Backwards (13 page)

Sixth period: biology.

Dan stirred as I approached Mr. Huber’s classroom. Cat would be there. Much as I wanted to see her, I was in no shape to fight Dan again.
Focus,
I whispered to myself.
This is your life.
I continued on, deciding not to chance it.

A teacher spotted me and asked why I wasn’t in class. I pretended not to hear her and ducked into the portrait hall. My hands shook — whether from hunger or nerves or something else, I couldn’t tell.
ALARM WILL SOUND IF OPENED
stated a sign on the door near the end of the hall. It was the same door Cat would go through tomorrow. I pushed the handle, hoping the alarm had already been broken as I slipped into the overgrown courtyard.

For several minutes, I just stood there, taking in the sunlight and the crisp blue sky. A breeze swirled leaves in a corner. My pulse calmed and Dan withdrew until I was barely conscious of him. It was a relief to escape the claustrophobic pressure of school, where everyone seemed eager to bust you for something. No wonder Cat liked to come out here.

I headed to where she’d sit tomorrow. A few cigarette butts dirtied the ground, but the fallen leaves appeared soft and inviting. The crab-apple tree in front of me had short, stumpy branches and gnarled roots that arched together at the base of the trunk, forming a tiny nook.

The White Rabbit,
I thought, realizing this would be the perfect place for him. I dug through Dan’s backpack for the remaining figurine.

Tomorrow Cat would come here, thinking she was alone. I imagined her spotting the White Rabbit, his pocket watch clasped in his paw as if he’d been waiting for her to arrive.

She’d probably be surprised at first. She might not even believe it was real. But when she leaned forward and touched the figurine, she’d be filled with wonder.

I figured she’d guess that I’d put it there, yet how I’d known to leave the figurine exactly where she’d see it would be a mystery to her. All she’d know was that I understood her. A connection like that had to resonate, running deeper than words or logic. Deeper than time, even, the way two people could meet each other for the first time and feel like they’d always known each other.

I pressed the figurine into the ground like I was planting a seed. Then I stood, brushed the dirt off the zombie’s jeans, and went back inside.

“This is hell,” said TR.

He was standing in the middle of the street a little ways from the Coffee Spot, letting cars rush through him, only he wasn’t whooping or jumping like he normally did.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

A black sedan blurred through him, but TR kept talking. “I’m not even scared anymore. I don’t flinch. Don’t get excited. There’s nothing left. I think this might be hell.”

I sat on the curb, wondering what had changed. The other night, TR had been giddy with the prospect of influencing Waster. “Did something happen today?”

“Nothing happened.” TR sat cross-legged in the road as a pickup barreled toward him. “That’s the problem. Nothing ever changes. All day I made Waster do things, but it didn’t matter.”

I chuckled at how wrong he had it.

“What’s so funny?” asked TR.

“Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you about it.”

“Tell me what?”

“A secret.”

He moved reluctantly, letting the truck plow through half of him. For some reason, that bothered me more than seeing it pass through all of him.

On the way to the diner, I explained the figurines and how I’d given them to Cat. I thought the story might cheer him up, but it only made him more depressed.

“All I did was make Waster call Miss Ashet ‘Miss Asshat,’” he said.

“Really? That’s great!”

TR frowned.

“I’m serious,” I said. “If you can make Waster do that, just think of all the other things you can do.”

“What’s the point?” He swiped his hand through a lamppost. “We think we’re making a difference, but we’re not. The same things are still going to happen no matter what we do. We just get to watch. Well, I’m through watching,” he said. “I don’t want to see it.”

“See what?” I asked.

“Any of it. I just want to punch someone, you know? Throw a rock through a window. Do something that makes an impact. I’m sick of living this . . .
ghost
life.”

“What if I told you that I know we have an impact,” I said. “I know we can make a difference.”

TR gave me a skeptical look. “You can’t know that.”

“But I do,” I replied. Then I told him about the messages on the wall and how they’d changed after I’d done things.

His eyes widened.

“That’s why you have to take over,” I added.

“Take over? Like kick Waster out?” he asked. “Make the corpse my own?”

I nodded.

“You can
do
that?”

I nodded again.

“Holy crap! How?”

I told him about pushing Dan back and walling him off. “It’s a battle of wills,” I said. “You just need to make your will stronger than his.”

“But it’s his life.”

“Is it?” I asked.

TR cocked his head.

“Waster doesn’t have a purpose, right?” I continued. “He just wanders around all day, going wherever the wind takes him.”

“More or less.”

“So, if you have a purpose — something bigger than yourself that’s important — then you’ll be stronger than he is. You’ll be able to take over.”

“That’s it?”

“That, and you need to believe that his life is yours now. You need to make it completely your own.”

TR’s expression fell. “I don’t know, dude. That seems wrong.”

“Why? He killed himself, didn’t he?”

“Not yet.”

I shrugged. “Yesterday. Tomorrow. What’s the difference? Waster’s pretty much dead already.”

“I guess.”

“Come on, TR. We’ll make their lives ours. We’ll fix the things they messed up.” I glimpsed Cat through the window of the Coffee Spot, sitting at her usual booth.

“And then what?” asked TR.

“Then who knows?” I said. “We might be released. Or we might start to move forward. That could be our reward for fixing things — we get to live the lives they gave up.”

Sunday morning, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. I figured this was what Dan did most weekends anyway, and the sounds of others in the house comforted me: the bustle of Dan’s mom in the kitchen, the murmur of the dishwasher running, Teagan taking a shower and singing to herself.

