I jumped a little to find myself in not-Jackson's room.
Okay, understatement. I was so surprised my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets and my head bumped the roof of the—
CAR??
—I was now sitting in.
Beginning to panic and overwhelmingly disoriented, I jerked myself around over and over again to get my bearings about me.
Sure enough, there was no doubt I was in a car. And a moving one, at that.
I couldn't decide how to feel about the fact that Jackson—surprise, surprise—was in the driver's seat on my left, brown eyes calmly focused on the road and none the wiser to my presence.
I'd never driven an actual car a day in my life, so it wasn't my problem that someone else was driving. It wasn't even my problem Jackson was the one behind the wheel—if anything, that was a bit of a comfort, especially since he obviously knew what he was doing and I'd ridden with my dad all the time, and he didn't exactly have sparkling driving habits—but rather that it was the two of us, alone in the car.
Why exactly that made me so uneasy, even I wasn't completely sure. It just did, about the same way being alone behind a closed door would start pecking at me if I was given a chance to notice and/or think about it.
For a minute, resisting the urge to immediately reach up and click my seat belt into place, I just sat and watched him watch the road.
I recovered from my shock enough to check my watch not long after.
How was it already 6:11?
Despite my reminders to keep an eye on the time to make sure no more of it went missing, some still had. How?
Had my internal clock been messed up that badly, or did being dead skew with my overall concept and perception of time?
I shook my head and tried to put those questions—again with the questions!—in the back of my mind.
At least that somewhat aquated for why exactly I'd willed myself to Jackson only to land in a car. He was probably on his way to pick up something to eat. It was about the time his family ate dinner.
Although I had to fight myself to keep from wondering why he was in the car alone, except for me, whom he was unaware of.
My common sense told me—shouted, really—that it was a horrible idea to make myself known while he was on the road, because I'd probably scare him half to death and potentially cause a wreck, and therefore endanger him. So I tried to put a cap on the rising inquires bubbling up inside me threatening to spill out and encourage me to make myself known.
Once I started looking out the window on my right and actually trying to pay attention to what went past us, my thoughts slowly relaxed themselves, and I became genuinely comfortable with the whole experience.
In fact, if I hadn't known I'd probably phase right through him and then be in one of the single most awkward positions I'd ever been in, I would've leaned over and against his shoulder. Enough to be comfortable, but not enough to inhibit his driving.
I was dead and in love, not stupid.
Though I can't really argue that that certain four-letter word can lead to some pretty stupid-sounding and looking actions...
I couldn't help but notice that there wasn't any music or a radio station playing, though. Jackson just always seemed like the type that would have something going while he drove, at least to me.
Then again, as far as the actual radio stations—the local ones, at least—went, there was a good chance he was afraid they'd miraculously start talking about me, and even with my new reappearing trick, something told me he really did not want to hear that. Maybe even for the reasons I didn't want to.
I didn't want to hear strangers that never even met me grieving my death, or even pretending to be sad enough to present a somber news story. I didn't want to hear what everyone was saying about what amounted to my corpse. There was nothing they could say that wouldn't light a bitter-emotion fire in me, so why even bother? All it would do was upset me.
Yeah, I can see that going double for him. I glanced over at Jackson. Or, rather, I intended to glance, but ended up staring because I knew I couldn't be caught unless I wanted to be.
Only half-realizing what I was doing, I took him in, studied him. My eyes browsed his features like I'd never seen him before, and I was glad to see that so much of the depression and exhaustion I'd seen in him before had faded.
None of it was completely gone, because I was still technically dead, but he did look much better.
However, I then remembered that there was a good chance this whole new existence of mine was only temporary, and he'd probably hurt worse when and if I had to tell him goodbye for good.
After my number 1,857 head shake of the day, I did best to stop thinking about that. For now, I'd take my time as it came to me. If I didn't, I'd freak out and wind up losing Jackson because I was worried about him, and I refused to let that happen.
I'd already lost him once when I was alive—long story—and sort-of-ish-not-really lost him when I died and left him behind. If I could help it, I was not going to lose him again while I was still able to have him.
Dead or not, I was gravely (no pun intended) certain that losing him would still hurt like the Dickens. And that was about the farthest you could get from how I wanted to spend my time as a ghost.
Or just how I wanted to spend my time at all.
