“You’re so
“What?” I said to her.
“In trouble, silly.”
“What?”
“Oh forget it.”
I only gave her a few seconds of stare, to her credit. It wasn’t the strangest Daphne-occurrence, not by a mile. I shook it off and thought about the plan.
The plan enlisted Daphne as the phone-ninja—Zack’s phrase—and it was her job to connect a three-way-call from my house. Daphne would sacrifice her night and stay hidden in my bedroom, so my parents wouldn’t catch wise. She would then call Morgan on my house phone and then make a three-way call with Morgan’s mom. In theory, the plan was solid.
“And if there are any complications, I’ll text you on my new…phone, oooooh!”
Daphne produced the thing, a shiny silver touch-screen phone. I rolled my eyes at her.
Benny, on account of his junior-ness, picked us up in his mom’s minivan. Not the coolest ride, but spacious and certainly more effective than the Shoelace Express. Morgan had her permit, but that wasn’t terribly helpful in any situation that didn’t involve driving her mom to the grocery store.
The front seat was empty—it looked like our fates were predetermined. Zack sat alone on the bench behind Benny, and their friend Marco sat alone behind Zack. When the sliding door rolled open, Benny’s voice ratcheted up to its usual explosive volume.
“Morgan! How do you feel about shotgun?”
I glanced at Morgan, and she hid her surprise well. Benny and Morgan had been friends for years, and he’d never shown any signs of interest. Well, any
“Sure,” she said, and slid into the front seat.
I hopped in next to Zack. It was an impulse—most of me wanted to stand there until he invited me up, but something in me, the part that yearned for caution, had broken. I clicked the seat belt in place and gave him a sideways glance.
His brow was crinkled and his tan skin sported a light sheen. Everything else about him was normal, but the look on his face was only shocking because of its uniqueness—Zack was nervous. Part of me thrilled at the thought of seeing behind his calm facade—part of me quailed in terror. To know that maybe it wasn’t all in my head. The thought was crazy, but I’d wanted Zack for so long that I think I was afraid of what would happen if I actually got him.
Wanda slid timidly into the seat next to Marco. Neither of them looked ready to be on a triple date, and shared identical looks of tension.
“Get the door, Luce?”
I reached out and trundled the big sliding door closed. Right as it
When I turned to look at him, I felt the hot explosion in my stomach, a would-be-rapist’s bullet slinging through my body—
Zack smiled at me. I touched my stomach, where hot blood oozed through the ragged hole in my shirt and welled up through my fingers. Zack’s smile didn’t falter as I raised my red fingers to the sickly yellow light streaming down from the streetlight overhead.
The light streaming through the windows gave the blood a maroon tint. It all seemed so unreal—
—that I felt a strange urge to smell it, or taste it. The pain in my chest quadrupled, and Zack’s face began to sag. Finally he noticed the blood, and he cocked his head to the side.
“Luce?”
“I’m…fine.”
“I think you’ve been shot, Luce,” Zack said to me, his eyes glancing toward the ground. “I think you’re dead, Luce.”
“No,” I said. I tried to wipe the blood on the front of my skirt, “No.”
“It didn’t happen like this, did it?” Zack asked me, the sad puppy-dog tone breaking my heart.
“No,” I said, and I felt my traitor’s voice breaking. “You held my hand last time. We watched some dumb action movie. You kissed me inside the theater in front of everyone. You told everyone we should date.”
I laughed, despite the catch in my throat, “You polled the audience.”
“What did they say?”
“Most people said we looked cute together,” I said. “One guy called you gay.”
“What did you say?”
“You know what I said,” I said. “I kissed you back.”
Zack smiled. “Yeah. I thought so. That’s much better. Better than this.”
I nodded and felt tears spill over and slide down my cheek.
Benny turned around, and Morgan too, but both of them faded into encroaching darkness. Morgan’s mouth was open—she tried to talk before the shadows stole her away. I heard Wanda make a little squeak behind me, and when I turned around, she was gone, too.
“Why are they leaving?”
Zack smiled again. A melancholy smile. An angel’s smile, I realized—beautiful, wise, but infinitely sad. Like he knew the course of the universe and wept at its passing.
“We’re all leaving,” Zack said, and leaned forward.
When his lips touched my forehead, I knew. They weren’t warm, they weren’t solid. It felt like wind brushing the hair out of my eyes. It felt nothing like the kiss in the movie theater. It felt nothing like the heady rush, the warmth of his lips, the taste of his sweat.
“I’m dying?”
The rest of the van faded away into darkness, until Zack and I sat on a disembodied bench seat in the abyss. My feet dangled over nothing. Maybe everything. I took a deep, rattling breath, waiting for his answer.
“Yes.”
“I love you,” I said.
“I know,” he said, and kissed my forehead again. Nothing this time. Not even the gentle breeze. “Stand up, Luce.”
I did. My feet touched asphalt this time. The abyss was gone—we floated in a pool of yellow light, in an alley behind a dead office building. He held me to him, like dancing, and then he dipped me. We stayed there for a long time, him holding me just above the ground, looking down at me.
Then it wasn’t Zack anymore. Just a black shadow in the shape of Zack. The shape I loved so much. He let me down the last foot to the asphalt, slowly, gently, cradling my broken body draining rapidly of strength. When he set me down and stood up straight, I could barely even feel the jagged rock beneath me. I felt nothing, in fact.
“Buh…”
I couldn’t even form the word before the shadow winked out of existence.
I had no more tears to cry, I realized. Nothing but the slow pulse of my blood leaking out onto a dirty parking space. Then I went cold. Then I died.
Light. Welling. Heat.
Fire.
Hell?
