Just Like Heaven (16 page)

“Harold!” Nick shouted, looking di
stressed as he moved around the
couples waltzing, passing thos
e doing the Macarena and stopping
on the fringes of those doing the Electric Slide. “Harold!” He yelled, his voice cracking in pain.

Nick’
s voice had broken through the private songs playing for every couple on the dance floor;
people
stopped dancing and turned to stare at Nick with quizzical looks
.
They traded glances with their partners and exchanged a few words, which Nina couldn’t d
ecipher, since so many individual
s spoke at the same time.

Throughout the dance club
, people came to a halt and pressed forward to gaze at Nick with questionable expressions: while most
looked crestfallen, others appear
ed down, either unwilling
or unable to bear the confusion and anguish that penetrated Nick’s soul. Still, they
drew
closer in silent but tentative steps
. W
ithin moments, they had created a circle around both of them.

“What’s going on?” Nick shouted
.
He curled
his own around her, shielding her from the assemblage of people who stared at him.
“
Why are you all looking at me?”

Nina didn’t have the heart to tell him that they were fascinated by him: enthralled by his conflicting emotions and negative energy while also glum that he experienced such discomfort. After all, they inhabited a
place where happiness reigned and
no one felt uncertain or unloved. Nick reminded them of their own past incarnations
on earth
, reminded them of the hardships they had endured, reminded them of the fear and rejection and unhappiness that had consumed so much thought and energy..

“
What have you done with my brother?”

“They’ve done nothing with him,” said Roland
, stepping
out
of
the crowd and
walking toward Nick and Nina
. “How could they? This is
your dream, isn’t it?
You’ve created this existence. Not them.
If anyone made your brother disappear,
you only have yourself to blame.
” He stopped only a few inches away from him.

“You’re lying,” Nick said, tone faltering. “You’re tricking me.” He scanned the faces around him. “You’re all crazy. Leave me alone.” He released Nina’s arms
and placed his palm
s to his temples, bending over, shrinking as though thousands of voices had entered his mind without the capacity to banish them. “Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.”

Roland
stepped forward and extended his hand, about to take Nick and disappear, stranding Nina
among a group of disheartened souls
.

But if they retreated elsewhere, Nina didn’t know when she’d see him again. Surely, Roland had plans for him, and she got the impression that Roland wanted him to spend as little time as
possible with her,
so she reacted quickly by taking Nick’s hand and wishing herself elsewhere. Within an instant, they vanished.

*
             
             
             
*
             
             
             
*

“What are we doing here?” Nick asked, standing on a cliff overlooking an ocean of waves
that crashed
against the rocks below.
The water looked so far down that he could barely see the blue surf. Nearing
the edge, he spun back to her. “Why did you take us here?”

Nina reached out towards him,
but
her feet locked in place as though glued to the rocky terrain.
She waved her arms in the air with desperation. “Come back.”

“What’s the big deal?” he asked, pivoting around again and approaching the ledge. He peered
down
. “Damn that’s far down. It’s got
to be thousands of feet…no, way
more than that. From this distance, it looks like the water is miles away.”

“Don’t go any further…p
lease.”

The rocks under his shoes felt unsteady and Nick wavered, arms waving in windmill fashion. A shot of distress shot through him. “Whoa.”

Nina screamed.

He regained his balance and put a hand to his chest. “I’m breathing so heavy.” He laughed and adop
ted Roland’s
accent: “Is that air you think you’re breathing?” Chuckling, he said, “I
f it’s really like that in heaven, I
bet smokers
will be pretty pissed off
.”

“It’s not funny.” Trembling,
Nina glanced down, afraid to look over the edge.

“Hey,” he said, approachi
ng her. “What’s wrong?” He slipp
ed his arms around her
waist
, feeling that strange gelatin sensation overtake him. But a moment later, the warmth of Nina’s
essence seeped into his pores
. He felt a strange mixture of emotions:
uncertainty and
fragility, strength of character, faith in others and in herself
, a peaceful spirit…

Startled b
y the connection, he pulled away, but separating
from Nina felt
like loneliness lashed at his soul.
“What was that?”

Nina staggered from the disjoining and almost fel
l to her knees. She recovered and
put a hand to her forehead, wincing in pain.

“We held each o
ther before…in the dance club. But
just now it felt different.
Why did it change? Why did I feel…you?”

She straightened her knees and met his gaze, still suffering from the aftereffects
of their parting
. “W
hen we were dancing,
we were
content
, but we didn’t embrace like we did a
moment ago. T
his time...our feelings changed. We care about each other. And that’s why
we
were
able to feel
each other
.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” h
e said, pacing back and forth.