Finally, the car—Jackson—pulled into Sonic and up to one of the order stations.
Before he could put the window down and reach over and press the order button, but after the car was firmly in park, I put all my energy into appearing.
Not only did I want to talk to him, this time, if I could, I wanted to be completely corporeal—visible to anyone and everyone that might see—so people wouldn't think he'd lost his mind.
I could tell the minute it worked—or at least I became more "there" than I had been thus far—by the immediate chill I could feel of a car that was clearly out in the cold and not running it's own heat, causing goosebumps to pop up over my bare arms and the tip of nose to slowly feel like it was turning into ice. The seat beneath me suddenly felt much more solid, and the general atmosphere of the air around me felt a little sharper.
As long as no one that easily recognized me and knew I was dead got a good look at me, we'd be hunky-dory.
Jackson half-jumped and froze, hand still on the car keys. Slowly, he turned his head to look at me. He blinked a few times, like he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Considering I had only ever magically apparated into his house before, I could understand why. Dead boyfriend randomly pops into my car, I'm going to be a little unsettled, too. Regardless of whether or not he's shown up somewhere else before.
"Sorry. I just willed myself to you and..." I moved my eyes to look around the car without turning away from him. "I didn't know where you'd be, so..."
Once he recovered from the shock of my sudden appearance in a new place, Jackson visibly relaxed and finished taking his hand off the keys, still firmly tucked into the ignition, but the car no longer running. "Don't apologize." He smiled.
For a second, we just sat there, looking at each other. In his car. In the Sonic parking lot. Jack openly smiling, and me trying to resist because I don't want to look like an idiot.
Then I remembered I was dead, and I'd come to him because I couldn't handle so many questions on my own anymore.
I blinked and shifted in my seat to break the spell, and lucky it brought Jackson back to the present, too.
"So...Is everything okay?" Concern laced his words, his mind obviously bringing up our earlier encounter about my sister. And I was glad that, so far, his short-term memory issues hadn't managed to manifest themselves.
On top of everything else I was already trying to handle, that was among the last things I needed.
I crossed my arms and sighed. "No, because I'm still dead, and everyone's still upset." But there was no fixing my being dead—not that I wanted to anyway—and they did kind of have a right to be suffering from it. "And also because I have to many freaking questions I can't freaking answer." I slumped back into the seat, and mentally crossed my fingers that Jackson would be able to somehow know what to say to either answer some of my questions, or just generally make me feel better.
He flinched at the reminder I wasn't really there, despite how it looked, and I felt a little guilty I'd said it, but I couldn't exactly take it back without making my whole point moot. "Like what?"
That wasn't what I wanted to hear. But at least I could answer that.
"Like how this whole being dead thing works, for instance," I said defeatedly. "Everything I know has only brought up more questions, and what I do know for sure is only through trial and error. For all I know, there could be some big secret I don't know about that's really important about being a ghost." And if it turned out to be something explaining how long I had being relevant to how much I used my new abilities, I was willing to bet I was in serious trouble.
Jackson nodded. "What else?"
I took a moment to be glad it was obvious there was more. "I don't know if it's safe for me to go around mir—"
My eyes darted to the rearview mirror between us, then the the sideview ones on either side of us.
"Around what?" Jack craned his neck to follow my eyes, but then I looked at him again and straightened to his previous position.
I blinked and allowed myself to let it sink in that I'd looked myself dead in the eye in the rearview mirror, then the side views, and nothing happened. Granted, they weren't very big mirrors, but still. That had to mean something, didn't it? All mirrors did the same thing—sat around being made of glass and reflected things, so why would one be dangerous and not the other?
"Mirrors," I finished quietly. "But I guess that question's taken care of now." I glanced pointedly at the three again to emphasize my point. Jackson smiled a little.
Though in the back of my mind a seed of doubt was watered by the fact that, as far as I knew, I was fully corporeal, and therefore actually there in the physical realm.
Partly because of the actual lower temperature and partly because of the growing frustration over my situation, I rubbed my arms to try and banish the chill that wouldn't leave me alone. I resisted the urge to sniffle thanks to my nose, which had started run because of the cold.
"I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how long I have, and I have no idea how to figure this out," I mumbled.
Jackson frowned and leaned closer. He pushed up that arm-compartment thing most cars have and put a hand on my shoulder.
