"Maybe you should talk about her."
Riley shrugs and strums a few chords on the guitar.
"Did you love her?" I ask.
He keeps strumming. A minute passes, notes filling the air, and then the music stops. He puts down the guitar pick.
"I knew her for most of my life. So yes, I loved her." He leans the guitar against the side of the chair and then stands up.
I watch him head for the kitchen. I should really quit while I'm ahead, but again, something tells me not to stop.
"Did she know?"
He opens the fridge door. I get up from the sofa and move to a counter stool that's closer to him. He stops rummaging through the fridge and shuts the door again, his hands empty.
"What kind of—" he starts to say, then stops and takes a breath, raking a hand through his hair. "There's a lot I never got to tell her. It doesn't matter now."
"Why do you think it doesn't matter?"
"Why do you think it does?" His eyes are on me now.
"Just because she's gone in body, doesn't mean you can't talk to her."
"Yeah, talking to thin air is exactly what sane people do."
"She's not thin air." He raises an eyebrow at me. "Have you tried talking to her?" I ask.
I watch his lips part like he's about to say something, then he closes his mouth again. A quick check of his energy shows me sparks that are the colors of confusion, grief, and even a bit of anger.
"Enough, okay?" he says after a moment.
"She just seems like she was important to you." I keep my voice quiet and calm, hoping it will soothe his energy. "Saying what you need to say might help, even if you think you're talking to nothing more than air."
I wait for silence. He surprises me, though.
"It sounds like you've thought about this quite a bit." He studies me, looking thoughtful. "Maybe a little too much for an eighteen-year-old."
If he only knew. His energy is settling a bit, so that's good at least. I close my eyes for a moment and try to come up with an answer for him.
"I talk to my parents a lot. It helps me." It sounds plausible, or I think it does.
He pauses. I watch his chest rise as he takes a deep breath, then fall again as he lets it out.
"I forgot," he finally says. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." I smile at him. "It's a normal part of my life, and talking to them makes me happy. I thought maybe it could help you, too."
"Help me how?"
"Let go of the grief." I sense he's about to argue, but he stops himself. The crease across his forehead tells me he's considering what I'm saying. Maybe it even makes sense to him.
The crease vanishes as he seems to come to a decision. "Yeah, well." He shrugs, looking out the window. "This is life, not a dress rehearsal. There's nothing after this."
"What if there is, though?" I insist. What if I know there is, and that this life you think is life is actually nothing compared to what comes next?
"Then what would be the point of this?"
I want to tell him that all of this is about getting ready for the next phase, and that he wouldn't think this way if he could see the things I have. I can't tell him this, though, or at least not in those words. But there are other ways I can put it.
"Maybe this is like being a caterpillar before becoming the butterfly," I say.
"Why wouldn't we know, then?" he argues.
"We only know what we can see. If we're like the caterpillar in the cocoon, we can only see the shell around us until we break out and fly free." So I sound like some cheesy short story from a high school English class. It's not my fault The Life-After won't let me say what I want to.
He puts his hands on the counter, leaning against it. He doesn't look happy. "I get that's what you believe, and it's fine if it helps you get through the day. Just don't push it on me, okay?"
"Okay."
I don't know if he hears me. Something about his energy tells me that for the moment, he's far away from here, reliving a memory I could see if I were Noah. I can guess it involves the girl in the photograph.
I excuse myself to find the bathroom, although I don't have to use it. I'm just not sure what else to do. I stay locked inside the small room for a minute or two longer than I need to after washing my hands.
When I hear notes from the guitar, I know it's safe to go back out. Riley's in the living room now, sitting on the chair and holding the guitar again.
"Serenading me, are you?" I make sure there's a teasing edge in my voice so my words come across as joking, and not flirting. I see a smirk cross his lips.
"Definitely." He hits the first few chords of something that distinctly belongs to the heavy metal and hair-band days of my time as Anna. It's so thrashing and choppy, I'm surprised I don't see pieces of the guitar pick flying through the air.
