Countdown to The Life-After: two weeks.
I was a morning person for most of my life as Anna, rising early to jog along the beach and watching golden light streak the sky as the sun came up. I loved the peace in the space between darkness and dawn, and weekend mornings were my favorite.
Even now when I wake up early enough on a weekend day, the world feels like my own. There's a stillness in the morning that holds an entirely different kind of energy than is usually found here in The Before. I felt it during my time here as Anna, even though I knew nothing about energy then.
The early hours cleanse me somehow. I jog along the sand, listening to the ocean waves crash to the shore and taking in every detail. This is the beach I'll come to on the morning I leave for The Life-After. Sunlight licks at the edges of the sky. I breathe in the salty air that's already warming in the daylight.
I jog for about a mile before I see a figure far off down the beach, moving closer toward me. Even from this distance, and even with sunglasses shielding his eyes, I recognize him.
"Riley?" I call out.
He looks up and I can tell I've startled him. When he sees me, he slows to a walk and raises his arm, waving once.
"Hey," I say, when I get closer.
"Hi," he answers. I expect a hug, but he puts his hands on his hips and turns his head to the ocean. There's a look on his face I can't quite figure out. He's probably thinking about The Satellite, since we haven't hung out since then. It's been a week. I know that's what I'm thinking about.
"I didn't know you came out here to run," I say. He turns his head back to me.
"I usually don't." The look on his face is still there.
"It's a nice place for it," I comment. He nods. I wish I could see his eyes, but they're hidden behind his sunglasses.
I take a drink from my water bottle, not knowing what else to do. After swallowing my mouthful of water, I study him. His lips are pressed together and his jaw looks like it's clenched. I tune in to his energy to see what else I can find. The sparks of color I see are about what I expected. He's uncomfortable and maybe even a little anxious. I guess I have my brilliant comment about him kissing me one day to thank for that. Genius. He probably regrets repeating it back to me. I did this, and now I have to undo it.
"Want to run with me?" I ask.
"Yeah, sure." His arms still look a little stiff at his sides.
"Is everything okay?" The question slips out of my mouth even though I probably shouldn't ask.
"Yeah," he says again, and tries to smile at me. "Sorry. I wasn't expecting to see you here."
I give him a small smile in return and start jogging in the direction he came from. He keeps pace at my side, both of us moving in silence for about half a mile.
"Did you have a good time the other night?"
I jump at the sound of his voice, stumbling over my feet. Nothing but grace over here. Riley's hand shoots out to steady me and we both slow down a little.
"I didn't mean to startle you."
I wave it off, even though that's exactly what happened. "I was just off on another planet somewhere." A planet decorated like it's space alien Christmas in 1972. It counts.
We round the side of a cliff. I can't see the part of the beach we came from anymore. This is like some private little cove. Riley slows to a walk and I do, too. I can tell he's still waiting for an answer.
"I had a great time," I finally say. It's the truth, because I really did have a great time. If only the part of my brain that controls my mouth hadn't decided it was a good time to go rogue. Minor technicality.
"I'm glad. John said they have another show coming up in a few weeks, if you want to go."
A few weeks. As much as I want to yell out that yes, I want to go, I know I won't be here when the show happens. Whether I'll be in The Life-After or just gone to wherever it is unsuccessful second-timers go is another story.
"I'd love to go," I hear myself say. I even smile. Way to lie to him.
We're almost shoulder-to-shoulder now, so close that his arm bumps against mine when he crouches down to pick up a conch shell from the beach. He holds it up to his ear.
"Can you hear the ocean in it?" I ask.
He moves the shell away from his ear and presses it against mine. I listen to the sound inside of the shell, my other ear still picking up the sound of the ocean waves beside us.
"That's amazing." I turn to him and see he's staring at me with the same intensity he did outside of his car at The Satellite. My eyes drop to the sand. I wonder if he can hear my heart pounding, because right now that's the only sound filling my ears.
He lowers the shell from my ear and places it in my hand.
"It's all yours."
My fingers brush against his when he moves his hand away and I feel the tingle that tells me our energy is connected again.
We walk for a few more minutes. I wonder if I should reach for his hand and then wonder if I'm crazy for thinking that. I try to keep my eyes focused on the beach ahead of us instead of on him, and a flash of pink ahead provides a welcome distraction. I crane my neck to see what it is. It looks like a bouquet of pink roses.
