Dust to Dust Page 2

  I hear the leaves on the oak tree outside rustling. I walk to the window, carefully moving the dangling glass prism that Nick gave to me in the hospital aside before I slide it open.

  In one motion, Nick moves from the thick branch that reaches toward my house into my room, stepping onto the window seat and then softly to the floor.

  “What are you doing out of bed, young lady?” he asks me.

  “I wanted to greet you right,” I say, taking his hand and leaning into his chest—strong, sturdy, tangible.

  How silly of me to think there’s nothing solid here. Nick is the most solid thing of all.

  It’s the other boy who invades my thoughts, Thatcher. Who isn’t here. Who doesn’t exist. And when Nick is around, Thatcher doesn’t invade my dreams.

  I shake my head to knock away the crazy, and Nick steps back, putting his hand under my chin. A trickling sensation of near-pain blurs the edges of my body and I break away from his touch, sitting back on my bed as I swallow my last pill of the day.

  Nick perches beside me. I watch him reach into his pocket.

  “I’ve been meaning to return this to you,” he says, and he hands me a heart-shaped amber pendant on a silver chain. I take it into my palm and finger its smooth edges. Nick had given it to me as a gift last year, a replacement for a heart-shaped jade charm that my mother gave to me once upon a time. When I lost the jade piece, I was devastated—it felt like I was losing Mom all over again. I told Nick about it, and he bought the amber heart to remind me that other people loved me too.

  A notion, maybe a memory, settles behind my eyes. Nick took this pendant while I was in the hospital; he held on to it so he could have a piece of me. I remember seeing him with it . . . I remember . . .

  I shake my head. I’m making things up again.

  “I took it after . . . ,” Nick starts. But he pauses. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter now,” he says. “This heart is yours again.”

  He smiles at his own cheesy words and I grin back at him.

  “Thank you.” I open up the clasp so he can put it around my neck. I want it close to me.

  After he fastens it, he kisses the top of my head and I lean into him with a sigh. “I’m so tired,” I say.

  “Don’t overdo it.” Nick looks around pensively. “I probably shouldn’t even be here, Cal.”

  “You should,” I tell him. “That’s not what I meant. I want you here. I love you here.”

  We snuggle into position on my double bed—Nick sitting up against the headboard and me resting my head on his chest. Since I’ve been home from the hospital, Nick has snuck in to be with me whenever he can make an excuse to his parents. I fall asleep more easily with him near. Without him, my dreams are filled with dark echoes of the imagined world I created, the Prism—it’s foggy and uncertain, a glimmering gray space that feels part peaceful and part menacing, like a place among the clouds where both warming sun and threatening thunderstorms hover. But with Nick, I’m not in the clouds. I’m firmly on the earth.

  Today has been a good day, and I smile as the pill takes effect. No more phantom sensation, no more paranoia about a world that doesn’t exist, no more false memories—just two sixteen-year-olds alone in a bedroom. I look up at Nick with sleepy eyes and whisper, “Kiss me.”

  He does, more passionately than I expect. His familiar lips move over mine and he reaches to touch my hair and the sides of my face as his tongue explores my mouth. It’s the first time since the accident that he isn’t treating me like I’m fragile, and my body responds to the delicious touches as his hand moves down the front of my soft cotton nightgown, brushing my chest and working its way to my hips.

  My mind flashes for just a moment to another world, one where touching was discouraged, where connections were supposed to be more than just physical. But with Nick’s breath in my ear, his hands on my body, that thought is quickly dismissed. I’m tired of the weird ways my brain is wandering; I want something normal and grounded—I want this.

  Nick pulls me closer, and I wrap one leg around his back so I can be as near to him as possible, my breath ragged in between kisses. My nightgown slips up to my waist and when he runs his hand up my thigh, my entire body lights up with sensation. I haven’t felt this kind of touch in so long.

  A moan escapes me and I kiss him harder, so ready to feel alive again, ready to take things even further than we ever have—I wanted to go all the way before the accident, but Nick held back. Maybe tonight’s the night. I put my hand under his shirt and trace the hard contours of his back as Nick lowers his lips to kiss my neck, pressing his body against mine so I can tell how much he wants this too.