When I moved to look at him more directly, his snaked his arm around my shoulders and I let him pull me closer. The leather of his jacket was chilly, but that frost thawed quickly the longer we stayed like that.
"It's okay. What do you know about...what you can do?" He finished, clearly not knowing how to. I couldn't blame him.
I tilted my head into him. "Well, I know for sure that I'm still—That I'm definitely a ghost," I changed my wording at the last second for his benefit, but he knew what I meant, and nodded. But I had woken up—or whatever you'd call my coming back to consciousness—knowing that without a doubt.
I knew I'd died, that I was dead, and my still being here hadn't changed that.
"And I know that, evidently, I have selective corporeality."
Jackson blinked at me. "What?"
Almost smiling, I explained, "How I can appear and disappear and everything." I had to remember that not everyone had read a very specific sci-fi YA series multiple times over like I had. "But," I went on. "I've gathered that it also takes a lot of energy and effort on my part." That would explain why I'd felt so tired before, and why there was seemingly a time limit on how long I could willingly make myself visible. I could only use so much energy before I didn't have enough to stay awake or conscious and appear on the physical plane.
And suddenly I was a little worried I'd magically disappear for both Jackson and anyone that happened to walk by his car...
Resisting the urge to shake my head to rid myself the thought, I pushed it to the back of my mind. I'd deal with that when and if it became a problem.
He nodded. "Anything else?"
Thinking, I tilted my head the other way, then back. "I can still very much affect the physical world, whether I can be seen in it or not." We'd half-tested that earlier with the paper. "And apparently when I'm not fully here, my normal-talking volume sounds like incoherent whispering." I watched him for confirmation.
"Yeah, pretty much." He nodded again.
"But if I yell, I can be heard at least partially."
Another nod.
"And even when I can't be heard, it seems like the message of whatever I say still gets to people." Both him and my mother and Riley had shown me proof enough of that.
"It that it?" He asked, moving his head so he could look me in the eye, and I moved a little to make it easier for him. I wanted to see his eyes, too.
"I mean, I can walk through walls and stuff when I'm incorporeal—invisible, not fully here," I specified. "But, I mean, that's kind of typically ghost behavior." I shrugged. "That's all I've managed, but I feel like there's still so much I don't know." I mean, no, I wasn't exactly expected a How to Be Dead guidebook or anything, but some kind of exposition dump to help me out would've been nice. I didn't like being completely in the dark about my own existence. (Who would?)
Jackson seemed to mull over what I'd said. "Yeah, I guess. But you know a lot, considering."
"Considering...?"
"That you had to figure it all out yourself, I mean."
"Oh. Yeah, I guess." But then, it's not exactly like we had a control group for comparison. "I just wish getting answers to all these questions that keep popping up—" Which I was starting to realize most of which I hadn't really laid out for him yet, "—was easier. Or at least more obvious." I'd been wishing that all day, and so far, no luck.
I made the mistake of glancing at the clock on the car's radio. 6:49.
"And where the heck does time keep going?!"
I blinked and covered my mouth when I realized I'd actually voiced that exasperated thought. I hadn't meant to, but it came out anyway.
Jackson eyed me curiously. "Huh?"
I shook my head and buried my face in my hands. "Sorry. It's just—I think my concept of time is slipping." Or at least wasn't working the way it should've been. "More than once today, I've looked a clock and been at a loss for a portion of time it feels like hasn't passed at all."
And I'd had enough issues with the sensation of feeling time slipping away from me faster than I could cling to it when I was alive.
Death was supposed to fix that, not make it worse!
My eyes started to sting as they watered, a deep ache settling into the back of my throat.
At last, all the negatives of my being dead started to catch up with me.
The questions I couldn't answer, problems I couldn't solve...The people I couldn't help but was ultimately responsible for upsetting...Time rushing past me with no disregard to how much I needed it to stay firmly put, just a little longer...Please...How powerless I was to do or change anything to make it better...
Suddenly I was glad I'd already hidden my face as I felt the first tears burn their way down my cheeks.
As much as I wanted to be with him, for him to see what was wrong and reach out and comfort me, tell me I was wrong, that everything would be okay, deep down, I didn't want Jackson to see me so upset.
