The Everafter Read online

  exactly want to make Tammy any angrier than already she

  is, so I try the less sarcastic approach. "I'm just going to the

  bathroom."

  "Did you hear anything?"

  "Hear what?"

  Tammy yanks again. Is she waiting for me to confess?

  Bravado might be my only way out. "Why are you trying

  to torture me?" I ask, reminding myself that I've known

  Tammy since we were in preschool.

  We were never great friends when we were younger, but

  we always got along. Then in fourth grade, neither of us had

  any really close friends in our class, so we ended up eating

  lunch together every day. We even shared Twinkies.

  She only started getting messed up when we were in

  middle school. Something went down at home, and she

  started getting tougher and tougher. I was sad when it happened.

  I liked her. But she wouldn't talk to me about what

  was £^>ing on.

  Then, in eighth grade, after the whole Ouija board

  thing that happened at a sleepover, she stopped talking

  to me altogether. Thought I was making fun of her. But I

  swear I wasn't.

  By the end of eighth grade, she started getting downright

  scary. Once I even saw her beat the crap out of some kid

  during lunch. I wasn't exactly valiant or anything. No saving

  the kid, jumping in front of her with fists at the ready. No.

  I was one of the cowards watching the whole thing. Besides,

  you couldn't really get in between the two girls. Even then,

  Tammy liked grabbing the hair of her opponent. When the

  teachers came to break up the fight, Tammy almost ripped

  the other kid's scalp right off her head while the adults were

  trying to separate the two of them.

  Now, I realize, is not the time to be remembering that

  Jenny Wilson almost became a scalpless wonder. Think

  Twinkies, I tell myself. The image of a ten-year-old Tammy

  stuffing yellow cream-filled pastries in her mouth does help

  me face off against her. Even if the hair-grip is still killing

  me.

  how I can never hold on to anything... which is irritatingly

  true, I realize, as I practically run the rest of the way from

  the bathroom. And that's when . . .

  // embraces me again.

  I float for a moment, just remembering what it was like

  to be Maddy Stanton. It seems that I have found the corner

  pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but I am still trying to find all the

  edges. My life is lying in a heap of memories piled on top of

  one another, small clips of partial images carved into funny

  shapes. They aren't even sorted yet. Which piece do I even

  start trying to build from?

  Of c o u r s e . ..

  The one with the Grim Reaper on it. The one that tells

  me how I died. But I don't know where it is yet. I might have

  to turn over a lot of pieces before I'm likely to even catch a

  fragment of the Reaper's image.

  It's time to start now.

  I find the coach. If that and the sweatshirt are still here

  in Is, why can't I find the charm bracelet? I wade off in

  search of the bracelet once again.

  Still gone.

  What is the difference between the charm bracelet and

  the handbag? Between the sweatshirt and the bag?

  And then I know.

  The real me, the alive me . . . she took the bracelet with

  13

  As she yanks even harder, I opt for the remember-whenwe-were-friends approach. "Okay. Jesus. Let go of my hair.

  I did hear what was happening in here, but it's not like I'm

  gonna tell anyone. Get real. We've known each other for

  ages, Tammy. It's not as if I'm going: to rat on someone I

  used to share Twinkies with at lunch."

  "You'd better not," Tammy says. She gives my hair a

  threatening reminder of her willingness to hurt me. "'Cause

  if I get ratted on, I'm gonna know exactly who to blame."

  Adults are always wanting you to tell in a situation like

  this. We can protect you. It's for tbe good of everyone, Blab, Nab,

  blab.

  Right. Adults are so stupid. I can't figure out how they

  have managed to live long enough to survive high school.

  "I'm not going to say anything," I tell Tammy. I hope I

  sound firm, disgusted at the mere possibility. But I hear a

  squeak in my voice. She finally lets go of my hair, pushing

  me away from her at the same time. "Get out of here."

  "Umm . . . could I, like, just get my money first?"

  She freezes me with this what-kind-of-an-idiot-nrr-you

  stare.

  Okay, then. Guess I'll just borrow money from Sandra

  for lunch. I want to kick myself. I wouldn't need to borrow

  money from my best friend if I'd just admitted to my

  mother that I'd lost the lunch card. She'd have gotten me

  a new one. But I didn't want to listen to her harping about

  >9

  her when she left the scene where I saw her. But the bag and

  the sweatshirt... I didn't find either of those before I left

  the scene. Who knows what ever happened to them? But

  somehow I never got them back, and so here they are in Is,

  still haunting me.

  An idea hums through me: Perhaps if I don't find the

  object, I can return to the moment I lost it, but if I do find

  it, then I can't get back to that time.

  Control.

  I might have some control over what moments in my

  life I can return to. I just have to keep myself from finding

  something.