  But when I move my other hand lower, Nick pulls away suddenly, standing up and looking at me with confused eyes.

  “We shouldn’t,” he says. “I’m sorry, I—this could hurt you. You’re not ready for something this . . . physical.”

  When we stop, I feel half disappointed and half relieved as the passion I felt drains out of me. I flop back onto my pillow with a sigh. “When will everyone stop treating me like I’m a broken little baby bird?”

  Nick tilts his head to one side teasingly. “You kind of are a broken little baby bird,” he says. So I throw a pillow at him.

  He catches it and sits back down on the bed.

  “Come here,” he says, holding up his arm.

  I pout at him.

  “Callie, we’ll get back to that stuff soon enough,” he says. “It just doesn’t feel right now.”

  “Okay,” I say quietly.

  I lean into him again and he gives my arm a gentle squeeze. The moment is gone, and I wonder where it went. It just doesn’t feel right. Nick’s words echo in my head as I close my eyes and try to fall asleep.

  The aliveness, the sensation of touching and kissing and feeling, is so very right. But Nick isn’t all wrong. Something seems off to me too. Nick is warm and familiar with his soft brown curls and warm, smooth cheeks and smiling, kissable lips that used to move so well with mine. And yet I can’t shake this uneasy feeling I have sometimes when he and I are alone. A feeling that I’ve let go of him, and I’ve already said good-bye in my heart.

  I wake up in the middle of the night and Nick is gone. My phone says it’s just after three a.m. I turn onto my side and face the window, slowly closing my eyes again.

  Crack! I sit up, startled, and find myself staring at the newly fractured glass in my bottom windowpane. Shakily, I stand to inspect it. It’s a single line, not like the spiral spiderweb that would happen if someone threw a rock—more like a break created by extreme pressure. I trace my finger along the ridge of it, and as I do, a low thrum of energy rattles my body.

  My pulse quickens as I hear a loud, familiar sound. A guy’s voice, deep and boisterous, rings in my ears. “Callie . . . we’re heeeere.”

  Then a girl’s voice follows, higher and less jovial. “You’re so cheesy,” it says, seeming to address the first voice. But then, her focus shifts to me. “We are here, though. And we’re very interested in renewing our friendship with you, Callie May McPhee.”

  I whip my head around, trying to see where the voices are coming from, but all I see is my room, trashed. Destroyed again like the image I can’t rid my mind of, as if a storm blew through it and destroyed it piece by piece—curtains flying, rug shredding, framed photos smashing against shimmering walls.

  “Who’s here? What do you want?”

  “Wait, you don’t remember us?” says the girl’s voice in a fake pouty tone. “I’m hurt.”

  “Yeah, Callie,” says the guy, his voice growing deeper and more menacing. “You were such a dear friend.”

  Then something grips me by the throat and I can barely breathe.

  Three

  I SIT UP IN bed with a start, sweat on my forehead. My eyes adjust to the dim light of the early morning, and my shades are drawn. My room is fine, neat and tidy. It was a dream. But my heart is racing and when I raise my hands in front of me, they’re shaking. Those voices
sounded so real.

  I hear a low crackling sound, like static from a radio, and I scan the room to find my old alarm clock in the corner—the one I used to have before I started using the alarm on my phone. I stand up and walk over to it. The numbers that tell the time are blinking and the radio is tuned between stations. That’s weird. I probably haven’t turned this thing on for years. I shut it off and open my laptop to see if there was a power surge or something.

  There’s a blank page open on my screen—a Word document that hasn’t been written yet. I don’t remember starting anything.

  I’m about to shut it down when I see the cursor move on the page—right to the center, as if someone has hit a tab. Then, the typing starts:

  No more pills. Clear your mind.

  I look over my shoulder quickly, heart starting to race. No one’s there. Stay calm, Callie. Could someone be logged into my network somehow, like with a shared screen? The letters are in bold italics, strong and urgent.

