Life After Theft (29 page)

It was the way Sera smiled.

“That’s when my clothes changed. And my hair and face. And for the first time I can remember, I looked in that mirror and I liked what I saw.”

I smiled back. For real. “I’m glad. And for what it’s worth, I think you look better now too.” I didn’t mean the clothes and makeup. The real change in her appearance was something else—something deeper. And I could
see
it.

“Thanks, Jeff. That means a lot to me—really.” The tears fell onto her cheeks now, but she didn’t really cry. Her shoulders didn’t shake and there were no sobs. Just tears.

“Kim—”

“Don’t. Don’t try to convince me I was just some girl who made a few mistakes. Don’t let me keep doing what I’ve done for the last year—the last five years. Don’t let me hang on to the lies.”

I couldn’t speak as her wet, blue eyes bore into mine.

“I was a bad person, Jeff.” The volume of her voice hadn’t changed, but she spoke with intensity. “I was a bad person and it’s about time I faced up to that. I had everything in the world, and it wasn’t good enough. And you know what’s worse? You were right; I hated
everyone
. Can you imagine hating everyone you know?”

I shook my head again and she laughed sharply. But when she spoke, her words were soft. “Of course not. You’re too good. Too willing to see the best in people. Even me.” She stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. “I don’t know how to be a good person, Jeff. I don’t naturally do the right thing, like you. But . . . I think I
want
to learn. And maybe I’m finally ready.”

I nodded slowly. “Maybe you are.”

“Could . . . could you teach me?”

I was silent for a long time as I contemplated this. “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

She looked disappointed, but nodded. “At least you didn’t say no. I would have.”

“So what now?” I asked.

She sat up and looked down at her hands in her lap. “Would you do me one last favor?” She peered up at me from under her lashes—but it wasn’t the flirtatious look she’d often used to convince me to do something she wanted—it was a look that said she wasn’t sure I’d say yes.

“I’ll try.”

“I need to return one more thing.”

MY STOMACH WAS TWISTING ITSELF
in knots as I rang the familiar doorbell. Sera’s mother answered, her smile soft, but wary. “Jeff, I’m afraid we have company tonight.”

“I know, Mrs. Hewitt, and I’m really sorry, but I just need to talk to Sera for two minutes. It’s about school,” I lied, holding up a shoe box.

She glanced in toward the dining room. “All right,” she said, “I’ll get her, but please make it quick.”

Sera came around the corner a few seconds later with a big smile on her face. “Jeff, I can’t believe Mom let me leave the table to come see you.” She stopped long enough to press a kiss to my mouth. “She must be starting to like you.”

I grinned. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.” But I sobered as I lifted the small shoe box I had brought—a box Kimberlee hadn’t put in the cave but in its own little private hiding spot in the cove. Because, she had explained, it wasn’t something she stole; it was something she
took
. I snuck a glance at Kimberlee, standing close to my shoulder, and she nodded encouragingly. “I brought you something,” I said seriously. “And I need you to not ask questions about it. I’ll tell you later, but there’s just not time tonight.” I shoved the box into her hands and she stared at me for several moments before lifting the lid.

Tears filled her eyes as she reached in and touched the long, thick braid of red hair tied with miniature blue-and-green pom-poms.

“Kimberlee’s sorry. She wasn’t before, but she is now.” I glanced back one more time, but Kimberlee’s gaze was fixed on Sera’s face, her brows knit together in concentration. “She knows she has no right to ask, but she hopes that someday you can forgive her.”

Sera tried to speak, but nothing came out. She looked up at me and I tried to show on my face that this wasn’t—could never be—a joke.

She closed the lid again and looked at the sticker—one last sticker—that I’d affixed to the top. “It was
you
?”

I nodded.

Her hand came up to cover her mouth and she shook her head. “But . . . you just moved here. How could—?”

“I’ll explain everything tomorrow,” I said, hoping I’d still have the nerve when tomorrow arrived.