“You don’t have feelings for me?”

He met
her gaze. “I didn’t say that.” Then h
e looked away. “I just…I just…”

“You what? Say it.”

“This is
all
make believe. I don’t even know you. You’re not even real. You’re
in
my imagination. I made you up. When
I saw you in the diner, I couldn’t get over how
fun you seemed
…and I decided to turn you into something I
could care about. You’re not t
his
great
in real life.
How could you be?
I’ve twisted my dream to the way I want things to work out
between us
.”

Nina
lowered her gaze.
Once more, s
he
c
oncentrate
d on the rocks under her feet, as though expecting to slip and f
all at any moment. “So I’m fake?
I don’t even exist?”

“You don’t understand.” He extend
ed his arms
wide
. “All of this is not real. In real life, you wouldn’t want anything to do with me. And since this is my dream, I’ve made you into someone…special.”

“You keep saying that. When you say ‘special,’ what do you mean?”

Nick
opened his mouth to speak then snapped it shut.

“If this is all a fairy tale, why won’t you just say how you feel?”

“Because saying it makes it real.”

“And what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that what you want?”

“No
,
I don’t want it. Because I don’t believe in it.”

“You don’t believe in love?”

“I do. I just don’t believe that love…ends in happiness.”

“Because of your parents. Because of your brother.
”

Nick hated hearing the
truth. He could think it. No harm could come from that.
But hearing it made it more authentic
. “You know what,” he said, anger fueling an energy boost. “I’m going to prove it.” He pointed to the edge of the cliff. “I’m
jump
ing
.
”
When he fell off that balcony with Roland, he discovered
that
they had
n’t hit the
ground. Now that he was alone, Nick
wanted
to find out if he would crash to the ground and…wake up.

“No,” she said, lurch
ing toward him. But she stopped after only one step.

“If you die in your dream you die in your bed, right? Well, I’m testing that theory.” He
turned his back on her and ran
toward the ledge. He spun
back to her. You’re not
real. And here’s proof.” H
e turned
around and
j
umped.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“That’s a long way down,”
Mei Lee
said, appearing at the edge
of the cliff the moment after Nick took the leap. She looked
down the mountain
. “I can’t ev
en see him.
I wonder where he went.
”
She turned to Nina. “Any ideas? Oh, but you wouldn’t know
, would you? C
liff-diving was
never
your thing, was it Roxy?”

Nina glared at her. She now remembered why others called her Roxy.
She refused to jump off the cl
iff
. (They couldn’t call her
“
C
liff,
”
now could they?
)
She
didn’t have a fear of heights. She hadn’t sk
ydived or bungee-jumped in
her latest incarnation, but
she had
no
qualms about
walking around along t
he top of the Empire State Building
or boarding an airplane
. B
ut
for reasons she couldn’t identify,
this cliff frightened her more than anything in her history of existence. I
n heaven, where no one could perish
because no one maintained corporeal form, you could not “die.”

Theref
ore, jumping from a cliff couldn’t harm you. Those who stood at the precipice never hesitated to take the plunge. Except Nina. She’d heard countless others say how wonderful it felt to
let their souls fall
through
the air
.
But e
ach time she neared the edge, a fear that gripped her with steadfast resolve made it impossible for her to
jump.
She
always
froze.

But
fear didn’t exist
in heaven. Yet it persisted each time she stood on the rocky terrain,
and she rarely had
the compunction to peer down
. A
paralysis that she couldn’t shake
possessed her
until
one of her friends eventually arrived to help her vacate
the area.

“Why
are you so afraid
?”
Mei Lee
asked. “What about this cliff scares you so much?” She started toward Nina. “I’ve read through each one of your lifetimes: yes, all one hundred and
t
hirty
four o
f them. And you k
now what I found out? Nothing. So w
hy do you find this cliff so imposing?
”

Nina didn’t meet her stare. If it confo
unded
Mei Lee
, an individual who
knew her better than anyone, she would be shocked to learn that Nina simp
ly didn’t have an
explanation
. Wh
ich brought about a different question that hadn’t occurred to her until now:
why had she brought Nick here?

“F
or now,
” Mei Lee said,
“
I’m granting you a reprieve. We still have to revisit your most recent existence on
e
arth
.
And you’ve resisted long enough – with all of your visiting
restaurants and dance clubs
.
”
She reached out and cla
sped Nina’s upper arm. They disappear
ed.