Page 22 of Waysider
The pin wasn’t the only giveaway, of course—there was also the fact that this kid was having a conversation with a ghost.
“Am I a student at NYU?” the guy joked. Almost as if he were dodging the question. Cal thought of the contract Cass had signed, and it seemed like a safe bet that the rest of the students had to sign it, too. “Nope. I’ve never even left California. But I’m working on changing that.”
“Is that what you’re doing here? Making a plan?” Cal asked without thinking. It was none of his business why this guy was at a diner. Cal didn’t want to creep him out, but damn, it felt good to talk to another person.
Thankfully, the guy didn’t seem to mind. He smiled wryly, looking down at his coffee. “Actually, I’m avoiding something,” he admitted.
A response rose to Cal’s lips, but he hesitated. It had been so long since he’d had a normal conversation. What if he didn’t know how anymore? Something about the way the guy was looking at him made him decide to say it. “My advice? Don’t put it off. Whatever brought you here, whatever is keeping you in that booth, it must be pretty important. If you waste time, you might not ever get the chance.”
“You’re right. However, the thing I’m avoiding is a girl, and they can be particularly terrifying,” the guy said with a rueful expression.
Cal’s smile widened. Teresa popped into his head, and he thought of how it felt like he was in middle school again whenever he was around her. “Can’t argue with you there.”
The guy took another drink of coffee. He swallowed and asked, “What about you? What are you hiding from?”
The question made Cal go quiet. He knew the stranger hadn’t meant anything by it, not really. But this was the first person Cal had spoken to in months, besides Cass, and every word had weight. He thought about the real answer, and it wasn’t hard to figure out. He already knew what he’d been hiding from—the truth.
And the truth was, Cal was dead. All this time, he’d been pretending. Acting like things were the way they used to be. He had tried to intervene with the same techniques and methods from when he was alive. After that didn’t work, Cal just gave up. At a time when his family needed him most, he’d just told himself there was nothing he could do.
If you’re still in the game, you’re still playing. That’s what his high school coach had told him over and over again. It didn’t matter if there was only a few seconds left on the clock, or if scoring another touchdown was impossible. As long as you were on that field, you were playing.
Everything might have been different now, and the field was strange as hell, but Cal was still in the game.
The kid in the other booth was still waiting for an answer. Cal couldn’t tell him what he’d actually been thinking, of course, so he mustered a smile and shrugged. “I’m just out stretching my legs,” he said.
The stranger must’ve picked up on something, because he didn’t try to continue the conversation. He lifted his coffee mug, and Cal nodded back. He was feeling calmer now. He knew Cass was probably putting on a good face, but she was alone, in a new city, surrounded by strangers. Normally his sister thrived off that sort of thing. Not after the bridge, though. The Cass that came back after the bridge was different, and he’d been an asshole to leave her.
Decision made, Cal got out of the booth and strode to the door. He paused and nodded again at the Else & Bellows student, realizing he’d never gotten his name. Probably for the best, Cal thought. “Have a good night, man,” he said.
The guy gave him a two-fingered salute. “You, too. Nice to meet you.”
The bell over the door jangled a moment later, as if Cal had been the one to open it. He let himself pretend as he slipped in the night, following the old man that had just left the diner. But Cal had barely gotten a few steps down the road when he remembered the revelation he’d made in the diner. No more pretending. His gut hardened with resolve.
He returned to the house where his sister was staying. Wayside, that’s what the headmistress had called it. Cal walked through the door—this time, he didn’t flinch—and discovered silence on the other side. Everyone who lived here was either sleeping or in their rooms. But which one was Cass’s? Cal made his way through the dark, trying to familiarize himself as he went. The place was bigger than it had looked from the outside. Lots of drafty rooms and closed doors, the furniture old and wooden.
Cass’s room was upstairs, at the end of the hall. Cal had to poke his head into at least a dozen others before he found her, and by the time he got to the right one, he felt like a peeping Tom. Luckily, he didn’t see anything he shouldn’t have. Only one of Cass’s roommates was still awake, a scrawny kid who had been sitting in front of an easel. Before he left, Cal caught a glimpse of what the kid was painting in the mirror. It was good—the girl on the canvas looked so real that it was like a photograph, the strands of her frizzy hair captured in stark detail.
Cass was a small lump on the bed. Before the accident, she’d slept like a tropical storm, arms and legs flung out, always shifting, her hair wild. Now Cass curled in on herself, as if she were trying to hide. Cal could tell she’d been crying. Her face didn’t have any of the obvious signs most people did, like puffy eyes or a gleaming trail down their cheek, but Cass wasn’t most people—there was only a small, damp spot on the pillow. Barely bigger than a dime.
Somewhere downstairs, Cal heard the chime of an old clock. It was late. He thought about going off to find his own room, since a house this size was bound to have an empty one, but then Cal looked at Cass’s pillow again. His gaze lingered on the faint mark. She seemed to sleep better when he was nearby, Cal thought, turning away. He went over to the desk chair, which had a perfect vantage point of the room. Thankfully, it was already turned around, since Cass had draped a jean jacket over the back of it.
Cal sank onto the hard seat and leaned his head on the folded denim. He laced his fingers on his stomach and exhaled through his nose, willing his brain to shut down. After saying goodbye to his family today, he missed the ability to sleep more than ever.
His eyes had only been closed a few seconds when a sound floated through the stillness. Cal’s lids cracked, and the dark, blurry shapes around him solidified. He frowned blearily. But then, in a rush, Cal realized what he was seeing. His spine stiffened and his pulse spiked. He opened his mouth to say Cass’s name—
Then Cal blinked, and it was gone. Nothing there, as if he’d just woken from a dream. He stared across the room, his frown deepening. After another minute or two, Cal slumped lower in the chair, his instincts whispering with unease.
For a moment, he could’ve sworn there was someone else there. A shadowy figure, standing beside the window.
Cal had learned to trust his gut. Better safe than sorry, he told himself, resigning himself to the long night ahead. What if that dark figure came back? What if someone else was after Cassie? He probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep, anyway—Cal couldn’t forget that guy’s voice from the diner. As the night wore on, it went around in his head like a broken record. What are you hiding from?
The hours marched on. During the brief spurts he wasn’t thinking and making a plan, Cal looked toward that window. But the shadow figure never reappeared. The room stayed empty, and eventually, birds began to chirp into the brightening silence. Sunlight shone through the curtains, spilling across the rug and the floorboards in textured beams. It was that brief, in-between time when the night had fully retreated, but the world hadn’t roused from its collective sleep. Only the sun was conscious.
Cal stood from the chair and went over to the window, standing in the exact spot he thought he’d seen something. Must’ve imagined it, he thought, gazing out at the morning-tinted yard. Just yesterday, he would’ve tried to remember what the sun’s warmth felt like on his skin. Not anymore, though. Cal was done pretending, and he was done hiding. He might be dead, but he wasn’t fucking helpless.
As the light spread toward his sleeping sister, Cal knew he’d have to leave her again. He turned toward the bed, hands shoved in his pockets, and imagined the look on Cass’s face if she woke up and he still wasn’t there. He had so much work to do, and he was eager to get started.
But not yet. It was Cass’s first day at this new school—Cal knew she would be a nervous wreck, no matter how good of a show his sister put on. He had to be there.
