Читать книгу Hereafter - Tara Hudson, Tara Hudson - Страница 9

I was just full of foolish impulses lately. There he stood, the boy about whom I’d been thinking—obsessing, really—for the past two days. Yet I ran, as fast as I could, in the opposite direction. Had any of my adrenaline still existed, it would have burned in my legs as I fled.

Apparently, and as I’d suspected, my ghostly instincts had become as strong as my living ones had been. Ghosts weren’t meant to be seen, no matter how much they wanted to be. Anything to the contrary was cause enough to run away, and fast.

At least those would have been my thoughts were I capable of any. But at that moment I was only capable of blind terror. Fear buzzed in my brain, and it nearly blocked the voice that rang out from behind me.

“Stop! Come on, stop! Please.”

It was the quality of the voice that did it—low, and still a little hoarse from the river water he’d swallowed. Hearing the break in it, I felt a little ache right in the middle of my chest. Just a small, inconspicuous, and completely incapacitating ache.

I skidded to a stop, almost at the other end of the bridge. Ever so slowly, I turned around to face him.

“Thanks,” he called out roughly, settling back on his heels. From his stance he looked as if he’d just been about to take off after me.

I gave him one tense nod. There was a noticeable pause, and then he asked, “So, will you come back here?”

I shook my head. No way.

Even this far apart I could hear him sigh.

“O-kay.” He dragged out the sound of the O as if he was taking the seconds of extra pronunciation to deal calmly with a frustrating puzzle. “Then … can I come over there to you?”

I frowned, not indicating an answer one way or another. I guess he took my indecision as a yes, because he began to walk toward me. He kept his steps intentionally slow, and he held his hands in front of his body in the universal gesture of “I won’t hurt you, wild animal.”

“I come in peace,” he called out, and I could see him grin just a little. The grin was all at once wry, and sweet, and cautious.

So I couldn’t help but grin right back.

The boy dropped his hands and smiled fully at me. And, with that, the little ache exploded in my chest like a bomb, warming every limb.

Warmth. I felt warmth. Really felt it, just like I’d felt the touch of his hand in the water. My smile widened.

“Does that smile mean I can keep walking toward you?”

“No,” I said quietly.

He stopped moving, surprised by my words, or maybe just by the sound of my voice. “Really?” he asked after a moment.

“Walk over to the grass,” I instructed.

He frowned, knitting his dark eyebrows together. “Why?”

“I don’t like this road. I want to go back over there.” I jerked my head in the direction of the embankment I’d only recently left.

He kept frowning, but that grin twitched at the corners of his mouth again.

“O-kay.” He gave me a thoughtful look, holding my gaze. The message was clear: I was the frustrating puzzle with which he was calmly dealing.

Then he smiled, closed lipped and dimpled like a little boy, and gave me a quick nod. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, turned on one heel, and began strolling back to the embankment.

Slowly. Too slowly. Swinging his legs in an exaggerated, deliberate way. I sighed loudly.

“Could you hurry up, please?”

He laughed, still walking away from me.

“You have a way with giving orders, you know that? Not a master of the casual chat, are you?”

Given that you’re the first person I’ve talked to in God knows how long since my death …

Aloud I muttered, “You have no idea.”

I could tell he’d heard me because he hesitated just a little. Then he kept walking forward, minus the mocking swing of his legs. After he’d gone about ten feet, I began to follow him. I walked even slower than he did, trying to think, think, think of what I was going to do, or say, when he stopped.

Blessedly, he kept going, past the black car and past the end of the bridge. Then onto the grass of the embankment. I was worrying so deeply about our upcoming exchange, I didn’t notice when he stopped and turned toward me. I looked up in time to jerk to a stop just a foot from him, within touching distance.

Terror raced through me. I could have run into him. If that had happened, I would have either felt him, skin against glorious skin, or I would have felt nothing but the numbing, impossible barrier. Either way, he surely would have realized something was wrong and do exactly what he should: get away from me.

“So,” he began, casually enough.

“So,” I responded, my eyes going to my bare feet. I felt ashamed, terrified, excited.

“I’m Joshua.”

“I know.”

“I thought so.”

The humor in his voice made me look up, finally meeting his eyes. As I suspected, his eyes were very dark, but not brown. They were a strange, deep blue—an almost midnight sky color. I was certain I’d never seen eyes that color before, and they had a disconcerting effect on me. I felt even more flustered just staring into them.

I was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of my own appearance: the tangles in my hair; my deathly pale skin; my hopelessly inappropriate dress with its strapless neckline, tight bodice, and filmy skirt. I probably looked as if I was headed to some sort of dead girls’ beauty pageant. For the first time in a very long time, I wished I had access to a mirror, whatever good it would do someone who couldn’t cast a reflection or change clothes.

He didn’t seem to notice my discomfort, however. Instead, he looked right into my eyes and grinned at me, although his expression had lost some of its amusement. He looked more speculative now, as if he knew there were mysteries between us. Questions.

“So,” he started again.

“You already said that.”

“Yeah, I did.” He laughed lightly and looked down at his shoes, absentmindedly running one hand through his hair and then leaving it on the back of his neck.

There went my little ache again, flowing out of my core like a pulse. That absentminded gesture—the guileless sweep of a hand through his hair—was utterly endearing. He looked so vibrant, so alive, that the words spilled right out of me.

“You want to know what happened, don’t you?”

I recoiled from my own words, blinking like an idiot. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Yeah, I do. I really do.” He dropped the hand from his neck and stared at me more intently, the playfulness entirely gone from his eyes.

Crap.

