Shade (7 page)

We all stared at Brian, who shoved his hands in his pockets.

“I don’t mean—jeez, I meant like soda or something.”

“I’ll help you.” Megan gave me a worried glance and followed Brian toward the kitchen.

I sat back on the sofa. My hand slid over something cold and wet. I lifted it to see a brown-yellow stain on the creamy beige cushion. Spilled Guinness, no doubt. My cheeks flamed at the memory of Logan’s last several drinks.

I excused myself with a mumble, then slunk away to the downstairs bathroom.

Locking the door, I left the light off before remembering that, like all bathrooms, it would be BlackBoxed. That’s why Logan wasn’t in here. If he was a ghost, he’d come back to me, right?

I splashed cold water on my face until my contact lenses stung from the smeared eyeliner. I dried my face and hands, avoiding the mirror. One glimpse would start me sobbing again.

I opened the bathroom door and stepped into the foyer. From above my head came the noise of a heavy zipper.

I looked up the stairs, then wished I hadn’t.

The paramedics had placed Logan’s body onto a stretcher. One of them was sealing a long, greenish black bag.

I imagined the last glimpse of Logan, his bleached-blond hair, disappearing inside. My knees turned liquid, and I let out a little cry.

He can’t breathe in there.

“Aura.” My aunt waved her hand over the banister as if to shoo me. “Sweetie, you shouldn’t see this. Go wait in one of the other rooms.”

I wanted to launch myself up the stairs, rip open the bag, and cling to the only part of Logan I could still touch. I wanted to scream at the paramedics not to take him. Not yet.

Instead I ran into the den and slammed the door.

Light from the street filtered through the sheer curtains, glowing silver on the desk and bookshelves, and the globe that Mr. Keeley had insisted on buying, even though it was outdated by the time it arrived.

But it was dark enough for ghosts. “Logan,” I whispered. “Don’t let me remember that. I want to see you the way you are now. Please come back.”

Nothing to hear but the pulse pounding in my temples. Nothing to see but ambulance headlights sweeping across the window.

Nothing to feel but alone.

In my dream, Logan was red.

So red and so deep, I could see him in full sunshine. We lay on the beach, facing each other, with no towels between our bodies and the sand.

“You look like blood,” I teased him.

He laughed, his mouth a dark chasm. “That’s because I’m made of blood.”

He stroked my face. His fingertips were warm and way too soft. He wasn’t solid like a person, or air like a ghost. He was liquid—liquid that now dripped from my cheek and chin.

“Don’t,” I told him.

“What are you afraid of ?” Logan drew his hand over the strap of my bikini and down my arm, leaving a glistening scarlet trail. “I won’t hurt you. I just need to touch you again.” His slippery-slick
hand took mine. “Don’t you want to touch me, Aura?”

I let out a whimper that verged on a moan. “You know I do.” To prove it, I reached forward. My hand plunged into Logan’s chest.

His limbs spasmed, and he threw back his head. “Not there!”

Something pulsed in my grip. It was like shoving my hand against a Jacuzzi nozzle. Then the current reversed, sucking me in.

“I can’t let go!” My heels kicked at the sand, trying to gain traction. “Logan!”

His liquid fingers clutched my shoulders. My body slipped forward as if sliding down a steep hill.

Behind me, someone pulled. Someone as strong and solid as the earth itself.

But it wasn’t enough. Caught in gravity’s grasp, I crashed into Logan’s body of blood.

My eyes opened. Flailing my arm, I rolled over, expecting to see Aunt Gina standing over my bed after shaking me awake.

“Sweetheart?”

Her voice came from the doorway, not my bedside.

“It’s almost noon.” Gina entered and sat next to me, then brushed the sweaty bangs off my forehead. “Can I get you some soup?”

Warm liquid. Entering my body. Through my mouth.

I lunged over Gina’s lap and barfed into the trash can.

“I guess not,” she murmured as she pulled back my hair.

When I stopped retching—which didn’t take long, since there was nothing in my stomach—she handed me a tissue. I was already sick of tissues.

Gina picked up the pukey trash can. “I’ll bring you some soda.”
The house phone rang, and she hurried out before I could plead, “No liquids!”