  But wait. I don't know for certain this is how it

  works....

  Or even if I can change what happens when I return to

  a moment.

  I realize there's a way to find out.

  I wade my way back to the purse and imagine myself

  holding it again.

  The stuffiness of an enclosed bathroom, the scent of

  urine, myself walking toward me . . . it's all there again. I

  embrace myself, and we join fluidly....

  age 17

  I so have to pee.

  !l

  I set mv coach on top of the roll of toilet paper, but it

  falls off. Disgusting. This floor could have had—well, who

  knows what—on it. I'm bending over to pick up the purse

  when I realize I'm feeling that funny thing again. It's happened

  to me a couple times before. I can't explain the feeling.

  It's like I'm being spied on. It's creepy. I tried to explain it

  to my mom once, and she told me she'd had creepy feelings

  like that before, too. Said she'd felt "someone walking over

  her grave." Like that makes sense?

  Unfortunately, at the moment, it does.

  Shake it off, I tell myself.

  I set the bag back on the roll of toilet paper and look

  around, like I'm expecting to see a ghost here or something.

  How stupid is that?

  "Anyone in here?" someone says through the bathroom

  door. I know that voice. It belongs to Tammy Havers.

  "I don't think so," someone replies.

  Tammy demands payment.

  Great. A drug deal. I pause in unbuckling my b e l t . . . I

  so have to pee, but self-preservation? Yeah. Might be more

  important at the moment.
I think I'll just try not to make

  any sound....

  Thunk.

  My bag. The one with about three dollars in change in

  it. Why did I have to lose my lunch debit card?

  I really have to pee.

  «

  "Don't!" I tell her. "Of course I heard you. But it's not

  like I'm gonna tell anvone about it. Get real. We've known

  each other for ages, Tammy. And even if I do think it's kind

  of stupid to be taking drugs, and even stupider to be dealing

  them here at school—like, have you heard the word

  expulsion? —I'm hardly going to rat on someone I used to

  share Twinkies with at lunch."

  She seems to give this some thought. "You'd better not.

  'Cause if I get ratted on, I'm gonna know who to blame."

  "I'm not going to say anything. Trust me." Thank God

  I don't sound like I'm begging.

  "Get out of here," Tammy says.

  She lets go of my hair. I dash into the stall.

  "What are you doing?" Tammv asks in disbelief as I

  begin searching under the partitions between the stalls.

  "Looking for my stusid money." I find it just inside the

  adjoining stall. I must have hit it pretty hard with my elbow

  when I knocked it off the roll of toilet paper.

  "Just get the hell out of here," Tammy says.

  "On my way," I say. I grab the handbag—

  •

  Back in //, I search, propelling myself through miles of

  space, looking for the handbag.

  It's gone. Just like the bracelet. The moment I touched

  each, I was ripped away from life and returned to //.

  M

  Someone pushes on the stall door. Tammy, I'm pretty

  sure, because now she's also demanding that I come out of

  there.

  "Uh, no, thanks," I say. That creepy shivery feeling

  comes over me again. Must be because Tammy is crawling

  under the stall now. I look around for my purse. As heavy as

  it is, it might even make a good weapon at the moment.

  I can't find it. Who knows where it landed?

  Then Tammy is there, standing in front of me with this

  totally killer glare.

  She opens the stall door, grabs a handful of my hair,

  and tugs me out. This is way too much. That creepy feeling

  invading me, Tammy abusing me, majorly having to pee,

  and being interrupted... how much does a girl have to put

  up with?

  "What are vou doing in here, Stanton?" She yanks on

  my hair again for emphasis.

  It's like my hair is a pull-string attached to my bladder.

  If Tammy pulls on it again, I'll think she'll unleash a tidal

  wave of pee.

  "I asked you a question," Tammv says. "What are you

  doing in here?"

  "What do you think I'm doing?" I ask, my anger overflowing.

  "I'm taking a pee. Or at least I was trying to."

  "Did y°u hear anything?" She starts to pull on my hair

  again.

  33

  Then how did I get back to Is from the moments when I

  didn't find the objects? I reflect on the sweatshirt incident,

  then try to compare it to the first handbag one. But I can't.

  In fact, I can't recall anything that happened the first

  time I went into that bathroom. The second time to that

  bathroom, touching that handbag and getting launched

  back to Is. But my second experience with that moment has

  wiped out the first. It has become the new realit/ of my

  life.

  Is seems to work on a different plane of reality, though,

  because I can remember the decision that I made to go back

  and change that scene. So while I know there waj a time

  when I didn't find the handbag, that time has disappeared

  forever.

  In a wav, this is pretty cool. It means I can make some

  conscious choices about how to change my life. But—

  changing my life so I find an object just seems to make it

  impossible for me to go back to that moment. Why would I

  want to do that:

  Will it work the other way around? Can I keep myself

  fiuiu linduiu buiiieiliiuu?

