Beyond - Volume 1 (YA Paranormal Romance) (11 page)

He
turns around in one go, and then I notice that he’s got a flower in his hand. He’s been to the end point and is already coming back. Grinning, he shows the flower to me.

I’ll have to swim much better from now on if I still want to catch up. I close my mouth and tilt my head in order to do the front
crawl.

“Are you alright
?” Simon asks as he comes swimming toward me. He even stops for a moment. It’s almost an insult that he’s taking his time for me.

“Yeah, sure, take your time. I’ll be right up.” I wink and pass him. He smiles and swims
away, back to the girls.

In front of me
I can clearly see the edge of the pond. There’s flowers in the grass up ahead. I just have to reach for them, pick one and leave. I’m so close.

Suddenly something pounds against my legs. I
stop in the middle of the water and look around, but it’s too muddy to see anything. I try to swim farther toward the flower, but then something pulls my feet and my head goes underwater.

I swallow some of the dirty water
which tastes awful. I flounder and kick. The thing grabbing me releases me from its grip. When my head reaches the surface I gasp for air and sputter. I can feel my heartbeat rising.

Calm down Raven, keep your focus. This is
just your imagination.

Then something
tugs on my leg again, and I suck in a final breath before my head sinks below the waterline. I kick and strike around, but the water resistance is so strong that I can’t hit anything. Fighting, I try to pull myself out of its grasp, but it keeps pulling me farther away from the surface, deeper into the pond. I don’t know what’s holding me, but it sure doesn’t feel like a hallucination.

I can’t hold my breath any longer. My heart is racing
, and my mouth and eyes open. I need oxygen, but I only feel the water entering my lungs as I gasp for air. The grimy water makes me gag.

Something’s still tugging my feet
, and the light of the sun shining down upon the pond gets darker and darker. The water is grubby and filled with green sludge. Deeper and deeper I drift away into oblivion.

Hallucination or no
t, I decided to come here. I told them I’d do it, that I’d swim. I agreed with it. This is my fault. I should never have said yes, but now it’s too late. What a horrible way to die.

Blue flashes of light shoot
down all around me like falling stars, blinding and transparent in the light of the sun. They clarify the green water and the fish swimming around me. The flares are magnificent, and I imagine myself being in heaven. I drift around in this endless space. The stunning blue bolts that fly close by comfort me, because I know I’m in safe hands now. Wherever that may be.

I squint, seeing more shrubs and fish than before. Then I notice something else.
The flashes aren’t bolts, but a ghost, jolting past me. The blue ghost from my bedroom.

I’m alive.

My heart thumps in my chest as I gaze ahead.

The blue ghost is floating through the water, following another black one.
Sam.

I try to
move upward, toward the oxygen, but my body isn’t working. It refuses to move. I can’t use my muscles anymore and drift farther into a haze.

A hand, wrapped around my wrist, pulls
me toward the surface. I spit water from my lungs and gasp while the blue ghost drags me to the edge of the pond, the grassy surface scraping my skin.

Then
he flies off, pursuing the black ghost that moves through the reed patch. They both vanish into the reeds.

I lie on the squishy ground
and suck in air. My hair is wet and sticks to my skin. My bikini is dirty, covered in green sludge and mud. I don’t care. I should be happy I’m still alive, but I’m more terrified of what happened.

Sam
tugged my ankles and pulled me to the bottom of the pond. The blue ghost saved me again.

What is this all about? I don’t understand anything anymore. What is real and what is
an illusion?

“Raven!”

I look up. Simon is swimming toward me using his strong front crawl.

My head drops to the ground
again, and I gaze at the sky. The clouds are colored red and pink by the sunset. I place my hand on my chest and feel my heart racing. I try to calm myself down.

It’s okay
. I’m still alive. I can breathe. I’m out of the water.

“Raven!” Simon swims to the shore and runs out of the
water. His soaked trunks cling to his legs, hanging down his hips. He kneels before me.

“What happened? Are you okay
?” He grasps my hand. “When I couldn’t see you behind me anymore, I warned the girls and swam back immediately. You just disappeared.”

“I
… ” I hesitate. What should I say? I cough. “I was so tired and when I tried to swim underwater I got stuck on the knots of a plant. I was running low on air for a moment, but was able to break free.”