"Better than the banjos, I guess."
"I swear we've got to do something about your music appreciation." He puts the guitar down beside the chair.
"I appreciate music just fine." I lean over and pick up the guitar, then take it to the sofa where I sit and pluck each of the strings to see if it's in tune. It's not. I turn the keys at the top of the neck, plucking each string until the notes that fill my ears sound like they should. I'm aware Riley is watching me. I keep my eyes on the guitar.
"You play."
"Can I see that pick you were destroying?" I ask.
The thin piece of plastic lands beside me on the sofa. Taking it between my fingers, I bring it to the strings, wrapping the fingers of my other hand around the instrument's neck. I gaze at the floor and begin strumming a song I wrote last summer in my bedroom at my aunt and uncle's house. When I get to the end of it, I let the notes fade away into the room and open my eyes again.
"Don't stop."
I turn my head to look at Riley. He looks curious, and maybe a little awe-struck.
"How long have you been playing?" he asks.
"Since I was a kid." I stop short of telling him my dad had a guitar that became mine when he left this life, and that I picked it up as soon as my aunt and uncle would let me. It doesn't seem like a good time to be talking about people who've moved on to The Life-After.
"Does it have lyrics?" he asks.
"Just melody," I say. "You don't want to hear me sing." I couldn't carry a tune if my life depended on it, so I've never seen the point in writing lyrics for my songs. I'm lucky enough to have gotten away with learning to play the guitar.
My aunt wasn't thrilled when the guitar first made an appearance, but she had enough tact to not take my father's instrument away from me. The trade-off was being forced into piano lessons, too, but at least she stopped there. I could have ended up in ballet classes three times a week, another pirouetting bunhead like the daughters of my aunt's friends.
"You're going to play me more," he says, sounding very matter-of-fact.
"Is that a request or a warning?" I ask, getting up from the sofa to put the guitar back in its stand.
"It might be both."
"I'll think about it."
He picks up a game controller from the table. "If I win the next round of Mario Kart, you're playing more."
"Game on, my friend. Game on." I sit down and pick up the other controller.
We spend the afternoon playing video games and taking turns playing his guitar. He stays on the chair across from the sofa instead of moving to sit beside me, so there's no repeat of the moment that happened before his mom came to the door. If that even was a moment. I leave a little while before his friend John is supposed to show up for some studio time.
"'Til the next time you beg for Mario Kart mercy," I tell him, as he walks me down the stairs and around the corner to my car.
"It was an off afternoon. Show me some sympathy." He stretches his arms out for a hug.
"You had home TV advantage," I counter, letting him wrap his arms around me. He hugs me for longer than he usually does. I should pull away, but the tingling starts and I know it's a good sign. We're connecting again.
"Riley!" The shout from behind us makes me jump, and then there's a good few inches between Riley and me again. He blinks hard, then raises his hand and waves at someone.
I turn around to see who he's waving at and almost lose my balance. This can't be for real.
Selena stands at the end of the driveway leading up to a house across the street. Our eyes meet for less than a second, but it's long enough for a dark look to wash over her face. It vanishes almost instantly when her eyes shift back to Riley.
"My dad wants to know if you and Bill are coming over to watch the game tomorrow," she calls out, bringing her hand up above her eyes to shield them from the sun.
"I think so," he calls back, and then looks down at me. "Bill is my dad."
I bite the inside of my lip. Riley knows Selena. In fact, it looks like she's his neighbor. And now Selena knows that I know Riley. Something tells me this probably isn't good.
I smile and push my sunglasses down over my eyes. "Have fun in the studio tonight, and I guess watching the game tomorrow."
"We'll talk soon," he says. I feel Selena's eyes on us and I know it's time to get out of here.
Riley stays standing by the curb while I unlock my car door and get inside, and he doesn't move when I give him a wave and pull out onto the road. I can still see him there when I get to the stop sign at the end of the street, a speck in the distance watching after me. Selena's there, too, standing in her driveway, her arms folded across her chest.