I planned on keeping my mouth shut while you did all the talking.”
“Wise. Very wise, indeed.”
He grinned back at me for a moment, but the expression unexpectedly faltered. All at once he looked like he wanted to say something … something I probably wouldn’t like.
I tilted my head to one side. “What’s wrong?”
He grimaced, clearly deciding whether or not to speak his mind. “Nothing’s wrong, really,” he said hesitantly. “It’s just that, well …”
When he trailed off awkwardly, I frowned. “It’s just what, Joshua?”
He released a jittery puff of air and then launched into a dizzying rush of words.
“It’s just that you’ve been acting really weird lately, Amelia. All depressed and quiet. I keep thinking that sometimes I do stuff to make you mad, but you never really say anything one way or another. Then tonight happened, and I wondered whether you were going to explode. Because that’s what people do when they keep everything inside for a long time: they explode. So I’ve just been … waiting, I guess. For the nuclear meltdown.”
Once finished he panted, as if exhausted from the effort.
As for me, I simply stared at him, motionless, speechless. I didn’t really know what to make of his confession, except that he obviously read me better than I’d expected.
Distract him, I thought. Otherwise he’ll have you figured out before you get within two miles of New Orleans. He’ll know you’re trying to leave. And then how will you protect him?
I pushed him away, crossed my arms over my chest, and forced my mouth into a scowl. “Are you saying that I’m the only one acting weird, Joshua? What about you?”
“What about me?” he asked, taken aback by my cold tone.
“Last time I checked, Mr. Popularity just had his first real conversation with his friends in months. And I basically made you do it.”
Joshua crossed his arms too, suddenly defensive. “Yeah, so?”
“So I know what you’ve been doing.”
“And what exactly is that?”
“Avoiding the living, Joshua. Choosing the dead.”
His arms dropped. Even in the dark I could see his pained expression. “Don’t call yourself that, Amelia. Please.”
“But that’s what I am,” I pressed, my tone softening a bit. “I’m dead. There’s really no point in calling me by any other name, is there?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Living, dead—I don’t care. I’m with you. And I’m going to do whatever needs to be done.”
I sighed. “That’s one of the things that’s been bothering me lately, Joshua. I understand why you think you need to do it, but just … don’t, okay? Don’t let go of your friends because you think it will benefit me.”
“Benefit us,” he corrected.
“‘Us’ is okay,” I said, fighting the cruel little voice that reminded me of what a lie I’d just told. “We’re going to be all right. In fact, we’ll be even better if you just go back to living your life the way you did before we met. Except, you know … with me in it.”
Joshua’s eyebrows drew together in doubt. “Are you sure, Amelia?”
I threw my hands up in the air. “You keep asking me that like you have some reason to think it isn’t true.”
“Are you saying I don’t …?” He cracked a small, questioning smile.
“I’m saying you don’t.”
In my head, I added, Actually, I’m saying it’d be better if you started living your life like I wasn’t even in it. But whatever.
“How about I make you a deal, then?” Joshua said. “I’ll make an effort to spend time with my friends, and you’ll try to be—”
“Happier?” I offered.
“Happier works.”
“Good,” I said, nodding. “Happier works for me, too.”
Joshua laughed. “And here I thought we weren’t going to have a big fight.”
I drew closer to him. “I can think of a few ways we could make it up to each other. I mean, you weren’t planning on sleeping tonight, were you?”
“Absolutely not. That’s what tomorrow’s car ride is for.”
His smile broadened into the one I loved so much, and I paused, just for a second, to memorize every detail of it. Then I melted into him again.
By hour six of our drive to New Orleans, I wished I had slept last night. Nightmares, involuntary materializations—any number of unpleasant things would have been preferable to this car ride.
With bleary eyes I surveyed the interior of the Mayhews’ SUV. Though it looked spacious enough, the vehicle had already proved too small to handle this particular grouping of people.
In the front, Jeremiah and Rebecca continued to trade positions between the driver and passenger seats. Despite this split of duties, the two couldn’t seem to stop bickering over who had the best set of directions. As a result, we’d spent half the drive on the highway and the other half on a disconcerting maze of back roads. So instead of four remaining hours in the car, we had at least six more ahead of us.
To no one’s surprise, Joshua and Jillian weren’t handling the endless claustrophobia well, either. Like young children, they’d occupied hours of this drive with snide remarks, kicked seats, and passive-aggressive sighs. Now, in a rare but nearly blissful period of silence, Jillian stretched across the first row of bench seats, listening quietly to her iPod while Joshua napped beside me in the back row.
While he slept, his head rolled backward on the top of the seat, affording me a good view of his profile. I watched it for a moment and then sighed. If only I could find a way to sleep without nightmares, I might forget how little time I had left to look at him.
I turned to stare out the window, at the other problem plaguing our drive. Apparently, the winter storm had decided to follow us south. Although we’d driven hundreds of miles away from Wilburton, the snow continued to fall, piling up in the ditches alongside the highway and shifting like thin, insubstantial ghosts upon the surface of the road. Flurries swirled against the windows, distorting the landscape that moved past us.
Without the responsibility of navigating through this storm, I might have found the scenery peaceful. But my mind still reeled as much as it had last night. In fact, it hadn’t stopped reeling. For many hours I’d alternated between trying to find a way out of my exile and reminding myself that, by evading the dark spirits, I would keep them from hurting