When Teagan returned to her room, the quiet made me uneasy, so I switched on some music. Dan mostly listened to grating, obnoxious stuff, but there was one song I liked, “The Trapeze Swinger” by Iron and Wine, because it reminded me of Cat. One line, about an angel kissing a sinner, made me wonder if I ever got to kiss her, which one would I be?

Before the song ended, I clicked the button on Dan’s iPod to make it play again. The song was almost ten minutes long, but it still seemed too short. I imagined playing it for Cat and asking her to dance. We’d sway together, her chest warm against mine, her head nestled into my neck, both of us wishing the song would never end.

A knock on the door jolted me out of my fantasy. Dan bristled, and I had to concentrate on pushing him back before speaking.

“What is it?” I asked through the door.

“I’m taking a bunch of stuff from the basement to the Goodwill,” replied Dan’s mom. “If you want to keep anything, now’s your chance.” Something large thumped in the hallway. “I’ll leave this here for you to pick through.”

I pulled on pants and a sweatshirt before opening Dan’s door. A cardboard box overflowing with clothes, toys, and knickknacks took up half the hallway. Dan protested, but I shut him out. Then I rummaged through the box, finding a man’s leather shoe.

The shoe looked used but well cared for — not at all like the zombie’s ragged sneakers. It must have belonged to his dad. I slid my foot into it, surprised by how well it fit. My toes sank into worn indents in the insoles. Digging through the box for the other shoe, I spotted the figurines.

The Cheshire Cat and White Rabbit were clumped together in a clear plastic bag, buried beneath naked dolls and stuffed animals. That might explain how they’d gotten into Dan’s backpack — I’d put them there. The strange thing was that the bag held a third figurine, a stumpy little man wearing an oversized green top hat and a mustard coat. The Mad Hatter.

Teagan’s door swung open. I stuffed the figurines into Dan’s back pocket so she wouldn’t see them.

“Good morning, Sis,” I said.

She glowered at me. Her anger seemed more pronounced than usual, if that was possible. Whatever Dan had done to piss her off must have happened recently.

“Mom’s taking this box to the Goodwill,” I continued, hoping my cheerful tone would ease the rift between us. “Some of your things are in it if you’d like to keep them.”

“I know,” said Teagan, squinting. “I helped Mom clean the damn basement.”

“Oh. You could have gotten me.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to help. I like helping.”

She rolled her eyes and retreated to the kitchen.

I considered following her, but Dan had grown increasingly agitated during the conversation, making it difficult to talk.

Once I returned to his room, I searched through his closet for more stuff to give to the Goodwill. Tossing out everything and starting over fresh appealed to me, but Dan would likely object. Instead, I limited myself to getting rid of some of his dullest, dreariest, shabbiest clothes. The guy definitely needed some color in his wardrobe, and it wouldn’t kill him to dress up a little more, either. He had several nice shirts that I’d never seen him wear.

A few dusty trophies, baseballs, and other memorabilia cluttered the top shelf of his closet. I got some of them down and read the inscriptions. He’d gotten Varsity Football MVP two years in a row. And he’d been Varsity Baseball Best Hitter the previous year. He also had a shoe box full of medals and ribbons for everything from swimming to track to the eighth-grade science fair. Impressive. Being stuck in his tall, lanky body might not be so bad after all.

Later that day, after showering and cleaning his room, I headed out for a walk. It was overcast, but I liked the way things felt more crisp and defined in the cold. The faint scent of wood smoke and fermenting crab apples tinted the breeze. I ran a few steps. Then sprinted.

Dan resisted. He probably feared looking dumb racing down the block, but he soon gave in. The more I controlled his body, the more solid my hold over him became. This was
my
life.
My
body.

Pretty soon I was jumping bushes and swinging from tree branches, testing out my newly discovered athletic prowess. A whoop of joy escaped my throat. It felt incredible to move like this — lungs burning and muscles flexing. Why Dan didn’t run everywhere all the time was beyond me.

A man raking leaves gave me an annoyed look, but I didn’t care. I shut my eyes and kept running, taking long, swift strides. Wind whipped my face. I felt like I was flying. I even spread my arms like wings.

Something snagged my foot, clipping my legs out from under me. My eyes snapped open. Time seemed to slow as I watched blades of grass rush past. Each one looked vivid and brilliant. All too soon, I hit the ground and skidded across a lawn, smashing into a couple garden gnomes and taking out a concrete birdbath with my shoulder. An explosion of pain blistered my mind. I recoiled. Immediately, Dan was there, vying for control.

Stupid!
I thought. Pain was a trigger for him.

I sank back into him, only it was too late. Dan had already taken over. He gasped for breath and checked his surroundings. A small decorative picket fence marked one end of the yard, about twenty feet back. That must have been what had tripped me. Skid marks streaked the lawn where I’d fallen, and a garden gnome’s head had broken off. Dan gave the house a wary look, but no one came out to yell at him. Then he glanced across the street. That’s when I realized where we were. Cat’s apartment building stood only a block away.

Dan staggered to his feet. The pain from his shoulder had lessened somewhat, but it still hurt. He felt his collarbone and winced. I threw myself into the gap. Dan fought back, but I’d managed to get a foot in the door. We pushed against each other, stumbling about the yard. To anyone watching, we probably looked drunk or insane.