A few minutes later the doorbell sounded. I had the urge to run, or at least hide, but my limbs felt like rubber.

Soon there was a soft knock on my bedroom door. Megan shambled in, carrying a plate of saltines and a fizzing glass of ginger ale.

“I thought about calling first,” she said, “but I was afraid you’d tell me not to come. So I just came.”

“Thanks.” I sat up to take the crackers. The stoneware plate was cool and solid. “Put that drink where I can’t see it, okay?”

Without questioning, Megan set the glass on my desk, then opened my calculus book and set it on its edge, as if the ginger ale were getting changed behind one of those old-fashioned dressing screens.

“How’s Mickey?” I asked her.

“Horrible.” She slouched over from the desk and sank onto the edge of the bed. “They finally got hold of Mr. and Mrs. Keeley on the cruise. They’re flying back tonight when the ship stops in the Caymans.” She rubbed her chapped nose. “A couple of aunts are already at the house, which pisses Mickey off. He says he can take care of the family until their folks come back, but of course he can’t.”

“Has Dylan seen—I mean, has Logan—”

“No one’s seen Logan.” She squeezed my knee through the red sheet. “I think he’s really gone.”

I slumped back on my pillow, knowing I should be relieved instead of crushed. “But it was so sudden. Most people like that stay ghosts for longer than ten minutes. No way was he already at peace.”
I remembered Logan’s face as his brother screamed at his dead body. Another tear dribbled out. “Maybe Logan’s mad at us.”

Megan groaned. “You too? Mickey blames himself. You blame yourself. None of what they say is true. You know better than anyone.”

I shifted my head on the pillow. “What who says?”

Her mouth formed a tiny O. “Um, nothing. People online are, you know, bullshitting about last night.”

I got so cold, it felt like my mattress had become a block of ice. “Where online?”

“Do not stress, okay? It’s covered. I told them where they could stick their stupid rumors.”

I sat up fast, my stomach somersaulting. “What rumors?”

“Aura …”

“If you don’t show me, I’ll look it up when you leave.” I rolled off the other side of the bed.

“Okay, okay!” Megan followed me to my desk and stood behind me as I opened my laptop. “Start on Amy Koeller’s profile.”

“Amy?” Our class president, future Peace Corps volunteer, was gossiping about me? She was always so sweet to everyone. I brought up my friends list and clicked on her profile.

At the top of her page, her status read,
OMG Aura Salvatore’s boyfriend Logan died of cardiac arrest last night. We should send flowers or something.

“That’s nice.” I scrolled down to see a link that said,
View all 152 comments
. I clicked, then scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled some more.

Megan tried to close the laptop screen. “Aura, one last time. Please don’t read this.”

I shoved her hand away and angled the screen so I could see. The first couple of dozen responses were sympathetic or shocked, lots of people remembering Logan from when he went to Ridgewood before his family moved out to the County. There were offers to pitch in five bucks for flowers, then an argument about whether they should donate the money to a charity in Logan’s name instead.

Then Casey Crawford said,
You know it was drugs, right? Heard Aura gave them to him
.

“What?” I shouted.

Lauren Bankford:
No way. Aura pretends she’s all badass, but she’d never have cocaine
.

Casey:
It’s what I heard
.

Mike Brubaker:
I could totally see Logan OD’ing. I knew a guy who used to get high with him in eighth grade. Dude always had to take more hits off a joint than anyone else
.

Lauren:
You ‘knew a guy,’ huh, Mike
? ;-)

Amy:
People, can we get back to the charity topic? Maybe we should donate it to a drug awareness group
.

Mike:
You mean those retards who put on skits for assemblies? I’ll feed the money to my dog instead—his turds are better quality than those plays
.

Lauren:
Shut up, Mike. I think it should go to the antidrug thing. When my granddad died, people gave money to cancer research
.

Amy:
Off to soup kitchen. Back later
.

Nate Hofstetler:
Maybe it should go to Viagra safety research
.

Mike:
ROFLMFAO @ Nate
.

Casey:
Wait. What’s this about Viagra?

Nate:
Logan had a heart attack. Viagra causes heart attacks
.

Lauren:
Does not
.

Nate:
See the commercials? They say it at the end
.

