"Harry," she says.
"Yes?"
"I still haven't seen my parents yet."
Her words register in my head when I realize that Jane's parents could very likely be walking the same streets Jane and I have been. I'm at a loss for words, I want her to see her parents, but what if she wants to live with them instead and I won't see her? I push my selfish thoughts away and realize I haven't answered her.
"Um, I mean I'm not sure where they would be," I say reaching over her and switching on the light so I can see her. "Do you know where they died?" I ask.
"I think it was on the freeway, they were on their way to visit me at college," She says, rubbing the tiredness from her eyes. "If you don't want to go I can see if I can go find them on my own and you can stay here," She says
"No absolutely not, no way," I say. "You can't go do something like that by yourself, Jane."
She gives me a confused look and moves her hair out of her face.
"Harry I'm not 5, I basically solved your murder case mostly on my own." She says while yawning.
"It doesn't matter Jane, if you want to find your parents we will do it together. I'm just a little hesitant leaving my grandmother alone," I say playing with her dark brown hair and twisting it between my fingertips.
"I wonder where they are, or what they're doing." She says looking up at the ceiling pondering about her parents.
"Well, when you appear in the afterlife you become the age you were happiest at," I explain looking at her.
She furrows her brow in confusion, "Well, then what age would my parents be?" she asks peeling her eyes from the ceiling and into mine.
"Well probably not any age after you were born considering how much of a brat you were," I say teasing her.
"Haha very funny," she says rolling her eyes at me. "Seriously Harry, I want to find them," she says leaning her head on my shoulder and sighing in frustration.
"Okay," I say sighing "We're leaving tomorrow." I finish, shutting my eyes and thinking about how I'll tell my grandma that the girlfriend she just met wants to go find her parents in a completely different state. And that I'm going with her.
I look over at Jane to see a smile planted on her lips, she looks over at me smiling wider and wider. "A Harry and Jane roadtrip!" she says giggling.
"Sounds like a blast," I reply mimicking her smile. "Okay, we need to sleep now Jane," I say turning off the light beside her.
"Goodnight, Harry." She says pulling the covers over her and snuggling into them.
"Goodnight, J." I say before drifting off to sleep, holding her frame close to mine.
JANE'S POV
I am woken up from the sound of rocks hitting Harry's window, what the hell. I get up as quietly as possible and look out the window. Wesley and Em are sitting on a patch of grass in the backyard throwing pebbles at the window. I put my finger up to them and rush down the stairs opening the back door to the yard.
"What are you two doing?" I ask laughing at them for being so childish.
"Well, we got kind of bored. And we decided to wake you and Harry up." Wesley says shrugging his shoulders.
"Well Harry is still sound asleep, so you didn't succeed with that one," I say raising my eyebrows.
"Mhm, sound asleep." a familiar voice says behind me, catching me off guard.
I turn around to see Harry in his pajamas with bed head and a big smile on his face.
"Looks like we did succeed, Jane," Em says with a wink.
"Well we're both awake, so what should we do now?" I ask looking back to Wesley and Em.
"We have to start getting ready for our trip, Jane," Harry suggests.
"What trip?" Wesley and Em say in unison.
"We are going to find my parents," I tell them with a smile.
"Where are they?" Em asks.
"We don't know that yet, but hopefully Jane can think of a place where they'd be," Harry answers for me.
"Yeah, I don't have any clue where they'd be or how old they would be. Who knows if they were their happiest before or after I was born," I say crossing my arms, glaring at Harry because of his comment last night.
"Well we hope you'll be able to find them! We'll see you when you get back," Wesley says.
"Thanks," I tell them, waving goodbye as Harry puts his arm around me and we make our way back into the house.
"Hey Jane?" Harry asks once we're back in his room.
"Yeah?"
"If you really had to think about it, where would your parents have gone if they're not in Castle Hill anymore?"
-
JANE'S MOM POV (flashback)
Everything is so dark and silent. I have know clue where I am or where Robert is. I thought we were driving on the road but now I'm surrounded by melting snow on the ground next to me, my body feels weak and I can't feel anything below my hips.
I look around frantically for any sign of my husband. I stand up, my legs still with no feeling which is odd. Everything becomes blurry and now only the sound of sirens fills my ears. I take one more blurry glance around me before everything goes to a pitch black.
My eyes fly open to a bright and colorful sky. I'm in the same position as I was a few seconds ago, but this time nothing is blurry and I can feel my entire body.
Once again, I look around for Robert, when I stand up my body fills with energy and I'm no longer weak. I spot Robert a few feet away from me.