Simon’s eyebrows arch
, his lips purse and his forehead creases. He grabs my hand and helps me get up, supporting my back and pulling my arm.

“You should’ve said you were tired.
We could’ve stopped,” he says.

“I know, but I wanted to win.” I smile.

“I’m sorry. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have let you compete against me. You had no shot at winning, and I knew it beforehand,” he says while helping me.

“Excuse me? What do you mean
I had no shot at winning
?” I fold my arms together.

“That’s not what I mean.
” Simon raises his hands in defense. “I’m a lifeguard in the summer, so I swim a lot. I mean … I didn’t want you to be in danger. If I’d known that was going to happen, I would’ve never let you swim. We just shouldn’t have done it.”

I frown at him. I
want to push him back into the water. Simon, a lifeguard? I hadn’t expected that, although I now understand where he learned that swimming technique.

“Sorry,” he repeats with a gentle voice
, and he gives me the flower he picked.

I bring it to my nose and smell it
. Even though it has no particular scent, it warms me up on the inside thinking about Simon. Instead of ditching the flower, he went through the trouble of bringing it along. How can I not forgive him? He’s so sweet.

“Alright, alright, I forgive you. So, lifeguard, huh? So you save lives on a
daily basis during the summer?”

He laughs. “Sort of. Unfortunately I didn’t reach you in time
to be a hero. You saved yourself. Which is better of course,” he says and pats me on the back, making me blush.

I have to laugh
when Emma and Lillian come running at me with their arms waving in the air.

“Raven!
Oh, I was so worried.” Emma hurls herself around my neck and squishes me.

“When Simon
yelled at us, we were so scared,” Lillian says, giving me a hug. “We didn’t know you had trouble swimming.”

“That’s not
what happened. I just got stuck,” I say, wincing.

Then I catch a glimpse of the blue ghost reappearing
from behind the reeds. It’s all going so fast, I don’t even get a chance to look at him. He flies behind the girls and vanishes into the forest.

What happened to the black ghost he was chasing? And why am I see
ing all this? Those pills don’t work anymore.

“Raven? What’s the matter?” Lillian asks.
Her eyes flicker with burning interest.

“Nothing. I thought I saw a wasp.” I’m not going to tell her about my hallucinations.

“Where?” Emma exclaims and she starts flapping her hands around her.

“It’s long gone, don’t worry,” I
say.

While we walk away from the pond and go back to the
fountain, the rumbling sound of a motorcycle is somewhere far behind me. I turn my head. Damian’s on his bike in the forest, and he’s looking at me.

Then he
steps on the gas and rides off. The blue ghost just flew in the same direction.

Simon and I
need to dry out in the sun before we put our clothes back on. We sit next to each other on the fountain steps with Lillian and Emma joining us.

“Are you really okay
, Raven?” Lillian asks.

“Yeah, aren’t you feeling queasy?” Emma bends her head, so she can see me.

“Girls, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” I look around. Because of what happened in the pond, I forgot about Joey. He and his brother are nowhere to be seen.

“What happened to Joey?”
I ask.

“He said he forgot to do something and sprinted off. You guys
were already swimming then,” Lillian says, twirling her finger near her temple. “Lunatic, if you ask me. Maybe he does drugs or something, like his best bud, Damian.”

I snort. The conversation drops silent.

“Want me to take you home?” Simon asks.

I put my hands in front of my eyes, so the sun doesn’t blind me. “I’m not going to say no to that.”

***

When I return to school the next day
, everything seems normal, except for the hallucinations.

It’s noisy in the classroom. I’m getting better at remembering the names of all my classmates.
Nobody asks me about my run in with Damian. The girls are busy with the incident at the fountain and with the fact that I almost drowned in the pond.

I sit with
the girls alone in the cafeteria during lunch. I can’t focus on their conversation, still pondering what happened at the park yesterday.

When the bell rings we throw our
leftovers from lunch in the trash and walk out the cafeteria.

“It’s math
time,” Emma says.

“Oh, no, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Lillian says. She
frantically checks her schedule, almost ripping the pages out when flipping through.

“I n
ever understand anything about math.” Emma blows a bubble with her chewing gum.

We walk into the classroom on the first floor.
In shock, I drop my books on the floor when I realize who’s sitting at the table next to mine. Damian Hayes.