“Well, that’s a matter of opinion, Josh,” I said aloud.

“Joshua. Joshua Mayhew,” he corrected instantly. “But my name’s not really important right now.”

Deflect. I had to deflect, and fast, so I blurted out the first question that came to mind.

“Why am I supposed to call you Joshua if everyone else calls you Josh?”

“You’re not everyone,” he said bluntly. “Anyway …”

He knew I was stalling and meant to lead me back to the original trail of conversation, that much was clear. What was less clear was whether or not he meant any flattery by his words.

“Um …,” I floundered, and did something I hadn’t done since my death: I fidgeted. I grabbed at my skirt and began to twist it. I had no idea where to go from here.

Neither did he, it seemed. He watched me worry at my skirt and then he stared at my face until I eventually met his gaze.

“What’s your name?” His question was soft, gentle. He wasn’t trying to lead me back to the conversation. He really wanted to know.

“Amelia.”

“What’s your last name, Amelia?” His voice wrapped so well around my name, I flustered out yet another stupid answer.

“I don’t know my last name.” Or, at least, I’d never felt brave enough to try and find it in the graveyard.

He blinked, taken aback.

“Huh. Where do you live?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

Disarmed. I was completely disarmed. That was the only reasonable explanation for my stupidity.

“O-kay.” The long O again. He wasn’t as playful with the sound this time.

He stared down at his canvas sneakers, frowning and digging the toe of one shoe into the grass. He shoved his hands back into his pockets and rolled his shoulders forward, a reflexive gesture that made him look boyish and sweet. After a few more silent moments, he looked back up at me.

“You know, we have a lot to talk about.” His eyes, serious and urgent, met mine. My little ache curled out even farther in my chest as he continued. “I would have come and found you sooner, but they wouldn’t let me out of the hospital. Apparently my heart may have … Well, I may have … died, a little. In the water.”

He tilted his head to one side, clearly gauging my reaction. I shivered, but I didn’t look away. I probably didn’t look too surprised by his choice of words, either. After all, I was there when it happened. My face obviously answered some unasked question of his, because he nodded again.

“So,” he went on, “after I got out of the hospital, I started asking around about you. But nobody saw you that night. Not my family, not my friends, not even the paramedics. Not only did nobody see you on the shore, but nobody saw you in the water with me. Which I find weird. Because you were in the water with me, weren’t you?”

I bit my lower lip and nodded slightly.

“I knew I didn’t imagine you. Well, maybe when I was, you know, dead.” He said the word as if he was afraid of it. “But not after. Not when I swam to the surface or when I made it out of the water.”

Still biting my lip, I shook my head. No. You didn’t imagine me. You saw me.

“I practically had to steal my dad’s car to get out of the house today, and I came right here—to the scene of the crime. And here you are.”

“Yes,” I whispered, totally lost for a clever response. “Here I am.”

“So,” he whispered back, “we have a lot to talk about.”

“You already said that.”

He laughed, and the sound surprised us both. Then he nodded decisively.

“Well, here’s how I see it, Amelia. We don’t have to talk now. I have to get the car back to my dad soon anyway, since I’ve spent the whole morning stalking you. Besides, this doesn’t seem like a conversation you want to have, especially in this place. Can’t say that I blame you.” He glanced quickly at the hole in the railing, shuddered, and then looked back into my eyes. “So, tomorrow I’m going to be at Robber’s Cave Park. Do you know where that is?”

Stunningly, impossibly, I nodded yes.

I knew the park. I suddenly knew it as well as I knew my first name, and I knew the direction of the park from where I stood now. I knew it from memory, a genuine one that hadn’t flashed into and out of my mind but just … was.

What was this boy doing to me?

“Okay, good. I’m going to sit at the emptiest park bench I can find. I’m going to be there at noon, because, unfortunately, I’m healthy enough to go back to school tomorrow. I think I can talk my parents into letting me skip fifth period—play the sympathy card with them—but noon’s the earliest I can get there. So I’m going to go to the park. And I’m going to wait for you.”

“And if I don’t show?”

He shrugged. “I’ll respect your privacy. Or I’ll pursue you all over the earth like I’ve been trying to do since they let me out of the hospital. Probably the latter.”

I should have been afraid. I should have run away again, hid until the years passed and Joshua became an old man and the fog wrapped around my dead brain again.

Instead, I smiled.

He gave me a slight nod, grinned, and walked past me back to his car.

“Till tomorrow,” he called out with one small, backward glance.

I watched him walk away, once more unsure of everything. But when he opened his car door, my incapacitating ache curled again. My impulses, it seemed, were still doing unfamiliar things to me, because the ache seemed to have incapacitated everything but my big mouth.

“Joshua?” I called out, a slight hitch in my voice.

“Yeah?” He spun around immediately. I could swear he looked expectant, maybe even eager.

“What do I look like to you?”

He tilted his head to the side, frowning.

“What do I look like to you?” I repeated urgently, afraid that if I didn’t talk fast enough, I would have time to realize how absolutely, mind-bogglingly stupid I sounded.

Joshua smiled. He answered me, so quietly I almost couldn’t hear him.

“Beautiful. Too beautiful for people not to have noticed you the other night.”

“Oh.” The little sound was all I could manage.

He stood up straight then and cleared his throat. “So … um … I’m going to leave before I say anything else that makes me sound like an idiot. Tomorrow?”

I nodded, stunned. “Tomorrow.”

Joshua, too, nodded. Then he got into his car and reversed it back off the bridge, giving wide berth to the gap in the railing. With one quick, final spin, the car pulled away, disappearing from sight around a curve.