Almost Alive (16 page)

I
turned to my right.  One of the schools biggest blabbermouths was sitting right next to me.  She was directly responsible for so many kids coming to watch my supposed funeral.  I knew that she hated me, and she probably didn’t want to talk to me, but I also knew that she loved to talk.

             
Her eyes will light right up when you start asking her questions!  You’ll be her new best friend.  Besides, don’t act like you don’t wanna know.  It’s important.

             
“Christie…”  I hated myself for calling out to her!  I regretted it as soon as she snapped her head and stared at me like I killed puppies for a living.  If I didn’t say anything else, she probably would have made up a bunch of stuff and spread it around the school.  But there was enough crazy stuff in my life that she really didn’t need to make up anything.  “I was wondering…”

             
“Spit it out,” she snapped impatiently.

             
“I have a question about Julian!”

             
I suddenly had her attention, and she scooted next to me like I was her new best friend.  “Well, what is it?”  I didn’t understand girls being that catty or living off of gossip like some kind of parasite.  People had feelings!

             
“He killed himself—”

             
“Yeah, he slit his wrists.”

             
I didn’t want to think about doing something that sadistic.  I guess overdosing on medication wasn’t any better, but I was too much of a baby to really try anything else.  I wasn’t really a fan of pain.  “Do you know why?”

             
“And you don’t?” She was absolutely appalled!

             
“I didn’t want to be insensitive and ask.”

             
She rolled her eyes.  “You should know!  He’s such a dick for not telling you.  You may be his girlfriend, but you can’t possibly know how needy he is!”

             
“Whoa!”  My mind was in a tailspin.  “Um…To clear things up, I’m not dating Julian.  We’re both just friends.”

             
She pondered deeply what I said and then responded with more assurance than I had.  “Julian doesn’t have friends.”

             
“That doesn’t matter.  The two of us are just hanging out.”  The quiver in my voice didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but I was never going to change her opinion anyway.  “And second, what do you mean he’s needy?  Julian is a lot of things, but needy isn’t one of them.”

             
“Tell that to his dead girlfriend.”

             
“What?” I yelled much louder than I would have liked.  I didn’t mean to make a fool out of myself in the computer room, but my reputation couldn’t get any worse.

             
Dead girlfriend.  Remember that! 

             
“How did she die?”

             
“Julian loved her more than anything.  They dated since the sixth grade, lost their virginity to each other, the whole nine yards.  But when they got in the tenth grade, she just didn’t feel the same way anymore.  Her mom started buying her cute clothes, so she didn’t want to be all gothed out and depressed.  She was gearing more toward being an intellectual girl determined to go into business, and she was growing out of her phase.  They didn’t want the same things anymore.”

             
“So what happened next?”

             
“She dumped Julian, and he couldn’t take it.  He told her that he couldn’t live without her.”

             
I was so distraught that it physically hurt.  My chest was tight, and it was hard to breathe.  I clutched onto my chest and fought the tears that were beginning to come through.  “He didn’t…”

             
“Yep.  He sure did, and she couldn’t live with the guilt.”

             
“So she…?”  I couldn’t even ask it.  I guess I didn’t really need to.  I understood Christie’s anger with Julian, because I was upset myself.  How dare he put such a burden on his girlfriend!  It wasn’t her fault that he killed himself, but how could she not feel at least a little bit of the guilt?

             
“She got a phone call from Maria, and she was dead within ten minutes.”

             
“But…”  I didn’t understand.  “How is that possible?  Was Julian not really dead?”

             
“There’s always been a huge debate about that.  Maria swore up and down that he was dead when she called Eleanor.”

             
“Eleanor.”  It was appropriately creepy and beautiful.  “Maybe Maria was confused.”

             
“Maybe.  That’s what’s most likely.  But if he were dead, then why didn’t she call the paramedics first?  And why did she wait forty minutes?”

             
“Forty minutes?”  How could Maria even get away with something like that?  “What was her excuse?”

             
“I heard that when the paramedics came and found them, there were a bunch of candles and creepy symbols all around him.  They found Maria crying and chanting some crazy spell in the corner of the room.”

             
“She tried to bring him back with her magic?”

             
“Yeah, and when the paramedics checked him, he was actually dead.  Just when they put the sheet on him, he gasped for air.  There was no resuscitation, no putting blood back into his body, not even a prayer to God.  He came back all on his own.”

             
Do you really believe that?

No.  I didn’t really.  There had to be something else to it.  “Do you really believe that?”

“I have to!”  Christie seemed to be a little terrified, though she was very interested in the conversation.  “I don’t believe in spirits and all the other stuff that the majority of the school thinks.”

“And what do they think?”

She looked around to see if other kids were eavesdropping—which they totally were—and then she inched in closer to me and whispered.  “They think Maria used dark magic to recall the soul of her brother back from the dead.  Most everyone was afraid of him when he first returned from the dead.  He walked into bible club one day; he didn’t say a word and they still asked him to leave.”

That was pretty sad, but I couldn’t really blame them for being intimidated. 
“And now?”

She shrugged. 
“He’s still a freak.  Anyone who associates with him is a freak, but it’s not as bad as hanging out with his sister.”

You really shouldn’t
associate with either of them.  You’ll never be normal, and you know how much you need normal right now.