His usual khakis and polo shirt are missing and he wears skinny jeans with an old Van Halen t-shirt. His skin is youthful, and he looks like he did almost 34 years ago. I almost can't believe my eyes when I see what my 18 year old self used to everyday in high school. He looks over at me like he's just seen a ghost.
"Caroline?" He asks standing up and walking towards me.
I mimic his actions until our faces are inches apart. "Robert, you look like you're 18." I say pulling my hands through his now thick curly hair, smiling at him still in shock.
"So do you," He replies chuckling lightly, looking deep into my eyes. I touch my face frantically, feeling my thick auburn hair, and the plumpness of my now youthful skin taking me back.
"I-I'm so confused, we were on our way to... somewhere, and now we're both back in our high school years," he says.
"Are we dead?" I say, my eyes growing wide at the memory of Robert's frantic movements when a car was coming towards us on the road.
"What? Why would we be dead?" he answers me.
"Robert, when we were in the car, someone drove towards us, and I'm pretty sure we crashed," I tell him, remembering the details off what happened.
"Oh my gosh, Caroline. We're dead," he says looking into my eyes.
"I know we were driving to go do something, but I don't know where to or why," I say, starting to look around where we are. "Where are we?"
"I don't know. But this isn't Sacramento, that's for sure," Robert says.
I start to walk along the path of the ditch we're in, trying to find a way out other than up and onto the busy road, Robert following behind me. After a while the path curves and continues on until it drops us off outside of a forest next to a diner called Mel's. I figured it'd be a good idea to go inside and ask where we are, so I take Robert's hand in mine and walk in.
A tall boy with curly hair and a white sweater, looking into to a to go bag walks past us, revealing the front counter with a lady standing behind it. I walk up to her and her eyes meet mine and she asks with a friendly smile, "Hi, would you like a table?"
I look to Robert and he shrugs, so I turn back around and say yes, and she leads us to a booth in the corner. A waitress comes up and greets us, "Hey, welcome to Mel's Diner! Can I get you two started with any soda or coffee?"
"I'll take a black coffee please," Robert tells her.
"I take one with cream please," I say.
"Sure thing. Anything else I can get you?" she asks.
"Um, do you mind telling us... where we are?" I ask her, realizing how dumb that sounded.
She looks at us confused but shrugs it off an answers, "Castle Hill, Washington."
Robert and I look to each other both with wide, confused eyes. "Thank you," I say.
Once she walks away to go get our drinks I whip my head back to Robert and he asks me "Why the hell are we in Washington? Is this where we were driving to?"
"Why would be drive to Washington? That doesn't seem like something we'd do," I tell him.
"What are we going to do? Should we stay here?"
"I mean, why would we? It's not like there's anything here expecting us. We should just go back to California," I answer, wanting to go back to our home town.
"Yeah, that's true. Maybe we should ask someone if they'll know how we got here and they can tell us how to get to California. I mean, since we don't have a car," he suggests.
Just then our waitress comes back to the table with our coffee's and asks us if we want to order any food. We both politely decline and just a she's about to walk away I call her back, wanting to get some information.
"I'm sorry to keep you from working," I start to say, "But, we are sort of lost, and don't know how we got here."
"Ah, I see. Do you mind?" she responds, motioning to the booth to sit down.
"Not at all, please sit," I say.
"Well, this is the afterlife. You come here when you die, and where you appear in the afterlife is near to where you died. There's also the in between, which I'm sure you guys weren't in considering you didn't know you're in the afterlife," she tells us.
"We died in Washington?" I ask Robert. He looks to me with complete shock.
"Okay help us with this. Now we don't remember much, but we do know for a fact that we were grown adults who lived in California. Why are we teenagers again?" he asks the waitress.
"You appear in the place you died, at the age you were happiest," she tells us.
Robert and I look at each other confused but eventually start smiling as we both remember the fun we had together in high school. Our moment breaks away when she asks us "Is there anything else I can help you with?" probably wanting to get back to work.
"How do we get back to California? We don't have a car," I say.
"If you can get a ride, the airport is about an hours drive from here," she answers.
"Thank you..." my eyes trail to her name tag, "Megan."
"No problem! Good luck," Megan says just before walking away.
We finish up our coffee, laughing and talking about everything from high school that we remember. The only thing on my mind right now is that I'm too afraid to ask Robert since he probably won't remember, did we ever have kids?
"Alright Caroline, think we should go now?" Robert asks me.
"Yeah. Let's figure out how to get back to California!"