“I didn’t know!” she insisted. “I didn’t; I promise. I would never . . . I didn’t . . .” She couldn’t finish as tears filled her eyes.

“It’s okay,” I said, rubbing my hands up and down her arms. “Everything is
okay
. I’m not getting expelled.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No, no,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Don’t be sorry. This is not your fault; this is Hennigan’s fault. Don’t blame yourself.”

“I didn’t want to,” she said, clutching the box to her chest.

“I know. And I trusted you. I knew you had a good reason for whatever was going on and
I was right
. I’m proud of you for what you did. You saved Khail.”

“But I could have taken your place and saved you both,” she whispered.

I shook my head. “No, you couldn’t have. We both know you tried. And if you knew it was me you probably would have lied worse, not better.” She mustered up a teary smile at that. “I had someone else to save me. Khail needed you and I’m glad you did it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded uncertainly.

“Oh,” I said, remembering the last thing. I pulled a small scrap of paper from my pocket. “This is for Khail.”

She took it and read my scrawly writing followed by a phone number. “Preston? Khail’s friend who moved a couple years ago?”

I nodded, then held my breath.

“Should I tell Khail to . . . call him?” she asked, confused.

She doesn’t know. Not even his sister. His best friend
. “Just give it to him,” I said, my voice wobbly. “He’ll know what it’s for.”

“Okay,” she said, her thumb idly stroking the sticker on the shoe box. She looked up at me; then her eyes flitted to something over my left shoulder.

To Kimberlee.

Sera blinked and shook her head before turning her puzzled expression back to me. “That was weird. For just a second I thought I saw . . .”

“We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?” I said, squeezing her hand before she could try to finish her statement. I leaned a little closer and whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Then the door closed between us.

I exhaled slowly, trying to calm my racing heart. I turned around and faced Kimberlee.

She was still staring at the door, but a hint of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”

Kimberlee and I lay on my bed, head-to-head, for a long time that night. Streetlights slanted through my blinds and laid stripes across her face. “How long have you had Preston’s number?” I asked.

“Almost a year. When I realized how fast I could travel as a ghost I spent about a month tracking him down. Seriously took ages. His parents did
not
want those two together again. I hoped maybe doing that would help me move on. But then I couldn’t tell anyone the number, so it was totally pointless.”

“But it was a good thing to do. See, there is goodness in you somewhere,” I said with a grin.

“Jerk,” Kimberlee said, but she was smiling.

“That’s me,” I said, stretching my arms out to both sides.

“He still hates me,” Kimberlee said after a moment.

I lifted my head and looked her in the eye. “Did you have
anything
to do with Preston’s parents finding out about him?”

She met my eyes, her gaze steady. “No.” She laughed bitterly. “It’s the one thing I
didn’t
do.”

“Then it’s not your problem.”

“It feels like a problem.”

“Oh, it is a problem—it’s just not
your
problem. And after tonight, I think you’ve done what you can.”

“Are you sure?”

I chuckled. “I’m not sure about anything.” We both laughed quietly in the darkness until a comfortable silence settled over us. For several minutes neither of us spoke.

Then Kimberlee asked, “You don’t believe in God, right?”

I shook my head.

“Why not?”

“Well, maybe there’s a god; maybe there isn’t. I just don’t know. My parents didn’t teach me to believe in God. Maybe if they had, I would.”

“What do you believe in?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you believe in karma, or reincarnation, or some greater good, or something?”

“I don’t know. I guess I believe in karma to some degree. I believe that if you try to put something good into the world, the world will try to give something good back to you. I believe in balance.”

“Balance.” Kimberlee echoed the word almost mournfully.

“But I believe in learning to be better, too.” I stared up at the dark ceiling. “I believe in family; I believe in relationships. I guess ultimately, I believe in people.”

“People like me?”

“People like everyone.”

“What about bad apples?”

“You’re not a bad apple.”

“Let’s say Hitler.”

I grinned. “Okay, he was a bad apple.”

“So what was waiting for him when he died?”

