For once, my mind woke up before I opened my eyes the next morning, and I decided to enjoy the moment.
That is, until I rolled over and realized something was very, very, very wrong.
This isn't my bed...
My eyes shot up along with my spine and I frantically jerked my head around, trying to figure out what happened. Why it happened. Where am I...? This isn't...What?!!
I had to blink, once, twice, three times, before I could comprehend where I was. And I still couldn't keep myself from looking and trying to make sense of the impossibility I'd woken up to.
Somehow, defying any logic I had managed to hold on to ever since reemerging from my demise, I had woken up in, of all places, Jackson's room.
More specifically, on his bed, on top of the covers.
And he was still fast asleep next to me, completely unaware of my unexpected drop-in.
What the fudge is going on??
I stood up so fast my head spun—more than it was spinning already, anyway—and my vision clouded over for a few seconds.
Before anything else could happen that I couldn't make sense of, I squeezed my eyes shut tight and had no trouble willing myself back home, to my room, where I belonged.
Nothing made sense anymore.
I uneasily lowered myself onto my bed, half expecting to get blinked either back to Jackson's or somewhere else that I'd been but currently had no desire to be. I was panting a little, my little more surprise having knocked the wind out of me.
Enough was enough. I had to figure out what was going on, how my new existence worked, what that meant, and how it all came together. And soon. Or else, who knew how I was going to end up next. Dead or not, I highly suspected I was still very prone to injury, and something told me that trying to heal up would be a lot more difficult without access to doctors, hospitals, or anything more complicated than Band-Aids. All because I had a feeling the medical world would collectively faint at the knowledge of a walking dead girl. Or boy, for that matter. Or a walking dead anything, really.
But...How?
That was the question I'd been asking myself this whole time. And of all the things I hadn't been able to answer, that was the one at the very tip-top of the list.
There has to be a way. There has to. This is ridiculous! Surely I'd missed something in all my overthinking. Maybe because of my overthinking? The probability that there had to be a better way to handle this couldn't have been so low as nil...Could it?
I scrubbed my face with my hands, frustrated beyond frustrated about this situation for what felt like the sextillionth time, yet not anyway closer to solving it, lest my savior fall from the sky into the room in front of me. And I didn't know how to deal with that.
I didn't know how to deal with any of this anymore.
Dead and back as a ghost for less than forty-eight hours, and I could feel what sanity I had left slipping through my fingers faster than I could desperately cling to it.
If this was what being dead was always going to be like...
I take it back.
My own thought startled me, but it was true.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
Okay, okay. Fine. I admit it. If this is what death is supposed to be like, will always be like, then fine. I regret my choice. I killed myself to escape all the confusion and stress of life. But if death is just going to be all of that kicked up to an eleven, then fine. I take it back, okay? I wish I hadn't died. I wish I'd known so I could stay alive as long as possible. Life was better than this. It sucked, but it was. I'm sorry...!
I sobbed so hard I shook all over, grateful that no one could hear or see my private misery.
Finally, finally, I was regretful for what I'd done.
But who wouldn't be?
Part of me was upset that I was only regretful because I'd tried so hard but to no avail to deal with and make sense of my new predicament. My failure to comply with the cards I'd been dealt had brought me to what should've been a normal reaction to waking up as a ghost after killing yourself, realizing what you'd put the people you left behind through...
I hated myself all over again. Even more than when I'd actually gone through with the actions that brought me here...
And that's when it came back to me.
I'd actually managed to somehow forget learning about my last day alive in all the chaos that was my new existence, but now, after what felt like so long, that fateful day was returning to my memory.
Granted, it wasn't perfect, or "crystal clear," as our memories never are, but it was enough to satisfy the hole I'd been feeling in my mind where my death day should've been. And filling that hole, even with a cloudy picture, was better than never filling it at all. At least to me.
It had been in the wee hours of Sunday morning when it actually happened—I knew that now—but Saturday had been my day of planning.
Just like Jackson said, we'd had that conversation about how not perfect my life really was, and I could now recall that I was so determined to make him understand that it wasn't all that great because I was in the middle of trying desperately to get over a particularly awful week.
As always, I'd been upset, but I was too good at hiding how bad I really felt for Jackson to notice. And even if he had, I would've brushed him off. That was my nature. I didn't want to drag anyone else down with me. And why?
Because my little experience with Sam had taught me what it was like to be on the other side of that.
If I wasn't going to get help, I might as well keep my mouth shut.
