A Soul's Kiss (11 page)

Hannah

Friday night, late

“There, that clears my conscience,” I said to Brit as she closed the door. The bunch of flowers I threw out the window made me want to laugh out loud. Flowers. Our code word. Too funny. Those old daisies will die by the side of the road like that freak should have.

“Can I see your phone?” I asked Brittany as she signaled and pulled back onto the road. I had a sudden monster-in-the-closet feeling and whipped my head around to look in the back seat. Then Brit pushed her phone into my hands and I checked Facebook to see if there were any updates on Jessi-freak’s page. Apparently, her best friend finally did her duty and wrote on her timeline: “Jessica had her spleen removed. She’s in recovery, but still in a coma. Please pray for Jessica.” Yeah, right. I read it aloud to Brittany and set the phone between us. My dad was going to get me a smart phone, but not anymore. I had to use a crappy pay-as-you-go model that was beyond embarrassing.

“So, are we stopping by Michael’s?” Brittany asked. “It’s only nine-thirty. Or do you think his mom wouldn’t let us in?”

The hairs on the back of my head tugged tight like they were caught in a comb and goose bumps ran down my arms. Michael. I saw him sacked out on his back on the bed in his room. A vision of him sleeping swept through my mind. I thought I was going to vomit for a second. I almost asked Brit to pull over so I could, but then the nausea passed.

“No, just take me home. I don’t feel so hot. I probably should have stayed in bed like the doctor said. Sneaking out seemed like a good idea, but maybe it wasn’t.” I tensed, felt the shivers ripple down my body again, felt an ache in my forehead. “Maybe you can hook up with Andrew and the others,” I said.

Brittany gave me a funny look. “I told you. We broke up.”

Oh, right, I forgot. Silly me. Aloud I said, “We could make Andrew the next victim if you want.”

Tyler

Friday night

After Jessica disappeared on us Rashanda left to find Jessica’s parents. I followed, but stayed out of sight. When Rashanda finally said goodbye to them I worked up the nerve to talk to them myself. Jessica had the nicest parents on earth. I wonder if she appreciated the fact that she had what all of us wanted—two parents, no divorce, no blended family, no stepparents, no visitation schedule.

When they found out that I was Keith’s stepbrother they asked about him. At first they seemed interested in his health and how long he would have to stay in the hospital. Then they wanted to know about Hannah and Michael, too, and if I knew why Jessica was in the car. Did I know why she would skip swim practice? Did I know where they were going? Had she gone with them before? I felt like crap telling them that I didn’t know anything when the truth was that when Jessica got into my head, I got a sense of the whole situation.

And more.

Anyway, I excused myself, red-faced for sure, and went to Keith’s room where I found my stepdad about to leave, so he drove me home. When we passed the school the lights on the football field drew my attention and I asked him to pull over and let me out. There were only about five minutes left on the game clock. I watched from the fence without really seeing. My heart went into overdrive every time I thought of Jessica. I replayed in my mind every nano-second of when she entered my dream.

I saw her at her front door. Beautiful. She came out into the snowy whiteness and took my arm as we walked along. I knew things. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew things about her and about Michael and about Rashanda. I stopped thinking about the dream for a second when the crowd roared as the opposing team fumbled the ball. Huh, Jessica was like the football—moving from person to person collecting smudges from everyone who touched her, or rather, from every mind she entered. Jessica had little fingerprints of Rashanda’s life and she had left bits of those prints on me, in my head.

The realization struck me with the same sharpness of the referee’s final whistle: Jessica must have gotten into Michael’s head, too. I gripped the cold metal of the fence and stared at the shadowed grass beyond. I didn’t see or hear the fans leaving. I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of anything but the shards of memories that seeped into that dream. I had to close my eyes to concentrate and slow down my thoughts. I wanted to rush to the end of the dream where I kissed her and she kissed me back, but there were more important things to remember about the walk. Wisps of thoughts. It was like moving in and out of a radio signal. But I knew things.

As if Jessica was pushing me herself, I knew I had to go to the accident scene. It was maybe a five minute run from the ball field. I rushed through the exit and ran along the shoulder when the sidewalks ended. A few cars honked at me and somebody yelled, but I didn’t slow down until I saw the corner, the cars flowing past, some stopping . . . flowers, a pile of swept up glass, rubble.

Jessica! I could have touched her if I’d reached out, but I wasn’t quick enough. One second she was in front of me and the next she was behind a car parked on the shoulder. A second later I saw her silhouette in the back seat. The car took off, but not before I recognized Hannah when she turned her face and the lights from another car revealed that conceited profile.

Well, at least I knew that Jessica was still around. It sort of made sense that she’d want to get into Hannah’s head. I sorted out the bits of thoughts from Rashanda that had streamed to me through Jessica: Rashanda had been abducted by Hannah and Michael; Rashanda was wary of them. Suspicious with a twinge of fear or dread. Maybe I could get Rashanda to explain.

I stood on the corner, out of breath from running. I might as well use the extra blood flow and adrenaline to think it out. What did I sense about Michael? Shallow. No feelings for Jessica. Overconfident. Arrogant. Wow, all of that from a little walk next to the girl of my dreams . . .
in
my dreams. I remembered the snowy mounds, the bird startling us, and I had a happy feeling.

Crap, I was standing at the side of the road geeking out over a dream. I turned and walked home more deeply in thought than any time in my life. I focused on the parts of the dream that gave me that warm feeling—pure Jessica. I got a sense of her childhood, her friendship with Rashanda, even her hopes. But I didn’t like knowing too much. I didn’t like that when she came into my head she left flakes and slivers and fragments of other people.

I hardly slept Friday night.

