His eyelashes flutter open and he stares up at her.
“Yes, it was.”
There’s so much despair in his voice that it makes me ache inside. I sit down on the floor next to the bed, close to them, and I wish I could reach out to him.
“It was her choice to drive so fast, her choice to answer the phone when she was driving. She knew better,” Carson says.
For all her belief in the supernatural, Carson is practical. And she’s right.
“You don’t know, Cars,” he says. “I was going to tell her that night, and . . .”
He falls silent, and Carson reaches up to stroke the side of his face.
“No,” she says softly. “Shhh. . . . It wasn’t your fault.”
I look up at my best friend, so caring. Her dark brown eyes are focused on Nick, and I’m so grateful to her for doing what I haven’t been able to—for bringing him out of his grief.
The way I felt with my father, that peaceful feeling—I want it now. I realize that this is the perfect moment for it, while they’re here together, alone.
I close my eyes and let myself remember moments with each of them, with the three of us, and I find it easier to steer clear of the details of the memory and instead dive into the emotions that these moments stir. I fill myself with them, let those intangible and unconscious sensations take over my being and slink into the room so that all three of us—I hope—can feel them together.
There’s a promising silence in the room, and I open my eyes—Carson and Nick are still. I can’t help but give them one extra push, so I send a thought their way: I’m with you.
“She’s with us.” Both Carson and Nick murmur together, and they look at each other for a moment. I feel the energy connecting all three of us, almost as if it’s a real thread that ties us to one another.
This is the true connection, the one I need.
“Thank you, Thatcher,” I whisper.
And just as I say it, a loud crackle echoes from within my body, and I feel a lightning bolt strike through me. I close my eyes at the surge, and then it’s over. When I open them again, Carson’s eyes are sparkling with gold. Her face blurs momentarily, almost like I made my own vision go fuzzy, and I see a flash of familiar rosebud lips. I shake my head to clear my sight, and when I look again, it’s Carson, just Carson. But her expression has changed. Her mouth is curled into a small smile.
“Nick,” she says. Her voice is almost a purr. It doesn’t sound like Carson at all.
He’s lying back now, his head on the soft down pillow with the ruffled peach sham. “Callie’s here. You felt it, too, didn’t you? She’s here. I have to tell her.”
“Tell her what?”
He releases a broken sob. “I was going to break up with her.”
I stagger back as though he’s hit me with those words. Break up with me?
“If I’d told her the night before, like I’d planned, she wouldn’t have been coming to see me. I called to tell her—” Another sob.
Pain is ripping through me. Is this what those texts were about? What Nick should have told me before the accident? But who is H? Does it really matter anymore? Everything I thought I had with Nick was a lie.
Carson looks in my direction, like she can truly see me. Her lips curve up in triumph.
“Well, then . . .” She straddles Nick and presses her lips to his. Her hair falls off her neck and I think I see a dark spot there, but I can’t be sure. For a second my brain can’t process what I’m seeing.
Carson is kissing Nick.
It’s another blow. Was she the reason he wanted to break up with me? Then why didn’t she know? I can’t make sense of any of this; the devastation of their betrayal is fogging my mind.
I jump to my feet, my mouth open wide like the breath has been sucked out of my body. What’s happening? What’s happening? What’s happening? My mind is racing and they are still kissing.
I try to collect myself to form enough energy to get her off him.
Think, Callie, think.
I focus all my emotions on Nick’s mind, trying to make him recognize my presence. I close my eyes and picture the day he and I drove out to the Isle of Palms together. We crossed over the bridge and onto the island, where Nick took me out to the beach and we walked for miles. It wasn’t a hand-holding-at-sunset thing, it was us being funny, doing handstands, pushing each other into the water, looking for sea glass. I try to call up every detail I can remember. We finished the night by laying a blanket down in the sand and watching for shooting stars, where we kissed until I thought I couldn’t breathe without his lips on mine. I’m remembering, I’m focusing. . . .
And suddenly I hear Nick say my name.
“Callie.”
I open my eyes as he pushes Carson away. He jumps off the bed and backs away from her. I see Carson’s body jolt, as if that same electrical charge is passing through her, and then she starts coughing. Her face looks stunned, disbelieving, as her hand flies up to her mouth.
“What are you doing?” asks Nick.
I look around the room, needing to reaffirm for them that I’m here, that the presence they felt was real. I spot a small porcelain statue of a Dalmatian on the bureau and swat at it with a palm filled with anger. It teeters, then drops to the floor with a crash.
Nick and Carson both jump, startled.
“What just happened?” she says. Then she looks at his horrified face and asks again, more urgently, “Nick! What just happened?”
He looks away from the fallen dog statue with fear in his eyes.
“You kissed me,” he says.
“No,” she says, pressing her fingers to her lips as if she can deny it. “No . . . I . . .”
“You did,” he says. “And then I saw her . . . our day at Isle of Palms . . . I saw her.”
“You’re drunk,” Carson says, glancing at the broken pieces of porcelain. She sinks down on the bed, holding her stomach like she’s in pain. “You’re confused. . . . I didn’t . . .”
“Callie,” Nick says again, like he’s calling to me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth before. I just didn’t want to hurt you.”
It hurts just as much now. I know it shouldn’t, but it does. How long did he feel that way? How much of our relationship was just me hanging on?
I can tell by his face that he is in a full panic. He stumbles past Carson, tearing through the door and down the stairs. I should let him go. I want to wallow in my misery.
But he’s not acting like the Nick I know. There’s a carelessness in him. And I know how much he’s had to drink. I rush after him.
His eyes are wide open and glazed over, and he seems like he doesn’t even hear people shouting for him to stop.
“Hey, Fisher! I got brownies for you . . . ,” Austin calls from the kitchen.
Nick doesn’t slow down for a moment, and I race alongside him, small pings of energy pricking me as I crash through anyone in my way.
He pushes by a crowd near the front door and out into the driveway, knocking into a group of freshman girls who spill their bright red drinks and then burst into laughter. Nick doesn’t stop.
The driveway is long and curving, but Nick finds his way down the dark pavement, his steps falling at a rapid pace. I glide beside him, unconcerned with the physical world, just wanting to stay near him, glad that my ghostly self has the grace to do that. He fumbles with his keys at the door to his car, and he looks back up at the big house like it might be chasing him. I glance at the mansion in the moonlight, too, and I hear rooms echo with drunk laughter. When I turn back to Nick, he’s got his keys in the lock.