The demon kind of had a point.  I really wanted normal.  I just knew it was impossible.  But some of the story had to be blown out of proportion.  Most of it had to be teenage gossip that evolved into the equivalent of a ghost story. 
“How do you know all of this?”

“I have friends in high places.  My dad is a cop
, and he tells me a lot of stuff on the down-low.”  She looked rather concerned for me.  “You’re going to stop seeing him, right?”

“We’re not together.” 
She gave me a look and I just completely gave up on convincing her.  “I’ll think about it.”

“Make the right decision.”
I think she had a slightly better opinion of me, but only because she thought I was a naïve idiot that didn’t know any better when it came to Julian and his family.  The big problem was that she was correct in her judgmental assumption.

I couldn’t possibly work on my paper while I had an entire internet to help me try to understand what happened to Julian.  After spending twenty minutes hardcore searching, I discovered that you’re considered to be medically dead when your heart stops beating.  Limbs can survive a couple of hours without blood circulation and some organs can go minutes,
but the brain is a much more sensitive matter.  There was no medical possible way that I could find to explain how he could be dead for an hour and then just revive all on his own.

I researched other sort of revivals.  People claimed to have spiritual encounters with God and claimed to be resurrected through miracle working power.  I guess I should have believed stuff like that, but it just seemed a little too out there.

But I knew good and well that Maria wasn’t praying over Julian.

Maria used her dark magic. 

“There’s no such thing as magic,” I mumbled quietly.

Christie chuckled.  “I’ve totally freaked you out, haven’t I?”

“You were joking?” I asked relieved.

She laughed again and shook her head.  “No. 
This all happened, and you’re totally sketched.”  She leaned over to peek at my computer screen.

I exited
out of everything before I could get caught.  “I’m fine.  There’s a reasonable explanation.”

“And did you find one?”

I just kept my mouth shut and pretended I wasn’t too unnerved to work.  It wasn’t that much longer before the bell rang and I got out of answering how I really felt about Julian’s resurrection.

As I was passing through the hallway to get to my next class, I spotted Maria heading for the stairs and I just kind of freaked out inside.  I gripped my books tightly and held them into my chest as I struggled to find my breath.

How are you going to fight demons when you can’t even stand up to a little witch?

I really was a coward.
  I remembered that Julian told me that Maria wasn’t dangerous as far as having powers, but something had to have brought him back.  Right?  Dead people don’t just wake up.  But I had to get over my fear of her and just confront her.  “Maria!”

She stopped for me and smi
led, though she was surprised.

That friendly face should have calmed me down, but I was still
petrified of her strange power that was becoming more real by the second.  But I couldn’t give into my fear.  I figured I was being paranoid.  It was more likely that Julian was right, and I was being an idiot.  “I’ve got a question for you.”

“Then you better hurry before my brother finds us communicating with one another,” she said bitterly.  I noticed she wasn’t exactly the friendly girl worthy of my pity like before.  Before, she cowered in her brother’s might.  She suddenly had a lot more bite to her.

I looked around and noticed that people were watching us.  I didn’t want to be persecuted as a freak and after learning what Maria was, I couldn’t blame everyone for being freaked out.  “I heard about what you did.”

“Be more specific.”

“Well, I don’t know if you actually did something.  I wanted to know if you…”  I laughed nervously and threw my hands up in the air and surrendered to the foolishness.  “Did you have something to do with Julian coming back?”

She slowly began to smirk in a way I can’t really explain, but it was seriously screwing with my head.  “He didn’t talk to you about his suicide, did he?”

I shook my head.

“I see.”  She laughed.  “So you’re listening to the rumors?”

I breathed a sigh of relief.  “I’m sorry.  I should have known that you weren’t performing a spell over your dead brother’s body.”

“No, I was.”  She took a step closer
, and I found myself wishing that I hadn’t released that heavy huff of air, because all of the other air surrounding me felt too cursed at the time to suck in my body for nourishment.  “I’m the only reason why my brother is back from the dead.  He owes me his life, but he thinks people like me should be burned to a stake!  Do you think that’s fair?”

I shook my head, but I couldn’t speak a word or breathe yet.

“I know Julian gave you a speech about how I don’t have powers, but I do.  I could save my mother if he let me and I could help you with your parents’, but if you don’t want my help, that’s fine.  But please don’t insult me and belittle what I can do.”

That underclassman was threatening me
, and I was too busy shaking to do anything about it.  “I understand.”

“Good.”  She smirked
, and I realized how much she had been playing me the whole entire time we knew each other.  I thought about how Julian said she shouldn’t have had my gym class, and it only made me feel like a bigger fool.  Whose side was she even on?

“Do you believe in what’s happened to Julian?”

“The demon?”  She laughed.  “Don’t be ridiculous.”  I wasn’t sure if she were mocking me or doing a great job of playing it off, but either way, she walked away to torture me regardless. 

I felt like I owed Julian an apology when it came to Maria, but I also didn’t know what I was gonna say to him about his suicide and Eleanor.  That must have been something that weighed on him every day.  It was no wonder why he didn’t want to pursue anything with me.  He was probably still in love with her and trapped in his own web of guilt.

After school, we met up together in the cafeteria, and he had a huge smile on his face.  It was rare and nice, but it worried me.  I could only return an awkward grin, and he sensed that I wasn’t sincere and I ruined his good mood.  “What’s wrong?”