Regardless, I'd lasted a few hours after talking to Jackson, but I'd made the mistake of starting to think about school, and the suckish week of annoyance, due dates, and general stress I'd had. About what was coming up the following week that I'd wake up to all-too-soon on Monday morning.
From that, I started thinking about the future. I was a Junior, and I still didn't know what I wanted to go to college for, or if I even wanted to go to college. I didn't have my driver's license, and I didn't even really want one, but I knew I was going to have to at least try to get one at some point if I wanted to survive in the world. And then I didn't have a job; I was going to have to get one of those if I ever wanted my own car, because my parents weren't going to buy me one, and even if I got one of theirs, I was going to have to pay for the insurance and gas. But I didn't want to have to give up even more of my precious free time to an institutionalize workforce and then get half of my meager pay taken away by taxes.
I didn't want to have to deal with the stress of growing up, moving out, getting a car and a job, going to school for a ton of money that would run me into the ground with debt, forcing me to live out the rest of my life trying desperately to make ends meet and still have enough cash leftover to enjoy the existence I was wasting my youth on so I could be happy when I got old. Too old to enjoy the money I might or might not've had. Too old to experience the things I finally had time for. Too old to do anything except sit around and be old and sick, only to eventually meet my end to a disease or condition that had only come from me trying to take advantage of what little time I had left and—
And that was it. That was ultimately what had led me to take my own life.
I didn't want to be bound to an uncertain future that had every chance of turning into an even worse nightmare than the years I'd already suffered through.
Sitting in my room, staring aimlessly into space, the decision had clicked within me. I had to get out of this trap. I had to, or else, I was going to have all this time wasted, taken away from me by a life I didn't want but had to have because I was alive, and being alive means trying to live. Trying to bide your time comfortably until The End sneaks up on you after so many years of pointlessness.
Even looking back on it now, as the memories floated back into their proper places, I couldn't believe how easy and painless the whole process had been.
I'd looked up medicine specifics online, careful to dance around the words delicately so it would seem like I was just fact-checking, or maybe just an overly concerned parent. Much like I would've expected of myself, I'd been very careful to leave a trail of breadcrumbs that would point to caution, rather than my plan to die.
After I'd gotten the information I wanted, or close enough to it, I'd taken it upon myself to mix something up. And I'd found my perfect out-clause to life: Cyanide, and hefty dose of Nyquil to make me too sleepy to stay awake through the effects my little poison venture would cause.
It wasn't exactly hard. Cyanide is in appleseeds, peach and apricot pits, even almonds. A trip to the grocery store and some very tedious chopping and grinding was a kind of surprisingly easy I hadn't expected to get so lucky to encounter. Not in relation to a grimly serious death wish, anyway.
Granted, a gaseous form of the stuff would've been much faster and would've been a lot easier to get down—just breathing it in rather than having to swallowing my not-exactly-tasty mixture, even with a hefty attempt to cover it up—but I didn't even have to do any research to figure out that trying to get my hands on that would not only raise red flags if anyone found out, but be next to impossible, given the circumstances of my age, among other things. (Though, if we're being completely fair, the red flags probably would've been over the concern I'd try to kill someone else with the stuff, rather than myself.)
So I'd poisoned myself, then sent myself to bed to never wake up again.
Oh, I'd been scared. Terrified, even. But the thick cloud of weariness that had set in over me, partially for waking myself up in the middle of the night and partially for taking the Nyquil and then making myself wait twenty minutes before moving into action, fogged my brain badly enough that I didn't care. The thought of finally getting to rest in peace, rather than having to keep living with all the stress that was probably going to end up killing me anyway, was enough to make me not care.
I'd gotten into bed feeling an odd sensation of acceptance and grim knowing that, come sunrise, there wouldn't be anymore Luna Todd for the world to kick around.
Some odd hours later, I'd woken up too groggy to move. As exhausted as I was, somehow I knew that was it; My last moments were upon me. Even as it felt like I was taking in less and less air, and I could almost feel my heart weakening into oblivion, I was too numb from being so sleepy to feel the pain I surely should have been feeling.
Staring up at the ceiling, I blinked once, twice. The rise and fall of my chest, visible from the bottom horizon of my vision, slowed to a stop.
The next time I'd closed my eyes, I'd opened them—I know I did—only to watch my vision blur out the way it does when you stand up to fast. Only then, the black didn't fade after a few seconds. Neigh, the dark only intensified, and then...The nothing. After that, everything went blank until my rise as a sceptre.