Jessica

Saturday morning

I’m awake. I’m awake from the coma. I’m sure of it even though everything is blacker than black. My head throbs only a little, and not around my eye at least. I. Feel. So. Good!

I stretch my arms up over my head and yawn. Free. Free of tubes and wires and beeps. Four thoughts shove and push around my mind, each trying to take center stage. Center stage. Ha, that makes me think of drama class and the little scene I did with Michael just two days ago. And now those four thoughts joggle my brain: accident, surgery for spleen, Tyler’s kiss . . . Hannah.

Hannah. I strain my eyes to see, but the blackness exists as haunting emptiness. I run my fingers down my sides, across my stomach—no bandages. What? Why not? The fabric is different. Softer, thicker. Felt? Flannel? Pajamas. With cuffs, a drawstring, and pockets . . . another pocket over my heart.

The fear that wells up inside me squashes the joy of a moment before. Can you dream in a coma? Am I cruelly willing myself to imagine an awakening? That’s it for sure. I wouldn’t awake from a coma without a lot of hustle and bustle from nurses, my parents, doctors . . . and there would still be all the medical equipment. And lights. And a stupid thin hospital gown, not these warm pajamas.

I’m dreaming. Still in the coma. And stuck somewhere dark.

My thinking seems fine; my sense of touch is all right. I sniff. I put my hand to my mouth and blow. Yup, sense of smell works and I need to gargle. I dig my elbows into the mattress intending to push myself up, but my range of motion stops halfway. Am I strapped down? I bring both legs up to my chest and stretch them straight up, knocking the covers off, and pointing my toes for a synchronized swimmer’s perfect double ballet leg trick.
Has to be a dream.
I lower my legs by inches, feeling the strength and tautness in my abdominal muscles. No pain, no ripping stitches, no bleeding spleen. A dream.

A dream in which I can brood over my predicament and contemplate my options. Well, option, singular. All I can do is think.

I think about Michael, but Hannah’s face keeps interrupting every memory. I think about Rashanda and Tyler, but again Hannah’s voice splits my thoughts in two. Her voice. And what I last heard her say as I sat behind her in her friend’s car last night: “We could make Andrew the next victim if you want.”

“We could make Andrew the next victim if you want.”

It echoes. I can remember the entire conversation. And more. I can remember touching my forehead to the back of her head. I got inside, but she would not acknowledge me. I couldn’t get past the boxes of darkness that litter her head. It was like there were doors and more doors, all of them closed, and I didn’t have the keys to open any of them.

And now I’m stuck. There’s no pulling back out of her mind. Last night I felt her nausea, her migraine. I heard Brittany’s voice, took in their conversation, their goodbyes, the walk into the house. I saw her father, felt Hannah’s disappointment—a mixture of repulsion and love as she sneaked past the snoring hulk sprawled on the living room couch. I remember her, us, getting ready for bed.

Then this blackness.

My heart, or maybe it’s Hannah’s, stutters to life in a race to beat my mind to a horrible conclusion: I’m stuck in Hannah and Hannah is waking up.

Tyler

Monday morning

Crap. She was making me go to school. There was no way I was going to convince my mom to excuse me from school and let me stay at the hospital. I spent the whole weekend there and that was enough, according to her. Keith would heal just fine without me, she said. Go to school.

Worst weekend of my life. I thought I had it all figured out, but Jessica never reappeared on Saturday or Sunday. I thought about looking up Hannah’s address and just showing up there, but that’s just not my style. I had a plan though. Hannah sat with the seniors in the lunchroom. If she bought her lunch I could approach her as she walked to the far end of the cafeteria. Or I could possibly catch her before or after school. I wasn’t sure where her locker was, but I knew where I’d seen her Thursday, when she’d left with Jessica. Maybe . . . maybe if she’d
experienced
Jessica she’d have a clue or a message or . . . something.

I usually leave home about five minutes before the first bell since I live so close, but today I skipped breakfast and charged out the door. I stationed myself at the end of the senior hallway near the drinking fountain and leaned against the gray cinder block wall. My pulse stepped it up when I saw her come in. The heat rose up my neck. I stuck my hands in my pockets then took them out and tried to look nonchalant, tucking them under my armpits, then putting my right hand on the wall and sticking my left back in my pocket. I’m a goon, I know.

I made a false start toward her when she stopped at a locker. She smacked at the padlock like she was impatient then leaned her back against it. It wasn’t hard to figure out that she was at her boyfriend’s locker. No way was I going to chance talking to her if Michael showed up. Before being cut from the team last year I had a little locker-room disagreement with him. He’s an idiot. I could probably take him on now.

Hannah gave up waiting and started walking my way. There were tons of kids coming in now. A bus had just let out about thirty kids who were cutting through the senior hallway. Hannah stood out among them and not just because she was a senior. There was a look she had—haughty, I guess. Snobbish. And beautiful and blonde.

Twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten. I took a step forward. Balked.

Her head turned in my direction and our eyes met. Green eyes. Hannah had green eyes. Just like Jessica. Her mouth curled up in a smile for a fraction of a second and I thought she was going to say something to me. I dropped my hand from the wall.

“Hey-a,” I tripped over my tongue, moved one foot forward, and cleared my throat. “I, uh—”

She opened her mouth and her face changed like she was glad to see me, but no words came out. She scowled at me then, closed her mouth, and gave me the finger. I watched her walk away, five feet, ten feet, twenty feet. What was that all about? I stood there until the first bell rang and didn’t see Michael come in. Good. Maybe I’d get another chance at lunch.

I went up to English class and took my seat without looking at Jessica’s empty one. Rashanda was in her seat, head down. We had talked a few times this weekend. She hadn’t seen Jessica again either.

Crap.