  What if it’s him?

  Thatcher. I feel my mind start to spin, whirling with excited panic. Could he talk to me this way? Can he reach me across worlds? Is he real, and really here? And if he’s here . . . were they here? My “dear friends” from the other side? Whoever they were?

  Glancing back at the window, I reach over to open the shade. Slowly, my hand shaking, I pull back the bottom corner. It’s there. I see it. A long, jagged crack.

  I drop the shade quickly and slam my laptop closed, hurrying into the bathroom that’s attached to my room, where I turn on all the lights and run the faucet, splashing my face with water. Wake up wake up wake up.

  I stare at myself in the mirror, wild-eyed and wet. These pills are turning me into a crazy person. Ghosts, poltergeists, another world. Maybe I’m hallucinating because of the meds.

  I take a deep breath and dry my face, still flushed. My dark-blond curls are wild, so I pull them into a knotted bun.

  After another moment of willing my heartbeat to slow down, I walk back into my room and open the laptop. The blank page is gone—there’s no evidence of it ever existing.

  I walk over to the window and throw up the shade. I wince. The crack is there, clear as day. I take a deep breath. It’s probably from a bird that hit the window or expansion from humidity or something, but I must have seen it and created a nightmare around it, complete with ominous voices.

  I shake my head and pull on a sweater to deal with my father’s over-air-conditioning habit. It’s comforting, in a way, that my dad still keeps our house as cold as a morgue. Consistency is nice, even if it means I have to wear long sleeves inside at the end of summer.

  I start to make my bed, pulling up the comforter and fluffing the pillow back into place. When I pick it up, for a moment, I catch a whiff of something familiar. Thatcher. He had a smell, like fresh-cut grass, and I inhale to find it there, in my pillowcase. God, I really am insane.

  On my nightstand, the bottle of pills seems to stand out, like there’s a spotlight on it. If the pills are what’s making me so confused, what’s creating these crazy dreams, I don’t want to take them anymore. I don’t want to keep wondering what’s real and what isn’t. There’s too much uncertainty: Weirdness with Nick. The nightmares. Wisps of another world.

  Enough of this.

  I grab the painkiller bottle and go downstairs to the dining room, where my father is eating a sandwich. I tell him that I want to go see the doctor.

  “What’s wrong, Callie May? Is the pain getting worse?”

  “No,” I say, placing the pills on the table in front of him. “I need to get off the meds.”

  “It’s too soon,” Dad says immediately, not even considering my request. “Your body’s been through a great deal of trauma.”

  I knew he’d object.

  “I want my mind to be clear.” I hold on to the edge of a wooden dining room chair, my grip tight with determination.

  “Clear of what?”

  “I’ve been seeing more of those visions,” I say. And it’s not a lie. I have. I tried to talk to a bird yesterday, for goodness’ sake. Not to mention today’s radio and laptop incidents. And after last night, I’m more worried about why I’m so confused about Nick—and why I’m sniffing my sheets for a whiff of a boy who isn’t real. While the phantom pains I feel when I don’t take my pill on time are unpleasant, the phantom brain activity is worse.

  “I see,” he says. “Are you still seeing a cloudy world filled with other souls?”

  I nod, cringing inwardly at the description that I’d given him of the Prism, this world that lives and breathes in my head. It was more than that, though—it was glistening and calm and quiet, really wonderful at times. And if that place were the only thing that plagued my mind, I could deal with it. What I haven’t told my father is that it’s the person, the one who echoes inside me somehow. . . .

  Thatcher. When my mind lets his name fully form, it’s like I feel him pressing against me somehow, holding me close to him and keeping me safe. I feel a flush of warmth so intense I have to sit down.

  As I ease myself into a hard-backed chair, my father looks at me, concerned.

  “You have to give yourself time to heal,” he says, his voice soft and strong all at once. And I know I’m not going to win this fight.

  “I feel stronger,” I say, still trying. “I do.”

  “There may be a lot of pain if you go off the pills.”

  “I know,” I say. “I’m tough.”