As a precaution, though, I could also remember now, writing the note that had made it online with the news of my death, and putting it on the nightstand, the corner tucked under the last drink I'd ever have, just in case it decided to fall, before I'd gone to bed, never to get up again.
I'd also taken the liberty of writing out something of a will.
Nodding to myself now, I was glad I'd done that. Even if by law, my family didn't have to follow it because it wasn't officially notarized, and possibly because I was a minor (and I have no idea if a notary on a will means anything more than an "Oh, that's nice," if you're under eighteen). I could tell by what I'd seen of my grieving family that they'd follow it as best they could, if only because it was my perceived Last Wishes.
And I also didn't question why that hadn't been posted online or in the stories along with my note. I could very easily understand that showing off my sort-of will would both be a little too encouraging for the easily-tempted, and possibly a little too private for my family. Maybe even a little too...I don't know, invasive? For the media.
If there's one thing I managed to learn observing the world through my unique lenses, it was that, no matter how skewed and flighty, the media at large did have some limits; Some lines they wouldn't cross. Usually only appearing with non-celebrity cases, but still...
The thing was, I'd written so many different things down in that will, I honestly couldn't remember all of them. And I was left wondering what exactly had happened to both it and my suicide note. Surely my family wouldn't have either just turned both papers over to the media or thrown them away...So...Where were they?
I slid off the bed and onto my feet, considerably steadier than I had been a few minutes ago.
Before I did anything else, I made the decision that I was going to have to stop questioning everything single thing that happened and every part of my new reality, or else I'd never get anything done. I'd asked enough questions. From now on, I was going to focus on only getting answers and seeking them out.
If I got another question, I'd ask it, then push it aside to address the ones I already had that had any hope getting their mysteries solved.
That in mind, I figured that if I kept hanging around in the proverbial dark long enough, eventually the one big answer of "the easier way" would answer itself, if it was meant to be answered in the first place. An option which I was seriously starting to consider as true.
Thinking about it, mom had probably taken my addressments and filed them away somewhere. Or the authorities had taken them in their investigation. Which I was now a little cheesed-off at, because I knew how pointless it was. I mean really, my sister found me without a mark on me in my own bed with both a note and an attempt at a will at my side. Did I have to spell it out in my own blood that I'd been the one to take my life? That there was no foul-play involved here?
Well, it's nice to know I'm back to handling rhetorical questions, I thought as I started glancing around the room.
Speaking of stuff I'd written, now that I was back in my own room and on track to sorting things out—I hoped—I also remembered that last night, before I went to sleep, I'd taken the liberty of writing out a few pages of explanation for Riley, and planted them on my dresser, hopefully hidden in plain sight amongst my collection of knickknacks.
Considering how early it must've been for Jackson to still be sleeping on a weekday—though I would fully admit that I had no clue if he'd decided if he was even going to show up today—I didn't expect Riley to have come in and found my second letter just yet. And sure enough, it sat exactly where I'd left it, completely untouched, just waiting to serve it's intended purpose.
Fearing the worst, that Jackson and I had both managed to sleep until late in the afternoon the next day, I tugged my watch-bearing wrist into sight.
7:34.
And considering it was currently winter and therefore got dark at about five o'clock, I was eagerly assuming that I was right; it was early-morning time.
That meant I had a few different options for my next course of action.
I could either wait until mom left for work—if she was going, I couldn't hear whether or not she was getting ready with my door shut—and start snooping around for my note and will, or I could go haunt the school again. Or I could go back to where I'd woken up...
No, I'd bothered Jackson quite enough in less than twenty-four hours. Especially with my unexpected, unknown drop-in this morning. I'd either see him at the school, or I'd personally check up on him later. Whether he could see me or not.
Though, at this point, I had to ask myself what exactly I thought I would be going to the school for. I'd seen the specific reactions to my death I was looking for. What else was there?
Truthfully, I couldn't think of anything in particular, but then a different idea struck me.
Union Bay High opened the campus—just not the buildings, as of this year—at 7:00 for students, and from my understanding, the teachers all had to meet in the library from either then or 7:30 until 8:15, when us kids were finally allowed inside.
Which meant there was currently a large, well-lit gym that was currently empty, and would stay that way until that meeting was over...
Hmm...
Theoretically, I could blink myself to the school, if not the gym directly, and practice harnessing my disappearing tricks, at least for a few minutes. Because, to my knowledge, the gym was one of very few places on campus they hadn't installed cameras. The hallways on either side, yes. The actual gym? No.