  Probably . . . not.

  Wouldn't I have to know—when I was looking for it—

  that I didn't actually want to find the object? Since I can't

  remember where the object will take me (or why and how I

  lost it) until I've used it to go back to life, that would mean

  35

  I'd have to find the object, get sent back to Is, and realize I

  wish I'd never found the object-By then, the object would already be gone from Is.

  Crap.

  The Universe isn't nearly as generous as I thought it

  was.

  Or maybe I'm not supposed to be messing around with

  my original life that way.

  I can't quite explain what's happened now that I have

  changed the outcome in finding my handbag, but something's

  different. About me. About my life.

  About who I am.

  And I'm not sure I like it.

  When I went back and made myself find that purse, I

  somehow became a new person. Someone who—first of

  all—could sense that I was there. That must have been

  what the creepy feeling was. My intention to change what

  happened in that moment somehow changed everything. I

  knew I was there. Well, kind of, anyway. Enough to make

  the moment f e e l . . . spooky.

  But that's not all. Other things changed, too. I just don't

  know what they are. If I never found my coach in the first

  version of my life, did I go without lunch that day? Did I

  borrow money from someone else so I could eat? I have no

  way of knowing, but whatever happened in that first version

  created a different life than did the results of my second

  16

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  orchids

  I .MISS EVERYTHING about being real. Using these objects to

  return to l i f e . . . it's like an addiction. I have to have another

  fix. I just can't decide which object to use next. The keys,

  buttons, beads, pen, Barbie doll, key chain . . .

  In the end, I don't actually get a choice. I come across

  some orchids, eerie, almost skeletal in their luminescent

  form, and before I know it, I'm remembering that I wore

  them in my hair for my sister's wedding. The memory is

  enough to earn' me home, to the moment w h e n . . .

  38

  visit to that moment.

  Even being back here in // feels different than it did

  before. I'm a whole different dead person than I was.

  It's hard to describe what all this has done to me, but

  it's as if I were listening to a song and when I got back it

  was playing in a different key. Everything jumped up a half

  note . . . or something like that.

  Who knows what I could be messing with going around

  and changing the way things happened in life?

  Suppose I could keep myself from dying?

  But I can't possibly know which of these moments can

  lead to that outcome. At least at this poir.i.

  And what if I end up making myself die sooner?

  Making decisions in death doesn't seem to be any easier

  tha
n making them in life: You never know what the outcome

  is going to be one way or the other.

  37

  Age 16

  I am on my knees in the grass, dark night surrounding me.

  Gabriel is standing next to me, bent over at the waist, his

  hand firmly gripping my upper arm.

  "I ry breathing deeply," Gabriel urges me.

  It sounds like a good idea, but I'm gulping more than

  I'm breathing, and the extra air I'm taking in is making me

  feel sicker, not better.

  It has been an incredibly long day. I'm now convinced

  I'll never consider having a wedding. If I ever want to

  get married, I'll elope. What could Kristen have been

  thinking?

  Her wedding dress was beautiful, but how could she

  have dressed me in this horrible, full-length strapless dress?

  If she was going to make me be a bridesmaid (let's not kid

  ourselves; I had no choice in this; Mom would have killed

  me if I hadn't agreed to do it—or, worse yet, she might have

  yammered on for days at a time about the importance and

  meaning of family, about my lifetime relationship with my

  older sister, etc.), why did she have to put me in such a long

  dress? I've lived in fear all day of tripping over the hem of

  the gown. That walk down the aisle? Nightmare. I almost

  stumbled. And how humiliating, having to walk down the

  aisle on the arm of Gabriel—one of the most gorgeous

  19

  guys at school, and cousin to the groom! His firm grip on

  my arm kept me from making a complete fool of myself in

  front of everyone in the church, but he obviously noticed

  my clumsiness. He winked at me and everything. Winked!

  Ohmygod. So unfair. Why couldn't I have walked down the

  aisle with the groom's brother instead? I mean, he is, like,

  thirty, so no attraction there, right? And he'd probably have

  pretended not to notice that I was a complete klutz,

  To make it all worse, a few days ago Gabriel broke up

  with his girlfriend, Dana (who'd been his girlfriend for, like,

  two years). I haven't been able to stop thinking about that

  all day long. It's the kind of thing that, you know, gives a

  girl a glimmer of hope—as if I had a chance with a guy as

  hot as Gabe Archer.

  Sandra's always telling me that I'm prettier than I think

  I am—that my freckles are cute and that my brown hair has

  just the right red highlights, but she's my best friend, so she

  has to say stuff like that. It's not as if a few halfway decent

  features will attract a guy who has absolutely everything