The last minute, p.25
The Last Minute, page 25
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He dropped his hands and turned to Jade. “I feel . . . weird.”
“Weird?” she repeated, her dark eyebrows rising toward her bangs.
“Yeah. Like . . . lighter. Bigger.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re supposed to feel like that, dumbass.” Turning to me with a smirk, she shook her head. “I think he’s finally done it.”
“Done what?” I asked.
“Figured it out. Dropped the limitations he put on himself.” She turned back to Austin, who was staring down at his brother and mom in disbelief. “You can see everything now, can’t you?”
He nodded, awestruck, as he looked around the room. “Wow . . .”
I turned back to Kemp. Though I was happy for Austin, he wasn’t my priority at that moment. “I’m here,” I said. “Kemp, do you feel it?”
His left hand released from its fist. Maybe I just wanted to believe he’d done it for me. Maybe I just wanted to believe he could hear me, that he knew I was there. Carefully, I reached down and slipped my ghostly fingers into his hand.
“Can you feel it?” Jade asked. I shook my head, feeling like I was going to cry. “Then we need to get you back into that body of yours so you can.”
I looked up to protest, and noticed that she was standing there alone. Pulling away from Kemp, I sat up in surprise. “Where did Austin go?”
“Oh, he’ll be back. Now that he can come and go as he pleases . . .” She tilted her head toward the hallway. “Come on, Ivy.”
I turned back to Kemp. “But he needs me,” I whispered.
“Yeah. He needs you. Alive.” She swept forward, grabbed my arm, and pulled me to my feet. “So do Mom and Dad. So do your friends. And your future kids.”
“My kids?”
“If you want them.”
I shook my head. “Am I going to be able to do anything with that body other than lie in a bed and stare at the walls?”
She raised her eyebrow. “I thought you trusted me more than that, Ivy. Do you really think I’d push you back into a body so damaged that you couldn’t live a really great life?”
My chin began to tremble, and Jade’s skeptical expression morphed into one of concern.
“What?”
“I don’t trust you,” I said. The sob caught me off guard. I swallowed it back as I shook my head. “How can I? You were my identical twin. We did everything together, from the moment we went down the Fallopian tube.”
“Yeah . . . so?”
“You left me,” I said, my teeth clenched as tightly as my fists. “You died and left me here to pick up all the pieces, to have to live a life so big that it would make up for the one you lost. But I can’t. I’m not even going to be able to do justice to my own life.” The words kept tumbling out. I couldn’t look at Jade anymore. I was too afraid to see her expression. So I stared at the quilt on Nina’s bed instead, focusing on a giant spray of burgundy blossoms. “You would’ve had an amazing life. And I would’ve been content to live in your shadow. But when you died, you weren’t there to cast it anymore, and I was exposed. I’m the useless twin. I suck at sports, I suck at art, and I’m supposed to be going to university in September and I have no idea what I even want to study because I . . .”
“You what?” she asked gently. I took a deep breath and finally dared to raise my gaze to hers.
“I was the one who was supposed to die, wasn’t I?”
She let out a huge sigh and gave me an eye roll even bigger than the ones she’d reserved for Austin. “No, Ivy. You weren’t supposed to die. Neither was I. Sometimes things just happen. Would I have liked to finish up that life as your twin? Yeah. Of course! Maybe we’ll have another chance to do that sometime.”
“What? In another life, you mean?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t tell me you don’t believe in reincarnation after all this.”
I shook my head and turned my back on her to look down at Kemp, who was lying quietly as his mom continued to stroke his hair. “I don’t know how I could believe otherwise.”
“Every life is different,” Jade said, drawing herself close to my ear. “Maybe you started this one out with your twin. But you’re going to have to finish it by yourself. That doesn’t mean it can’t be a great life.” She rested her chin on my shoulder as she wrapped her arms around me. I reached up and placed my hand over one of hers.
“I’m scared,” I said.
“Yeah. So what? Everybody is. Nobody knows how anything is going to work out, really. The trick is to channel that fear and use it to make your life the best it can be.”
I pulled away and turned around to face her. Despite the blue-black hair and the coloured contacts and the shiny ring in her nose, I still felt like I was looking in a mirror. I could see my sister’s love, and I knew it was a mirror image of what I was sending her way.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“To start living again?”
She smiled and nodded. I reached out to take her hand, simultaneously glancing back at Kemp. A wave of affection swept over me, so strong I suspected Jade felt it. She squeezed my hand. “You’ll see him soon,” she said.
“How do you know?”
As she drew me out the door into the hallway, she cast a mischievous glance back at me. “Just a guess. And maybe wishful thinking.” She let out a little laugh and threw her arm around my shoulders. “If I were still alive,” she whispered in my ear, “you’d have to fight me for him.”
As I stood looking down at my lifeless body, a flood of emotions washed over me.
First and foremost was anger: mostly at Austin, for haunting me and getting me out to that creek when he hadn’t really known what he was trying to accomplish. I’d been used, and I hated it. But some of that anger was reserved for me, too, because I’d let myself be used. I’d lied to Kemp and gone down to that creek of my own free will. It was partly my fault that my body was lying there, so still.