And even so, the cameras would probably be too high up to get a good look at my face, anyway. Plus, say they did figure out who I was, no one would believe the poor sap that claimed to have seen a dead girl on the security footage. If a bunch of people saw the tape, they'd probably dismiss it as a malfunction or a joke or something, anyway.
Besides, I was already dead. What more could they do to me if I blew my own cover? It's not like I didn't have a way out of trouble now. I could just disappear before they ever got to me. Or, better yet, I could do that before their very eyes and really give people something to talk about. God knows our boring school—city, or state, even—could use the excitement.
...Nah, I wouldn't do that. To me, it seemed a little mean, and more than a little like an abuse of power...
Still, I could use a place like that for practice. If I put a pair of sneakers on, they should squeak on the over-glossed floor when I went fully corporeal, and be silent when I wasn't. If I yelled, my audible-to-the-rest-of-the-world voice should echo off the vaulted ceilings. And when only I could hear me, the rest of the room should remain silent. Walking through things, I could test with the bleachers. Willing myself within a small space (meaning any distance that happened to be less than a hundred yards) would probably work there, maybe. As would my testament to willing myself to and around somewhere I didn't particularly like or was vaguely unfamiliar with.
My little experiment with Sam had taught me that I wasn't very good at that. And since it looked like I was going to be in my spiritual state for a while, I should probably work on that, just in case the future ever called for the need.
I guess I'm off then...I looked around my room one more time.
Oh, wait. I should probably put my blankets and stuff back in as close of place as possible, lest my family get suspicious if they popped their heads in the door. Luckily, the bed had been just as unmade as if I'd woken up and tossed the blankets back myself the day I was found, though I had no recollection of who was responsible for that, as I'd been dead-but-not-a-ghost-yet at the time (and I had fallen asleep to never wake up again with the covers pulled up to my chin). Therefore, putting everything back didn't press too much for accuracy.
Whoever unmade the bed to get me out of it—possibly Riley, trying desperately to find some proof I was alive, or maybe EMTs come to collect me from a 911 call, or mom and dad trying to prove what Riley couldn't—-probably hadn't memorized how everything looked, and I highly doubted anyone else frequenting the room had, either.
Although that bit about someone having definitely pulled my body out of the bed drew up an interesting question also; Where is my body?
Well, I mean, I had a pretty good feeling the nearest morgue would be a good guess, but I had no idea where that was.
Actually, where would I be buried, anyway? I knew where my grandparents on my mom's side were buried, because when I was little, she'd go out there all the time to change the flower arrangements with one of my aunts, and I usually went along for the ride.
See, now, I was never the kid that was spooked by graveyards or cemeteries. And for what it's worth, I never even understood why. As far as I knew or could remember, our parents had always been pretty straight with Riley and I over death, mostly because mom's dad had died when I was a month old, her mom when I was about three, and when you have as many cats as we do, there's going to be a bit of a rotating cast over the years, and that's going to get complicated trying to explain to the kiddies. If I had to guess, it was probably just easier to tell us the truth; Those family members (yes, the cats, too) were gone, and they weren't coming back. But with any luck, they were in a better place.
But yeah, regardless of whether or not my memory was right about all that, the places that always seem to be the subject of eerie happens in books and movies never really bothered me. In fact, I had liked going with mom to change the fake flowers on her parents' graves because I liked to walk around to the big fountain and the stone angels and all that at the graveyard. It was like an outdoor museum to me. And I liked the bells that went off on the hour from the building—A funeral home, maybe?—right next to the place.
Additionally, our house with fields for neighbors wasn't too far from a really tiny cemetery that me and Riley would bike by when we were kids, dad leading the charge so we didn't get ourselves hit by a car.
...On second thought, maybe it would be more surprising if that kind of stuff did bother me, after everything I could think of.
All that aside, I was willing to bet that the final resting place of my grandparents had little to no bearing on where my carcass was going to spend eternity. Or at least however long the Earth lasted. Eternity is a long time.
Nevermind, nevermind! We're running out of time! I mentally clapped in my own face for having gotten off track.
7:42.
If I was going to try and use the gym as my new Ghostly Practicing grounds, I needed to get a move on.
So, after sliding on pair number 2,984 of Converse I owned (and kept tied at all costs), figuring no one would notice one set of at least a dozen missing, I shut my eyes and thought of Mr. Monty's class, once again.