18 Truths (25 page)

“Honey, I’m home!”

Instantly, I recognized Conner’s voice. The way he spoke—in a somewhat quick, throwaway, carefree manner—was unmistakable.

I turned just in time to see him entering the cafeteria with the guy from the security monitor trailing behind him. Watching Conner take a seat at the picnic table and then devouring breakfast felt surreal. He seemed to enjoy his playful banter with his friend around bites of pancakes and sips of orange juice. This Conner looked more like my Conner than the pictures Sam showed me. His dreads were gone, replaced by a hairstyle that wasn’t exactly long or short, more like Harry Potter during his fourth year at Hogwarts. As someone who liked to listen to punk rock and indie rock in equal doses, he was always a character who seemed at odds with himself. I just figured he hadn’t made up his mind about the kind of person he wanted to be yet, and why should he? He had been seventeen and had every right to believe he had all the time in the world to figure things out. The burden of responsibility threatened to weigh me down again. But at the same time, this responsibility had given me purpose, and led me to Conner.

After one last sweep of the area, I decided the coast was clear for me to step inside the cafeteria. But after a few steps toward Conner’s table, I stopped short. A girl pretty enough to stop traffic smoothed down his hair from across the table. My mouth hung open by its own accord, and I sunk down onto the nearest bench, thinking this was the end of me.

Things only deteriorated as I watched their interaction. She soon wrapped him in a hug before launching into a heated discussion. A spat between lovers? But there was Conner’s trademark look of almost intimidating coolness, so perhaps this girl cared way more for him than he did about her. I gained some confidence back as I realized some things never changed, then stood to approach him once more. But I stopped short again when I saw him giving her a familiar peck on the lips.

Oh, this was a mistake. Why would I ever think he’d be lost without me? Tears blurred my vision as the words ‘too late’ echoed through my mind, everything within me turning to ice. ‘Too late’ seemed to be the story of my life. I wanted to run the other way and forget the past twenty-four hours. But I told myself to be rational, to use the I.Q. God gifted me with to think things through. I decided whatever happened, for better or worse, I hadn’t come this far to turn back now without even saying hello to my best friend. And that’s all he ever was… my
friend.
No reason whatsoever to feel jealous of this girl right now. Except now might not be the time to let Conner know I was here, but—

“Olga?”

My heart stopped. For a moment, time seemed to stop as well, and my body froze in a strange position. Our last outing together flashed before my eyes, and joy finally settled in—I’d found my way to him again.

He ran to me, lifted me off the ground, and swung me around and around, letting me know he felt the same way.

So much for staying inconspicuous.

“Is it you? Is it really you, or am I dreaming?”

Our gazes met. I couldn’t believe I was looking at Conner, staring into his blue eyes. He wore a pair of dark gray athletic shorts that rested on his knees and a plain white T-shirt revealing his muscled body quite well. I knew I shouldn’t be thinking about his muscles or his flat, hard stomach, but old habits died hard. Already a familiar feeling hung between us, like no time was lost.

Pinching his stomach, I said, “It’s really me.”

His eyes filled with tears. “But, how?”

I stood on my tippy toes and reached up, placing my hands on his shoulders as I whispered into his ear. “Shh, not here.”

He grabbed my hand, and I shuddered. For a moment, we both just stood there, studying each other again.

“Okay, let’s go somewhere more private. Follow me.”

“There is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth—
but that all is truth without exception.”
—Walt Whitman

o, what have you been up to?” he asked, like this was completely normal.

Laughing, I held his gaze steadily. I couldn’t stop looking at Conner sitting across from me on his military style cot inside his tent.

In the cafeteria, he’d quickly introduced me to his roommate Bo, then to Julia, who stood silently, looking from Conner to me and back again. She didn’t give her stamp of approval on our alone time, but Conner didn’t wait around for her judgment either.

Now we both laughed at his question, and then there was silence for a moment. “Oh, you know, the usual stuff. Drinking coffee, joining the cheerleading squad with Tammy, winning karaoke contests with Sean, breaking world records at Grand Haven High School.”

He nodded, rubbing the stubble on his chin, and I could see a question on its way, one that would prove hard to answer. “Uh, you didn’t die? Are you visiting me by… by the power of the Force, and now you’re here to try to dead Yoda me?”

“Did I detect some classic Conner sarcasm in that question?”

“Um, yeah. Because I’m not sure I want to hear the truth. I want you to be alive, and you spent the last year with our friends, but that doesn’t explain how you’re here right now.”

My eyes traveled up to his forehead, where both eyebrows were still singed from the accident, and I sighed.

Conner plugged his ears.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s just that sigh you let loose. Seriously, I think you busted my eardrum. This must be one hell of a story you’re getting ready to tell.”

I shoved him sideways, and he fell off the cot. We both laughed again, and I felt all the history between us returning, putting me at ease as if we still lived back in those simpler times. I spent the next hour or so telling him about Limbo, about Nate in Limbo with me, because how could I leave Nate out of my story? I told him about a year of grief, sympathy, hardship, loss, atonement, and even love. I told him about leaving behind the person I’d been and moving on to the person I wanted to be.