Next came fear, the terror that nothing would ever be the same, that I would have to spend the rest of my life in a bed, unable to communicate, trapped in a prison of flesh. Even if it turned out my body was fine, I would still have to face Kemp and admit I’d done something really stupid. And that I’d lied to him. The thought of losing him over that brought me back to anger, and I cursed Austin for everything he’d put us through.
Jade’s fingers were laced through my own as she stood beside me, watching Mom and Dad with a soft smile on her face. Our parents looked tired, and they probably were. The sun was up, slanting greyish light through the window, and they were still sitting upright in their chairs, nursing new cups of coffee. I hated to think how many they’d already had.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I said. “Do you?”
“Get back in there, you mean?” She shrugged and frowned down at the body in the bed. “Not really.”
“I could try lying down on myself. Or . . . in myself?”
She laughed softly. “I don’t think so. If it were that easy to take over a body, I would’ve done it to keep you from falling in the creek.”
“Maybe it’s easier to take over your own body.”
“Maybe.”
I watched as Mom set aside her cup and put both of her hands around my right one. I pulled the ghostly version out of Jade’s grasp and held it up in front of me, frowning.
“Do you feel something?”
“No,” I said, though I was willing it with all my might. “Maybe I’m not even connected to my body anymore.”
“I think you are.”
“Why?”
“Because you’d know it if you weren’t.”
I didn’t ask her how she knew that. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. My gliding footsteps were silent as I moved around to the other side of the bed. Dad was sitting in a chair there, but it wasn’t pulled up right next to the bed, so I had a bit of room. Bending low over my own face, I examined my eyelashes. They were so still; it wasn’t like I was sleeping, with my eyeballs moving all about under my eyelids as I dreamed. Though I was still breathing—albeit with the help of a ventilator—the rest of me was as still as ice. It was as if I’d literally been frozen by the creek, and I had yet to thaw.
“There’s no rush, is there?” I asked, turning around to face my sister. “Let’s go for another walk. Maybe we’ll think of a way we can—”
“Ivy.” She shook her head. I sighed.
“Yeah. I know.”
She walked over and put her arms around me, gathering me into one of her tight hugs. I held her just as ferociously, as if I could fuse myself with her and we’d never have to be apart again. “Maybe you just have to want it,” she said quietly, her voice vibrating through me.
“But I don’t.”
“Don’t you? I don’t know . . . Hot chocolate, dressing up for Halloween and scaring the neighbours, an awesome attic suite of your very own, university in the fall, grad with a really cute date—”
“He’s not going to want to go with me now,” I whispered.
“Yes, he will. Like it or not, you guys are connected. And he loves you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“What we saw last night? That doesn’t happen without love, Ivy. You broke him open so he could start to heal. Even if he doesn’t consciously realize it, he knows you helped him.” She turned her head so she could kiss my cheek. “Listen,” she whispered. “Don’t make the same mistakes those boys did. Talk to Mom and Dad. Talk with them. Tell them how you’re feeling. You might be surprised.”
“By what?” I asked.
“Do you think they haven’t blamed themselves for what happened to me? You’re all feeling a variation on the same thing. But you’re all trying to deal with it by yourselves, each of you locked in your own little puzzle box. It’s time to dump out all the contents and start to deal with it. Help each other. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious. That’s my ghost desire.”
I let out a short laugh. “Your what?”
“Don’t ghosts always want something? Vengeance. To deliver a message. To scare people just for the hell of it.” She gave me a squeeze. “This is my desire: I want you and Mom and Dad to open up to each other and start to move past this.”
“We won’t stop loving you.”
She snorted. “I should hope not.”
I closed my eyes and rested my head against my sister’s. A strange sensation began in my chest, sort of where my heart would’ve been, had I had one. I sucked in a quick gasp.
“Just go with it,” Jade whispered. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
The bubbling sensation slowly became more solid, turning into something resembling the tug I’d felt the night before when we’d left the hospital. I stayed where I was, with Jade’s arms around me, and didn’t try to fight it . . . even though I was scared. I tried to imagine myself in the bed, feeling the mattress under my body, the blankets covering it, the pull of the plastic film from the IV, the squeeze of the blood-pressure cuff. I felt my heavy eyelids, the itch of the tape that held the tube in my mouth, and I imagined swallowing . . . but couldn’t. I started to gag, and I opened my eyes to find myself staring up at the ceiling. Mom placed her hand on my cheek as she stood up and, as I felt the warmth of her touch, I knew . . .“It’s okay, Ivy. It’s okay.” She looked up at Dad, who practically ran out of the room. “Relax, all right? It’s just a tube to help you breathe.”
I knew that, but my body was still rebelling against it, almost automatically. I reached up to try to pull it out, but Mom grabbed my hands and held them down. It was an interminable few seconds before Dad finally returned with a doctor, who released the tape and removed the tube. I coughed and gagged from the irritation in my throat, but when I took a deep breath in, unencumbered and free, it was the best feeling in the world. I started to cry, the relief making me feel like I was never going to stop.
