. I won the argument by having Morgan pull out her phone, which hadn’t missed a single call. If I disappeared and my parents knew it, they’d call her first.
“You couldn’t go one week without becoming another Unsolved Mystery?”
She was only half joking. Her lips were smiling, but her puffy eyes were small and flat. The kind of tired that had nothing to do with the hour.
“What time is it?”
I rubbed my eyes and scanned the living room for a clock. Almost everything had been shut down, and no little green lights told me what time it was.
“Two-thirty, I think,” she said.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I didn’t plan this.”
“Didn’t plan what, Luce? What’s going on?”
I didn’t know where to start. If I should start. What could I say to her that wouldn’t make me look insane? Then again, when had I ever kept anything from Morgan? She’s my girl, my BFF. The only time I’d kept anything from her was the time I’d gotten so sick in the fifth grade that I hadn’t been able to make it to the bathroom at school. When she asked why I’d been taken home by my mom halfway through the day, I said I’d blown chunks on the bathroom sink. Trust me, it was worse than that.
