We wander along the water’s edge, but I can’t feel the dampness.
I wonder if Reena hurt someone he loved once. I stay quiet, giving him space to start talking.
“I was a senior in high school ten years ago,” he finally says quietly. “I went to West Ashley.”
“We play them in sports,” I tell him, doing quick math in my head and figuring out that Thatcher would be twenty-eight now if he were still alive. Not too old.
“I know. I was on the football team.”
“A Wildcat,” I say.
“Right.” His mouth turns up a little.
Then his eyes gloss over, and I listen to the lapping of the waves on the shore, hoping it’ll lure him into revealing more.
“Reena and I had been dating for almost a year,” continues Thatcher.
I hold my breath and will myself not to react. I know he’ll stop telling the story if I break his concentration, so I stay quiet even though my mind is screaming a thousand questions.
“It was homecoming night, after the dance, and we went out to the upper Wando River for a bonfire. There were a bunch of us there, and Reena and I decided to take out a rowboat with two other friends—Leo and Hayley.”
He peers over at me to see if I get his meaning—that he, Leo, and Reena were all friends back then—and I nod my understanding, encouraging him to go on.
“We’d had a lot to drink. Just beers, but a lot. In the rowboat, Leo and I were standing up and being stupid. It had just rained for three days straight and the river was higher than usual, rougher. We shouldn’t have been out on the water.”
Thatcher runs his hands through his hair and then clasps them in front of his face.
“The boat tipped over in the dead center of the river,” he says softly, his voice muffled. “Any other night, we could have swum to shore, no problem. But that night, we couldn’t. We didn’t.”
My chest tightens. “You all drowned?”
He nods.
“Oh my God. Thatcher, I’m so sorry.”
“Hayley, somehow, hung on to the boat, yelling for help. But by the time anyone got out to us, she was the only one still at the surface. I don’t even remember sinking down under the water.”
“The three of you died together?”
“Yes.”
Staring out at the ocean, I imagine the river—the way it gets so dark at night, almost black. What is it like to have that water pull you down, take away the air, fill your lungs?
“Thatcher, I had no idea—that’s terrible.”
“It was a long time ago,” he says, brushing off my sympathetic tone. “The hardest part happened later. In the Prism.”
“Were you and Reena still together?” I ask awkwardly, wondering if that’s even a possibility for ghosts . . . being together.
“Yes. When we first got to the Prism, it didn’t feel sad, exactly. It felt more like a new adventure. The three of us came together, so we had more of a sense of memory than the ghosts who come alone, but the memories weren’t sad; they were just . . . there.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“At first Reena was calm. Peaceful even. Her prism was this tranquil park—one that came from her imagination, I guess. We used to take walks and talk about our haunting. Hers was going well; mine wasn’t. I messed things up with Wendy—I couldn’t reach her. I was so afraid Reena was going to merge without me. She and Leo. Then I’d be left alone.”
My heart aches for him.
“Anyway, Reena was hanging out with Leo, and they were figuring out ways to channel their energy so they could interact physically with the Living. They convinced me that I needed a different approach to connecting with Wendy.” He looked at me, his eyes solemn. “I did what you wanted to do. When I was with Wendy, I moved things. I said things to her. . . . I . . .” His voice falters and I think he might stop talking altogether, but then he steels his jaw and keeps going. “It made things so much worse. She thought she was going insane; she totally closed up. It was like she put up a wall. I couldn’t reach her. I can’t reach her.”
“I’m so sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.
He shakes his head. “I knew I’d screwed up, big-time. I went back to the way it’s supposed to be done, concentrated on the right way. Once Reena and Leo saw Wendy freak out—they thought it was fun. They wanted to mess with people they didn’t even know. But I got serious about haunting, I didn’t want to have anything to do with the tricks they wanted to play. It created a distance between us that only worsened.”
He grows quiet, and I know he’s struggling with a bad memory. I’m afraid he’ll stop now. I want to understand him as I never wanted to fully comprehend anyone—not even Nick. I want to be able to help Thatcher, but to do that I need to know everything. “How did it get worse?”
“It was Leo.” His jaw tightens. “He had so many questions, even for his Guide. We couldn’t remember why we’d all come to the Prism together, and it mattered to him. He found a way to get back.”
“Back?”
“To the river,” says Thatcher. “To where we died.”
“And what happened?”
“He changed almost instantly—he was bitter, rageful.”
“And he took Reena there, too,” I guess.
“I watched as he got angrier and angrier—he remembered so much, and it hurt him. Reena tried to help him, I saw it, and then, in a moment, I saw her change, too. He’d taken her back. And from then on, they didn’t want to be a part of the Prism—they called it ‘the Prison’—they wouldn’t hear anything about Solus. They wanted to return to Earth—they couldn’t accept that we had died so young.”
“That’s understandable.” I can’t help it—I feel sympathy for Reena and Leo.
“It is, in a way,” says Thatcher. “But we’re meant to move on, to merge with Solus. If my sister, Wendy, could have accepted my death, I’d probably have merged myself—I want to be a part of Solus.”
“Why just probably?” I ask.
He stops walking and looks down at the frothy waves. “Reena wouldn’t go . . . and I couldn’t leave her,” he says softly.
“I understand,” I say. Because I do. No matter how contentious he and Reena have become, Thatcher loved her once. And I know how hard it is to let go, even when a situation is impossible.
And then, because I have to know: “Do you still love her?”
“No,” he says. Then he pauses. “At least . . . not in the way I did. She’s not the girl I knew on Earth.”
“But you feel—”
“Responsible,” Thatcher says, finishing my thought. “I feel responsible for her. And Leo, too, I guess.”
I can’t imagine the weight of the burden he’s carrying. At least my reckless driving didn’t kill anyone else. I understand him so much better now. Why he’s so serious, the bad decisions he’s trying to atone for, the friendships he’s lost.
We stand quietly, letting the story hang in the air around us. My grandfather used to say you had to do that with the best kinds of stories, the ones that teach you something or make you think or reveal some secret about life . . . or death, I guess. You sit with them, to process.
I’m ashamed to admit, even to myself, that I’m jealous of Reena, but the bitter emotion is there nonetheless. For a while, she belonged to Thatcher. I hope she appreciated him more in life than she does in death.
When I look at Thatcher, his profile is so radiant—so ethereal—that I want to close my eyes for a moment and burn it into my brain.
I realize now that he understands far more that I gave him credit for. He’s been through it, having to let someone he loved go. He knows the pain and the heartache, but in some ways, for him it was worse. “Thank you for sharing.”
“It’s only fair,” he says. “I know your story. I know what you’re going through, Callie. You just need to be patient.”