He sat back, leaning on his palms. “Okay, number one. The person you had been was awesome. And num”—he stopped and shook his head—“so, what do you remember about the accident?”

“I…”
I remember your gorgeous eyes, looking over the lake, and then I remember you falling into nothingness.
The grief from the memory washed over me, and I couldn’t get any words out. I stared at the tent, at the bed, anywhere but Conner’s face. Our lives as we knew it were gone, and I still couldn’t get over that fact. Before I realized what was happening, I sniffled. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what? It wasn’t your fault I got struck by lightning.”

“No.” More sniffling. “But I was the one who introduced you to sailing. I was the one who asked you to go with me that day because I was jealous of Tammy. I was supposed to be the responsible one, but I didn’t make you put on your lifejacket or wear mine. I didn’t notice until it was too late that you stopped breathing.” Suddenly, I felt dizzy, my vision swimming.

“Come here,” Conner said, sitting next to me and drawing me close. “Don’t play the blame game. You’ll frickin’ kill yourself with those kinds of thoughts.”

I recoiled at his comment.
Yeah, no kidding.
Still, I was grateful for his last sentence because I could use his choice of swear words to avoid the subject at hand.

“What, are you too classy to say the real bad words now? Taking a page from Nic?”

Nicole always used the fake swear words while we worked at The Bookman. Since her parents were always around as the store owners, they wouldn’t have appreciated the things she really wanted to say when relaying the daily high school drama to me while we stocked the shelves. Instead, she started saying frick, fudge, shoot, and darn, and then the PG words just stuck to the point where she never muttered the real swear words anymore.

Conner nodded. “I’m trying to work on having better language. I figured it couldn’t hurt my situation here.”

I raised one eyebrow. “Yeah? Call me impressed.”

“Well, not cursing is considerably easier to do without GTA to play. I was thinking of going British style with the swear words. You know, wanker, bugger, bloody hell. Figured that might be a step up from before. I feel like I may need a twelve step program or something.”

I covered my mouth, trying not to laugh at his absurd thought process. “Whatever you want. I just think you may be missing the whole point though.”

His jaw twitched. “How’s that?”

I shrugged. “God wants us to care about what He cares about, and He always cares about people more than rules. The stories we read about Jesus demonstrated that over and over again. If you say more than five hundred thousand people die of cancer every year in America, but most people don’t give a flying—insert chosen expletive here—Jesus will take more offense to people dying and us not doing anything to help than saying a ‘bad word,’ ya know?”

He looked at me. “I hear ya, but if that’s how you feel, why have I never heard you say a
real
cuss word.”

“Because I’m perfect.” I winked at him. “Besides, I used to get a whipping for saying the ‘s’ word all the time as a kid.”

His mouth fell open. “You did? I never heard any type of potty language from you. Well, except crap.”

“No, the ‘s’ word to my mom was stupid or shut up.”

“Right? I do remember her looking at me like I’d killed her parents whenever I said those words around her, too.”

“Oh, you remember that, do you?”

“A couple things about my time with you stuck.” He remained silent for a moment, and I heard birds calling out somewhere. “But I can’t remember when you died.”

My eyes went wide. “I’m sorry?”

He sighed. “I mean, I must’ve died quickly. I hardly remember a thing. Just us joking around, then blinding rain, then the strike, then you screaming my name, then someone trying to save me. I thought that someone was probably you, but now… were you hit by the lightning, too?”

I shifted uncomfortably out of his arms. “No, Conner.” I tiptoed around the subject like it was dynamite. Any minute now, I would explode. “The lightning strike flung you from the boat. I dove in after you. The water was freezing. It took me a while, too long, to get you and swim back to the boat, and hypothermia set in. Eventually, I draped you over the lifebuoy and dialed 9-1-1. I should’ve noticed sooner you weren’t breathing, should’ve pulled you on board sooner to administer the rescue breaths. I kept repeating the CPR steps over and over again. It was maybe five or six times before the boom of the sailboat swung in the wind and knocked me unconscious.”

Conner had been completely still while I spoke, but he groaned now, stomping his foot before standing. Sadness and anger clouded his features like the thunderstorm that had darkened the sky that fateful night. He picked up a lantern and flung it across the room, away from me. The light bulb inside exploded, a fitting metaphor for what my heart was doing.

“I can’t believe this! I’m the reason you’re dead!”

My entire body went cold. “What? No, Conner, let me finish.”

“Please,” he sobbed. “Don’t tell me anything more. I was right about not wanting to know the truth.”

I picked at a loose thread on the blanket covering his cot, tears streaming down my face. In my experience, knowing the truth tended to get you into a lot of trouble. I bent a lot of rules to come here. Actually, forget bending. I smashed them to the ground and made my own. And for what? To make Conner feel guilty about something he wasn’t responsible for? I still hadn’t informed him about becoming a spirit guide. Now I thought maybe not telling him anything else was the best plan of action.