He glares at me, his eyes emblazed.
I didn’t expect him to be at school. He’s been absent for a couple of days now. His sudden presence gives me shivers.

I
pick my books up off the floor and clench them close to my chest as I walk to my seat. I know he’s staring at me, but I’m prepared. For days I’ve been carrying my diary in my backpack. In it is his handwriting. Today I can finally use it as evidence and lure him into talking. I’ll find out if he wrote it or not, because if it’s true, then he’s able to walk through my house unseen. And I want to know how that’s possible.

The stern math teacher looks at Damian.
“Are you here to brighten our day again?”

“I was sick,
” Damian answers, tight lipped.

The teacher
removes his glasses. “Could you call in sick next time?”

“Sure.”

“Good,” the teacher says as he taps his finger on the desk. “Considering you weren’t here during my first lessons, I didn’t have the opportunity to reserve a book for you to use. You’ll have to do without for a couple of days. In the meantime, you can place your table a bit closer to Miss Stone’s and read along in hers.”

I swallow.
Damian’s going to read along with me, in the same book? And he’s sitting next to me?
The thought alone makes me nervous. Every time I see him I get all sweaty and warm. I don’t want to feel that way anymore. Not since our fallout. I don’t want to feel anything for a guy this cold. But I do. And having him sitting next to me will only make it worse.

With his muscular arms he
grabs the table and drops it down next to me. The bang almost makes me jump in my seat, and I jolt up and down, startled by his sudden violent behavior. He scoots his seat over and focuses on my book.

After a brief moment of silence, the teacher continues his class.
Damian and I look at the book together, but I’m not reading. I’m not even listening to what the teacher’s saying. The only thing I can think about is the blue ghost’s kiss and Damian’s kiss. The way that ghost saved me in the pond, and that Damian denies being him. It does sound absurd, I know, but what reason can there be for their kisses to be the same?

Should I drop my questions right now, so he can’t run away? Read him the diary
and ask him whether he wrote in it?
It’s so ridiculous, even though with my condition I’m used to all this weird stuff. I doubt if I should even ask him.

Damian clenches a pencil
, which he fiercely sways back and forth. Then he writes down something on a piece of paper and squeezes it in his hand until it’s crumpled. So I’m not the only one whose thoughts are somewhere else. No, the best time to ask him about all of this is not during class, but after. Chances are the teacher would interrupt me or Damian would pretend not to hear me. I have to wait until the bell rings and then walk after him again, just like last time. I need to speak to him again.

The clock is ticking, but time doesn’t seem to pass. I don’t dare look at him, because I’m afraid I’ll spill my secret, so I watch his c
lenched fists. I can feel the friction between us, but I’m not sure yet if we attract each other or push each other away like magnets. Ever since that kiss I just don’t know anymore.

T
he bell rings and I stand. I tell Lillian and Emma not to wait for me, because I want to ask the teacher something. Of course it’s a lie. The girls walk out of the classroom, while I wait at the door. Damian’s still talking to Joey Mason. They seem like friends, because for the first time in days there’s a smile on Damian’s face. They shake hands. When he turns toward me, I sneak out the door and wait in the hallway. I’m just in front of the door now, so when Damian comes out he’ll run into me. Joey walks out and doesn’t spot me. He walks through the hallway and turns a corner somewhere up ahead.

Damian com
es out of the classroom. All I see is his unmistakable green shirt and his brown hair. I walk up to him as I take out the shredded diary from my backpack, ready for the attack. The paper in his hand is my weapon.

As soon as I’m close enough
I pull the piece of paper from his hand. Immediately he turns around to look at me. Today he seems even more enraged than the last time we met, though I didn’t think that was possible.

“Give that back,” he says
through clenched teeth. “It doesn’t belong to you.”

“Right, just like my diary
doesn’t belong to you, in case you forgot.” I open the book and show him the inside cover. It clearly says
‘they’re real’
. I hold the paper he just wrote on next to it and compare the two. The crooked, hasty writing is almost unreadable. So I was right. The handwriting is the same. Then he snatches the paper away, before I can read what it says.

“You wrote in my diary
, and that is proof.” I point at the paper in his hand. I seem to have struck a nerve, because his brows go up and his pupils get bigger. The hallway empties of students. My class will start soon, but I don’t care.