Dumb as it may sound, that was one of the top reasons I'd come to the end I had. All the emotions that had finally caught up with me over everything that had happened since I died, I'd forced them down and back, because I knew if I dared let the world see, I'd be thought pathetic, a baby, weak...Nobody would take me seriously. Everyone would look at me like a kicked puppy. All they would see would be whatever label a mental institution decided to give me, rather than who I was underneath. What I'd been carved into by years of giving in to hiding how I felt, because society demanded it.
Hiding it all had killed me.
I jumped when I felt something try to brush my hair to the side.
Trying in vain to pull myself together, I looked up to find Jackson watching me with the most serious face I'd ever seen him muster, hand hovering inches from my face.
To my knowledge, I'd never been able to scare him before, but I sure as heck had scared him now. That much was obvious.
And I hated myself for it.
I felt my eyes water all over again, forcing my head down so he wouldn't see when the tears fell.
To my surprise, his hand found it's way under my chin and lifted my head up, despite my resistance. "Don't cry," He said softly, clearly unsure of how to proceed but wanting so badly to help.
I sniffled and wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. I realized he hadn't heard my internal struggle, and probably thought I was so upset over my newly skewed sense of time.
My eyes closed and I shook my head. I couldn't meet his eyes, but his hand kept me from turning away. "I'm sorry," I choked out, so quietly it was more breath than words.
"What?" I couldn't tell if he was confused or just hadn't understood what I said. His hand fell away and my head went back to hanging, but I still didn't open my eyes.
"I'm sorry," I said, louder this time. "I'm sorry I'm dead. I'm sorry I'm this useless, pathetic thing just like I was when I was alive," My voice cracked on a sob, but I didn't care. There was nothing else I could do. Letting it all out was my only option. "I'm sorry I can't be something you deserve." Because who would want someone as childish and ridiculous as me? Someone so incompetent and emotional and needy and useless?
I dared a glance up to see Jackson's eyes widened. "No," He said firmly.
My turn to not understand. "What?" I straightened just a little.
"You're not pathetic, and you're not useless," He insisted. He took me by the shoulders, and this time I willingly met his terrified gaze. "You never were, you never will be."
I had my doubts.
"You couldn't possibly be." And I could tell by the look in his eyes, he believed that wholeheartedly, even if I didn't. "You're about one thing, though."
My next breath caught in my throat and a pinched feeling coiled around my chest. I was more afraid of what he was going to say I was right about than I ever had been of dying.
"I don't deserve you. You're amazing Luna. Beautiful, and kind, and strong, and brave—" I resisted the urge to snort. "—Not to mention smart, and adorable."
I felt my face flush.
"Luna means 'moon,' right?"
"Y-yeah," I said, confused by the sudden question.
Jackson half-nodded to himself and continued. "You're like your name. The moon, shining, glorious. Amazing," He glanced pointedly at me for emphasis. "There's so many different sides to you, but they're all awesome in every way. Every way," He added before I could object.
I started at my hands in my lap. I didn't know what to say.
What can you say to someone who believes you're so great—so amazing—when you know deep down, you aren't?
I'd had the same problem when I was alive.
While no, I wasn't a beauty queen or super popular or whatever, I knew I wasn't outright ugly, and I tried to be nice to people. I knew there were things I was good at and things I wasn't. I had my flaws and my strengths, just like everyone else. But when it all came down to it, I knew I wasn't all that special. I wasn't that kind of person. What little good I was given was what I had. My life wasn't overly traumatic—at least not on the surface, like most tragedies—but it wasn't spectacular with everything handed to me on a silver platter. Or even with a silver spoon pointing me in the right direction.
My friends and family thought I was great, sure. But that's a biased opinion if there ever was one, and I knew that. I knew that better than anyone else I could think of. Ever.
Because of that—or maybe in spite of it—I never took compliments very well. I didn't know how, exactly. What do you say when people think you're such a bright star in a dark sky, but you know there's a million other stars and galaxies and whatever out there that shine so much brighter? Or even say they shine just as bright, but they do it so much better?
That, or you know you just happen to be in a particularly dark patch of sky to begin with that it just looks like you shine so brightly...
"I—"
But I didn't get to finish that thought, because when I looked up, Jackson was grabbing for my arm frantically, but phasing right through it, and I could vaguely make out the overly of my room coming into place over top of Jackson, the car, and the Sonic parking lot.
Apparently, my subconscious was trying to tell me just how badly I didn't want to be there to answer that question for myself.