“You’re all right,” Mom said, smoothing my bangs back from my face. “See, sweetheart? You’re all right.”
“I’m sorry,” I croaked. My voice sounded like I’d gargled with stones from the creek bed. I grabbed for Mom’s hand and squeezed it tight. “I’m sorry I almost died.”
“But you didn’t die,” Dad said, pulling his chair up to the other side of the bed and taking my hand as the doctor moved out of the way. “You’re still here.”
I’m still here, I thought, my bleary eyes searching the room for the last member of the family. But I couldn’t see her. Jade? Are you still here?
She didn’t answer. But as I closed my eyes, anchored by my parents on either side, I could’ve sworn I felt something whisper against my cheek.
I swam in a haze of drugs and weariness. My body ached. My throat was raw. And, for some reason, I still felt cold. When I curled up on my side to try to conserve warmth, Mom got a nurse to bring me some more blankets. Then I slept fitfully, my dreams a mixture of memories and visions, countless deaths that weren’t mine, and one that almost was.
I was sprawled out on my back again, barely able to move thanks to being encased in a tomb of blankets, when I heard the voices. My eyes were closed, my eyelids too heavy to fight. I heard Mom get up and step away, and then—oddly enough—the sound of introductions. Summoning all my strength, I managed to crack my eyelids open. The first person I saw was Nina, her chin resting on Mom’s shoulder as they hugged. I dragged my gaze to the side, only to see Kemp standing beside her, staring at me. His hands were shoved deep in his jacket pockets, and his forehead was twitching like he was trying to fight another round of tears. I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to hide it, that he could cry if he needed to. But talking was too much work. I let my eyelids slip closed again.
“Do you want to talk to her for a while?” Mom asked.
“I think she’s asleep,” Kemp said.
“She’s been dozing for hours. But she’ll be glad you’re here.”
After I heard their footsteps leave, I didn’t hear anything else. In my fuzzy-brained state, I assumed Kemp had left with them. I pulled the blankets up around my chin and turned my head away from the too-bright window.
“Ivy?” The sudden whisper gave me just enough of a jolt of surprise that I was able to peel my eyelids open. Kemp stood beside the bed, staring down at me. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I could see him clench his fists in his jacket pockets, his knuckles straining at the fabric. He chewed on his lip for a moment before looking away. I tried to swallow some of the scratchy feeling in my throat and took a deep breath. “I lied,” I said.
He frowned and pulled his hands out so he could lean down and brace them on the side of the bed. As I looked up at him, I noticed the pinkness of his eyes and the dusky shadow of stubble on his jaw. His hair was a mess, too. But he was one of my very favourite people, and I was probably going to lose him when he heard what I had to say, so I drank in the sight of him while I could. “About what?” he asked.
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I only told you that so you’d come.”
His eyebrows drew together. “Why did I need to come?”
“Austin thought you did. He thought you needed to tell me what really happened that night.” I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see him straighten up and walk away. “I’m sorry, Kemp.”
He was still there. I could hear him breathing. But I didn’t dare open my eyes.
“Did he tell you what I did?” he asked.
“He showed me.” I pulled the top blanket up over my face. “If I’d known, I never would’ve asked you to go down there and relive that,” I said, my voice muffled. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t hear anything at all. The tears started as I realized Jade had been wrong. He was angry . . . and he had every right to be. I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to stick around. I scrubbed the blanket into my eyes, then pulled it away, just as a form settled itself down on the bed beside me. I sucked in a little gasp, which made him freeze.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No. But . . .”
He leaned closer and kissed my cheek, then put his arm around me and held me tight. His body was balanced on the edge of the bed, rather precariously. He smelled of morning and winter air and stale cafeteria coffee.
“I’m sorry I lied,” I croaked.
“And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.” He nuzzled his nose against my cheek. “If I had, none of this would’ve happened. Would it?”
“You didn’t owe me that truth.”
“I owed you honesty.”
“Why?”
He gave me a little squeeze, and the warmth of his body began to seep into mine. The thaw had finally begun. “Because you should always be honest with the people you love,” he whispered, and gave my cheek another kiss before resting his head against my own.
From my perch, curled up in the newly reupholstered chair by my bedroom window, I peered out into the drizzly afternoon. It was almost dark. The sun hid behind the clouds that cocooned the afternoon in a damp chill. My bedroom was a little drafty—especially by the window—but the throw I had wrapped around my shoulders was keeping me nice and warm.
IVY: Where are you?
KEMP: on my way home
IVY: How’s the weather?
KEMP: raining like piss whats it like there
IVY: Same.
I paused for a moment to tug the throw more tightly around myself. When I was sufficiently swathed, I curled my fingers around the phone and smiled as my thumbs padded over the screen.
IVY: Guess what.
KEMP: what
IVY: I got a new boyfriend! This one isn’t too lazy to use capital letters or punctuation.
KEMP: HAHAHA!!!
I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. I bit my lip as I watched the next message appear.
KEMP: u love the way i text admit it
IVY: Never!
He sent an emoji that appeared to be sobbing. I just rolled my eyes.
IVY: I do have some news, though.
