An expletive, one I didn’t even know I knew, flew out of my mouth as I turned to face the sound.
Only then did I see that the horrible noise hadn’t been a scream after all. It had been the sound of tires squealing to a sudden stop. Only ten feet away from me, a black car parked, and the door opened.
Without thinking, I relaxed. My ghostly instincts kicked in and told me there was no need to run, no need to fear anything. Because if it drove a car, it couldn’t hurt me. It couldn’t even see me.
But, obviously, my instincts had forgotten the one exception to this rule, even if my heart hadn’t.
A boy climbed out of the driver’s side of the car and slammed the door shut. From his profile I could see he had full lips and a fine nose with just the slightest curve in it, as though it had been broken once but set well. He had almost black hair and large, dark eyes. When he cast those eyes on me, I absently mused that he was a much healthier color than when I’d last seen him.
“You! It’s you!” he cried, pointing right at me.
Without another thought, I turned and ran.
Chapter
FOUR
I was just full of foolish impulses lately. There he stood, the boy about whom I’d been thinking—obsessing, really—for the past two days. Yet I ran, as fast as I could, in the opposite direction. Had any of my adrenaline still existed, it would have burned in my legs as I fled.
Apparently, and as I’d suspected, my ghostly instincts had become as strong as my living ones had been. Ghosts weren’t meant to be seen, no matter how much they wanted to be. Anything to the contrary was cause enough to run away, and fast.
At least those would have been my thoughts were I capable of any. But at that moment I was only capable of blind terror. Fear buzzed in my brain, and it nearly blocked the voice that rang out from behind me.
“Stop! Come on, stop! Please.”
It was the quality of the voice that did it—low, and still a little hoarse from the river water he’d swallowed. Hearing the break in it, I felt a little ache right in the middle of my chest. Just a small, inconspicuous, and completely incapacitating ache.
I skidded to a stop, almost at the other end of the bridge. Ever so slowly, I turned around to face him.
“Thanks,” he called out roughly, settling back on his heels. From his stance he looked as if he’d just been about to take off after me.
I gave him one tense nod. There was a noticeable pause, and then he asked, “So, will you come back here?”
I shook my head. No way.
Even this far apart I could hear him sigh.
“O-kay.” He dragged out the sound of the O as if he was taking the seconds of extra pronunciation to deal calmly with a frustrating puzzle. “Then … can I come over there to you?”
I frowned, not indicating an answer one way or another. I guess he took my indecision as a yes, because he began to walk toward me. He kept his steps intentionally slow, and he held his hands in front of his body in the universal gesture of “I won’t hurt you, wild animal.”
“I come in peace,” he called out, and I could see him grin just a little. The grin was all at once wry, and sweet, and cautious.
So I couldn’t help but grin right back.
The boy dropped his hands and smiled fully at me. And, with that, the little ache exploded in my chest like a bomb, warming every limb.
Warmth. I felt warmth. Really felt it, just like I’d felt the touch of his hand in the water. My smile widened.
“Does that smile mean I can keep walking toward you?”
“No,” I said quietly.
He stopped moving, surprised by my words, or maybe just by the sound of my voice. “Really?” he asked after a moment.
“Walk over to the grass,” I instructed.
He frowned, knitting his dark eyebrows together. “Why?”
“I don’t like this road. I want to go back over there.” I jerked my head in the direction of the embankment I’d only recently left.
He kept frowning, but that grin twitched at the corners of his mouth again.
“O-kay.” He gave me a thoughtful look, holding my gaze. The message was clear: I was the frustrating puzzle with which he was calmly dealing.
Then he smiled, closed lipped and dimpled like a little boy, and gave me a quick nod. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, turned on one heel, and began strolling back to the embankment.
Slowly. Too slowly. Swinging his legs in an exaggerated, deliberate way. I sighed loudly.
“Could you hurry up, please?”
He laughed, still walking away from me.
“You have a way with giving orders, you know that? Not a master of the casual chat, are you?”
Given that you’re the first person I’ve talked to in God knows how long since my death …
Aloud I muttered, “You have no idea.”
I could tell he’d heard me because he hesitated just a little. Then he kept walking forward, minus the mocking swing of his legs. After he’d gone about ten feet, I began to follow him. I walked even slower than he did, trying to think, think, think of what I was going to do, or say, when he stopped.
Blessedly, he kept going, past the black car and past the end of the bridge. Then onto the grass of the embankment. I was worrying so deeply about our upcoming exchange, I didn’t notice when he stopped and turned toward me. I looked up in time to jerk to a stop just a foot from him, within touching distance.
Terror raced through me. I could have run into him. If that had happened, I would have either felt him, skin against glorious skin, or I would have felt nothing but the numbing, impossible barrier. Either way, he surely would have realized something was wrong and do exactly what he should: get away from me.
“So,” he began, casually enough.
“So,” I responded, my eyes going to my bare feet. I felt ashamed, terrified, excited.
“I’m Joshua.”
“I know.”
“I thought so.”
The humor in his voice made me look up, finally meeting his eyes. As I suspected, his eyes were very dark, but not brown. They were a strange, deep blue—an almost midnight sky color. I was certain I’d never seen eyes that color before, and they had a disconcerting effect on me. I felt even more flustered just staring into them.
I was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of my own appearance: the tangles in my hair; my deathly pale skin; my hopelessly inappropriate dress with its strapless neckline, tight bodice, and filmy skirt. I probably looked as if I was headed to some sort of dead girls’ beauty pageant. For the first time in a very long time, I wished I had access to a mirror, whatever good it would do someone who couldn’t cast a reflection or change clothes.
He didn’t seem to notice my discomfort, however. Instead, he looked right into my eyes and grinned at me, although his expression had lost some of its amusement. He looked more speculative now, as if he knew there were mysteries between us. Questions.
“So,” he started again.
“You already said that.”