  “Yes, you are,” he says. “But I’m afraid the answer is still no. We need to work on the doctors’ time line—not yours.”

  I frown at him as I offer a stiff nod. It’s useless to argue with a dad who gives orders for a living. Still, I need to show him I’m capable, so I shove the pills into my pocket and stand up to clear his plate.

  “Leave it. Carla’s coming later,” says my father, who hasn’t put away a dish in . . . well, ever, as far as I know.

  “I can manage,” I tell him with a grin. “Let Carla do the harder stuff—like laundry.”

  “You’re getting better day by day, Callie,” Dad says, not trying to stop me from moving around for once. He unfolds the newspaper at the same time that he meets my gaze. “Don’t think I don’t notice.”

  I put the dishes in the sink and raise my eyebrows at him expectantly.

  “But you still need the medication,” he says, turning to the front page. “Just a little longer.”

  I sigh and load the dishwasher, bending over carefully and assessing my physical state. My legs are pale and a little anemic-looking, marked with lots of small scars and one big one. I wore pants for a week or so, but then Carson convinced me that my scars are badges of honor, “and pretty badass, too.”

  My arms are starting to feel sturdy again—I’ve worked with weights in physical therapy, and my final appointment is later today.

  While I’m definitely still weaker than usual, and these small prickles of pain do hit at unexpected times, I think I’m doing really well for someone who was lying flat on her back for almost two months.

  I shake the pill bottle and pour myself a glass of water, the one I’m supposed to use to wash down my next dose right about now. Dad looks up at me, and I open the bottle slowly. Then I mime sticking a pill under my tongue and swallowing it, like a dutiful daughter.

  His smile makes me feel guilty as I drop the pill into the drain and flush it with the remaining water in my glass. My father isn’t the only headstrong McPhee in this house.

  I walk outside onto the porch. The book I was reading yesterday still rests on the yellow-and-white striped pillows in the swing.

  I’ve been reading a lot since I’ve been home, partly to avoid going online. The local newspapers have all run stories about my miraculous awakening, despite the fact that I refuse to give them interviews about my accident. Um, no thanks. Mostly they’ve quoted doctors who didn’t treat me talking about comas in general, and a couple of pastors have shared stories of what it might be like to be
between life and death. I’ve read a few, but none of their descriptions have sounded right to me.

  Standing at the porch railing, I look out over the lawn. It’s vibrating with buzzing bees in the clover and ladybugs crawling on the wild strawberry leaves. There’s so much life all around me, and I want to grab it and hold it in my hands, feeling its movement, its pulse, its energy.

  Your reverence for life is so beautiful.

  I hear the voice. It’s not my own, but it’s clear as crystal. It’s his.

  I spin around toward the house. No one’s there.

  “Who said that?” I whisper.

  No response. But he is here. It’s not a knowing, or even a feeling. It’s more . . . an impression. That’s the word. His soul is impressed into my space, and I can tell it’s near. Is it the trace of the last pill I took making me feel this way, or is it . . .

  “Thatcher, if you’re real, you have to show me,” I whisper into the air. Maybe when I get further from my last pill, in a few hours, this will be over, these imaginings will be gone, and I’ll be back to normal. And that’s what I want, right? To be done with this dreamworld that makes me feel split in two?

  Nick will have the old Callie back, someone who’s undistracted and uncomplicated—and fully in love with him. Dad will know my good sense has returned. I’m not a wacko who thinks there’s a ghost boy out there trying to reach me. I’ll stop whispering to myself, stop smelling sheets and being frightened by radio static and talking to birds.

  But just in case . . . just in case he’s real, I want to give him a chance to reveal himself.

  I wait for a moment, but all I hear is the soft hum of the hot summer day.

  And I’m grateful and disappointed all at once.

  I read for a little while, but eventually I head upstairs with a plan to stream the newest episodes of my favorite show. From the den, Dad calls, “Get some more rest, Callie. If you expect to go off the pills soon, you need to save your energy.”

  I pause for a moment in my open door, and then I click it shut and lean against it, frozen.