"Did someone leave flowers on the beach?" I ask.
Riley doesn't answer. I'm a few paces ahead of him when I realize he's come to a complete stop.
"Do you want to go—" I start, cutting off my words when I see his face. There's that strange look again, like he had when I first saw him walking toward me on the beach. "Is something wrong?"
He doesn't answer. I follow his eyes with mine and see him looking at the flowers.
Wait. It's Noah's voice I hear.
I wait like he tells me, and it takes only a couple of seconds before everything in front of me blurs. When my surroundings come into focus again, the bouquet is no longer where it was. I see Riley approaching from far off down the beach, carrying the bouquet in his arms. He stops when he gets to the spot where the flowers were when I noticed them, and kneels down in the sand. He sets the bouquet down, his head bent forward, and I see something I've only seen on his face in another vision. Anguish. He remains there, motionless. What I'm watching fades away and then I'm back where I was before, Riley still standing beside me and the flowers still ahead of us on the beach. Now it makes sense.
"Did you bring the flowers here?" I ask.
He doesn't answer, just closes his eyes, and I feel his energy retreating. I know who the flowers are for.
"Is this where your friend died?"
He turns to face the ocean, leaving me staring at his back. "I don't want to talk about it."
"She's here with you, you know. You just don't feel her."
"She's dead." There's an edge in his voice that's warning me to back off, but I don't.
"Do you think this body is all we are, and that this is all there is?"
He turns back around to face me. I spread my arms out wide, trying to ignore the way he's looking at me like I'm crazy.
"This is all I can see, hear, touch, feel, and smell. So yes, I think this is where it all ends." His voice is flat.
You can see, hear, touch, feel, and smell me, I want to shout at him. I don't.
"You have to stop and let go," I say instead. It's almost laughable that this advice is coming from me, but I paid a big price for what I know now. It's my job to make sure he doesn't make the same mistake I did, and get so caught up in grief that the lower energy overpowers him and eats at him until he's left with a dead spot just like mine. If that happens, this life is done for him and he'll have to come back here.
And if that happens, I'll never see this place or The Life-After again.
"If I could, don't you think I would?" There's a waver in his voice. I know I should take that as my cue to stop. My mouth seems to be under the control of something other than logic, though.
"I don't think you're trying."
He rubs the side of his face. "Like you would know."
"I know a lot more than you think." I don't mean for him to hear me, but I may as well have hollered the words. He looks up like someone slapped him.
"You were six when your parents died. Not to take anything away from that, but how much can you really remember? Try losing someone you love when you're eighteen, like you are right now. There's no way you can understand what this is like."
I want to tell him that I didn't mean my parents, and that I know all too well what he's going through. He's handling it better than I did, though, because how I dealt with it cost me my life and robbed me of at least eighteen years in The Life-After. Eighteen years that I should have spent feeling happy and being surrounded by love.
He sits down on the sand, his hands coming to rest on his knees. I sit down beside him.
"You can talk to me, you know. Talking about your friend and what you're feeling might be good for you, and I'd like to know more about her. I can tell she meant a lot to you."
"You don't need to know everything, you know. It's not like you're my girlfrie—" he stops. It's too late, though. The words are out there now, hanging in the air.
"It's not like I'm your girlfriend," I finish for him.
"That's not what I meant."
"Maybe not, but it's true. Right?" I realize I'm biting my lip and stop before I draw blood.
He focuses his eyes on me. "That came out wrong."
"It's fine." I stare out at the ocean. "You're right that I don't need to know everything. I'm not your girlfriend, and you're not my boyfriend, and we're not dating. I think that covers it."
"I never said we're not dating."
I look at him. "No, I did." I try not to wince. Now that the words are out of my mouth, I know I can't take them back.
He doesn't respond, just takes a deep breath and releases it, raking a hand through his hair.
"I need to go," he says. I watch him get to his feet.
"So go."
He hesitates, either because he wants to say something or because he wants me to. I turn my head back to the ocean and pretend to watch the waves until I hear the soft thud of his footsteps on the sand, walking away.
It's good that he isn't attached to me, I try to tell myself. No matter what Noah says, it's better this way. I just didn't expect knowing that to hurt this much.