I didn’t have an answer for her. Until I met Kimberlee, I’d doubted there was an afterlife at all. I believed like my mom did—that you should live every moment of life to the fullest because when it was over, it was over. I chose my words carefully, trying to decide what I thought even as I said it. “Maybe it’s like Newton’s law: ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.’”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I think there have to be consequences. But that doesn’t mean I believe in hell with fiery whips or anything. I think maybe sticking around as a ghost is your punishment.” I rolled over to face her. “Maybe not even really a
punishment
, but a chance for you to learn without the distraction of being alive.” I studied her face in the darkness. “You
have
learned something, haven’t you?”

She smiled and nodded. “I have.” But the smile slipped from her face almost as quickly as it had appeared. “I just worry that it isn’t enough. Do you remember what you said to me on Tuesday?”

My lips pursed into a thin line. “I said a lot of things on Tuesday.”

“Yeah, you did. And I’m glad. I needed to hear them.” She flipped onto her back. “Before you left to screw Sera’s brains out—”

“Hey!”

“Sorry, that wasn’t the point. Before you went to make up with Sera, you told me I was still here because no one in the universe wanted me.”

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you should have, because I think maybe you were right. I’ve learned a lot of things from you, Jeff, but the things I’ve learned—” Her voice cracked as tears leaked into her hair and her breath came in ragged gasps. “They hurt, Jeff. It’s hard—so damn hard—to see myself for what I was. And I’m afraid—” She paused to take another breath before continuing in a quiet voice. “I’m afraid of how hard the next lesson is going to be.”

Then I did something I’d been afraid to do since meeting her. I stretched an arm out and pushed it through her back—as if she were lying against my shoulder. My arm filled with a creepy tingle and I wanted to yank it back, but as she sighed and moved her head a little closer, I forced myself to hold still.

“I’m glad I met you,” I said. And I wasn’t actually sure whether or not it was a lie until I said it out loud.

“Me too.”

We lay there in silence for what felt like hours.

I don’t know when I finally got comfortable enough to close my eyes, but the next thing I remembered was my alarm screeching at me. I looked over, but Kimberlee had gone. I sat up and tried to stretch the kinks out of my arms. My whole spine was sore and the popping was audible as I turned this way and that.

I froze when my eyes settled on the blue flip-flops sitting on the floor at the end of the bed. “Kim?” I whispered. I was waiting for her to pop out from the closet or something. “Kim?” I called a little louder. I stretched my foot out and hesitantly poked the nearest shoe with my toe.

And felt something solid.

I leaped onto my bed and curled my feet underneath me.

“That’s not funny,” I said once my breathing was under control.

I sat there for a full minute, staring at those shoes. Then carefully, I slipped off the bed and crouched beside them. I tentatively reached out a finger and touched one.

It was real.

I picked them up and studied them from every angle. Just a pair of slightly scuffed, pale blue flip-flops.

I never saw Kimberlee again.

This novel requires so much thanking. It’s the book that almost wasn’t and would continue to
not be
without the help of an embarrassingly large number of people and six and a half years. Thanks always go first and foremost to my editors and agent, Tara Weikum, Erica Sussman, and Jodi Reamer. This book is so different, so quirky, and I’ve never fought any of you so hard to keep it that way. Thank you for your never-ending patience with me.

Eternal thanks to Miss Snark, who gave me the encouragement I needed back in 2006 to go beyond chapter one. To my sister, Kara, with whom I nervously shared the first five chapters when I wasn’t sure I was ready to share it at all, because it contained so much of me. The real me. To fellow (but much more veteran) author William Bernhardt, whose workshop I grudgingly went into only to come out a changed writer. Bill, thanks for helping me make this book grow a plot. And to Saundra, who reminded me that Jeff was supposed to be the good guy. But not exactly in those words.

And the biggest thank-you, always, to Kenny, who never stopped telling me this book was the best thing I’d ever written. If no one ever thinks the same except you, I’ll still believe you’re right.