Cold Kiss Goodbye

Chapter 10

I slipped out of school for lunch, not ready to forgive Ryan and not comfortable sitting with anyone else. As I walked across the rear lawn towards a tree, Josh fell into step besides me.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked, grinning at me. He dropped his duffel bag.

"I was just hoping to eat lunch with a friendly ghost," I said. And then I wondered if that were more or less pathetic than me escaping out here to hide by myself.

"It's too cold for you," he said, even though I was already sitting down, curling my legs beneath me. He sat down facing me, his legs stretched out in front of him so that our knees were parallel.

"It's not cold," I said, though I was betrayed by my traitor shivering.

He reached out as if to touch the goose bumped skin exposed by my three-quarter sleeves, and then stopped himself. "I'll only make you colder," he said.

It was true, but I still wished he would touch me.

"So how was your weekend?" he asked.

"Lonely," I admitted. Full of frustration and conflict and sadness, but most of all, overwhelmingly, lonely.

"Mine too," he said. "I missed you."

"Do you think you could come to my house?" I asked. "I mean, I'm just curious, can you go anywhere?"

"I don't know," he said. "I don't see why not. It'd be worth trying."

"That would be nice."

"So why was your weekend so lonely?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. I don't have an easy time getting along with anyone anymore."

"I think you're easy to get along with," he said.

"You might change your mind. What about your weekend?" It was a stupid question to ask a ghost. I realized that as soon as I said it.

He told me that he'd spent the weekend lurking around his own house, watching his parents and brother Jamie grieve in their own ways. Dad was sullen and angry. Mom clung to Jamie. Jamie was withdrawn.

Josh's eyes went shiny as he spoke. When he trailed off, I looked back towards the school building to give him some privacy.

Then I asked, "So what's your brother like?"

He cleared his throat and then said, his voice something like normal, "Jamie has Down syndrome. He's older than me, he already graduated high school, and he works at the Shopper's in Greensboro. We drove each other crazy all the time as kids, but he's a good big brother."

"Drew and I were still in the driving-each-other-crazy stage," I said.

"Things definitely got better when we were older, but I'm not sure you ever completely stop bugging each other," he said. "Jamie loves balloons, not that he would never let on to that in public these days. When we were kids there were always balloons drifting through the house, and it drove me crazy. I'd have friends over, and then these balloons... I'm sure they thought we were so weird."

"The other thing was, he couldn't blow up the balloons himself – he's never gotten the hang of it for some reason. So he'd always be after me to blow up more balloons."

"Did you?"

"Sometimes," he said. "In my better moments as a brother, I tried to keep him stocked with balloons. I always get a bunch of helium ones on his birthday. They're way better than Josh-inflated balloons."

"It sounds like you were a good brother," I said.

"It never feels like enough once you're out of time, though," he said. "Does it?"

A pressure in my chest that I hadn't even recognized suddenly lifted. That's how great the power is of having a feeling finally named and recognized. "No," I said. "It doesn't. I didn't think anyone else felt that way."

"Tell me about Drew," he said softly.

I told him about Drew, who died before his tenth birthday. I never wanted a little brother. I'd wanted a little sister, and when he was born, I didn't change my mind. I started painting his toenails when he was just a baby. My parents rolled their eyes but didn't protest. As he got older, he would even come ask me to paint his toenails when they chipped. I never told him it was a girl thing. It was our thing to do together. Until he went to kindergarten and was teased mercilessly – well, as mercilessly as five-year-olds can tease — for having hot pink polish on his toes.

Josh laughed. It startled me. Then I had to smile too. It was a funny memory, my sandy-haired brother as a toddler sitting on the couch, watching me seriously as I painted every little toenail.

"I'm sure Drew knew you loved him," Josh said. "Nail polish hijinks aside."

"I'm not so sure," I said. I hesitated. "I changed the subject the other day, you know, when you asked how I got the gift."

"Yeah, I noticed," he said. He was still smiling, but his eyes sobered.

"I don't understand the how and why of any of it," I said. "But the gift started after Dad and Drew died in the wreck. There's one thing I've wanted to do, to talk to them one last time. To tell them I love and miss them. And that seems to be the one thing I can't do."

"Maybe they already passed on to the next world," he said. "Maybe they know you love them and miss them, and they didn't have any reason to be ghosts."

"Maybe," I said. "But maybe doesn't keep me from waking up at night, feeling—" I broke off. Josh seemed to understand me, to be the one person it was safe to talk to. But that didn't mean there weren't some things still too hard to say.

"It's okay," he said, and then, "If they're in the next world already, I promise, I'll find them when I cross over. I'll tell them what you said."

"But I'll never know," I said.

"I'll come back and tell you," he promised.