Lauren:
It’s bc old guys use it and their hearts explode when they have sex, LOL
.

Sarah Greenwalt:
I don’t think cardiac arrest is the same as a heart attack. I just looked it up
.

Nate:
Maybe it’s not only old guys who use Viagra
.

Casey:
You are NOT saying what I think you’re saying
.

Mike:
I’d need Viagra to get it up for Aura Salvatore
.

My stomach went cold, but I kept my face rigid so Megan wouldn’t shut my laptop. I had to keep reading, find out who had started these rumors.

Casey:
No way, man, she’s hot
.

Mike:
She’s, like, three feet tall & she’s a total ballbuster. Italians yell all the time
.

Casey:
Aura can yell in my ear all she wants while I’m doing her
.

Nate:
Yeah, she’d be yelling, “IS IT IN YET?”

Mike:
Plus, you can tell she’ll be fat in five years
.

Megan McConnell:
YOU GUYS ARE SUCH ASSHOLES. YOU WEREN’T EVEN THERE, SO YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT!! NONE OF YOU, SO STFU!!!

Lauren:
Srsly, let’s take this into chat. Amy’ll zap this thread anyway when she gets home
.

Casey:
Bitches
.

My finger hovered over the refresh key.

“Don’t do it,” Megan said.

I hit F5 to reload the page. The thread disappeared.

“Thank God, Amy killed it.” Megan reached for the laptop lid. “Don’t worry about those idiots.”

I grabbed the base of the computer. “No, I have to find out what they’re saying now.”

“What difference does it make?”

“What difference?” I shouted. “Logan’s dead, and they’re telling lies about him!”

“What are you gonna do, huh? Tell everyone the truth?” She tightened her hold on the laptop lid. “Gina will kill you if you talk about this online.”

“I don’t care!” I wrenched the computer to the left. Megan lost her balance and knocked over my propped-up calculus book.

The hidden glass of ginger ale flooded my keyboard. My laptop sizzled as the soda soaked into the frame.

“Oh my God!” Megan yanked a tissue out of the box, then flipped it over. “It’s empty!”

I pulled the plug from the back of the laptop and held down the power button until the screen went black. Then I turned the computer upside down and propped it up like a tent so the liquid would drip out.

“Now what?” Megan dug her green fingernails into the tissue like it was the last one in the world.

“Nothing. It has to dry for at least a day.”

“How did you know what to do?”

“Last year Logan spilled Coke on his laptop and totally fried it. So I looked up the procedure in case it ever happened to me.”

“You’re so sensible.” She stroked my hair, picking out the gel-encrusted tangles. “And now you can’t obsess over those lies.”

I put my face in my soda-sticky hands. “They’ll be talking about it at school Monday.”

“I know, but you can’t say anything, okay? Gina told me that the Keeleys called right before I got here. They might sue the guy who gave Logan the cocaine. They might even sue the record company.”

“But without Logan, it’s just the band’s word against the company’s, and Warrant will have a whole team of lawyers.”

“You never know. Logan might still show up.”

It was wrong to wish it, wrong to hope I’d ever see his smile again. I should’ve been praying for the passage of his soul, as Aunt Gina was probably doing downstairs, with a rosary and candles and an altar to Saint Peter.

But I couldn’t help it. I wanted Logan back, even in violet.

Logan didn’t return that night in any color, not even in my dreams. Probably because I was sedated.

Gina thought Valium would help my “condition.” I didn’t bother telling her that Logan was the only cure for my condition. I just shut up and took the flat yellow pill. It helped, if only by getting her off my case. Her eyes were full of grief, like
she’d
lost the love of her life.

I didn’t wake up on Sunday until my cell phone rang. I picked it up off my nightstand, dreading the gossip seekers.

The glowing screen said
ZACHARY M.
The name was vaguely familiar, and connected with something important.

“Hello,” came a deep lilting voice. “I never gave you my address.”

“Ohhh, no.” Friday seemed like it was three years ago. “I forgot about going to College Park today. I should’ve canceled.” We were supposed to be there in an hour.

“Why?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

This guy was outside my universe. He didn’t know. “My boyfriend died.” An imaginary knife twisted in my chest—a sign the sedatives were fading.

“Christ, I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”