“That’s where you’ve been getting Gatorade?” Riley asks.
“There’s a flat of it from Costco,” Dayton says with a shrug. “I didn’t want it to go to waste. I’m the only one of my brothers and sisters who likes blue.”
“They buy everything in bulk,” June says. “Chips, cookies, cereal.”
“Fuck a duck,” Riley says. “I’m coming with you. We need snacks.”
The two of them go around the other side of the house. I watch them, wondering if I should follow, wondering if they even really need me here at all.
“When people talk about ghosts, they always mention their unfinished business,” Dayton says, pulling her wad of black clothes out of the hose pot. She stands awkwardly, her eyebrows high on her forehead until I realize she’s waiting for privacy. I turn around and stare at the pool. “Like you get stuck here because there’s one thing that you need to do. When you brought us back, I thought that getting revenge on Caleb was our unfinished business. But it’s more complicated than that. Everything is unfinished. Our whole lives. There’s no amount of catching up we could do in seven days to make that better. Today I heard my mom’s voice, and it wasn’t enough to last me forever. Everything we ever did together was the last time.” There’s the wet suction and slap of spandex stretching and snapping. “I’m not going to stop missing them.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, watching the surface of the water rippling in the slight breeze.
“I know you didn’t bring me back on purpose,” she says. I can hear her feet hopping against the cement. “But I am glad I’m back, you know? I’m learning new things and having new adventures. But coming here was the only familiar thing I’ve been able to do this week.”
“Dayton,” I say with a wince, “I don’t think you should come back here again. It’s too much of a risk. What if your parents come home early from work? What if a neighbor sees you? Or one of your brothers or sisters? What do you think it would do to them if they saw you . . .” As a fucking monster. “With your wounds?”
“I know,” she says in a small voice. “That’s why I didn’t tell you guys. I knew you’d make me be smart about it. It was nice while it lasted. That’s sort of what being back for a week is—nice while it lasts.”
I close my eyes and clench my fists too tight, imagining the girls back in the graveyard, trapped under new headstones. My chest gets tight with future loneliness. I swallow hard.
“I’m gonna go wait in the car. Tell the others to hurry up,” I say. I walk back up the paving-stone path before she can stop me.
I lean against the side of my car, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes. Guilt and grief turn my stomach. I know that I brought Dayton and June back by accident, but that doesn’t mean it’s not my fault. Maybe if I were a better witch, they wouldn’t need to stay within a hundred steps of me. Maybe they’d be able to spend the week with their families. Maybe Riley would be able to cast spells, too, and she’d have one less reason to be mad at me.
But in a couple of days, I’ll even miss her glares and shitty comments, because they’re hers.
A car slows to a stop. I hear the whir of the window rolling down and then, “Mila?”
My hands fall away from my eyes, eyeliner smeared into my palm. “Xander?”
I say it louder than I want to, but also—hopefully—loudly enough for the girls to hear.
Xander’s elbow is propped in the window of his little silver car. He’s in a midnight blue sweater that makes his eyes even more starkly, defiantly bright with worry. Because he’s caught me almost crying outside of Dayton Nesseth’s house. Great.
“Are you okay?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder for any oncoming traffic.
I wave him off. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just . . . thinking about Riley.”
It’s not really a lie, even though it feels like one when he lets his own sadness wash over his face. It makes his forehead line and his jaw tense.
“What are you doing over here?” he asks.
“I . . .” I wonder if he thinks that I just park near his house to feel close to his dead sister. Or—humiliatingly—to him. Is it worse to seem pathetic or like a stalker? Are they equally bad? What would a normal person be doing on Laurel Street in the midafternoon?
“I was going to the farmers’ market,” I blurt. “There was no parking downtown.”
“Are you going by yourself?” he asks.
My mouth goes dry. This is becoming more and more humiliating. I’m sure June is going to have a field day. “Who else would I go with?”
It takes every ounce of willpower not to look over my shoulder at the garage where Riley is raiding Dayton’s family’s snacks.
“I’ll go with you, if you’re up for company,” he says. “It’s cool if you’re not.”
I know I must look shocked because I feel almost numb. Did I step outside of reality at some point? “You want to hang out with me?”
“Yeah,” he says with a laugh. “We used to hang out all the time.”
With Riley. We’ve never hung out just the two of us. There was always Riley in the front seat of the car or between us on the couch or to keep the conversation going while we worked in the showroom at the funeral home.
“Okay,” I say. “That sounds cool.”
“Awesome. Meet me down at my house. Unless you want a ride?”
“No. I think I can manage to cross the street on foot.”
He smiles at me as he drives away, and I brace my back harder against my car to keep from fainting. I glance over my shoulder at the fence. Between the slats, I see short, pruney fingers waving goodbye to me and then reaching up high to give me a thumbs-up.
* * *
Walking up the street with Xander, I notice that I’m actually much shorter in relation to him than I thought, eye level with the stitching on the shoulder of his sweater.
“How’s being back at school?” he asks. “You haven’t been kicked out again, have you?”
“Surprisingly not,” I say, scuffing my heels through clumps of dead leaves on the sidewalk. “It’s been as good as it can be. Everyone has always avoided me, so at least now I can blame it on pity instead of fear.”
He snorts. “Why would people avoid you?”
“People are scared of me. My face naturally spells out fuck you.”
“No, it doesn’t.” He looks down at me, eyes wide. “It says, Hi, I’m Camila Flores, don’t waste my time with your indecisive bullshit.”
My laugh catches me off guard, and I almost let out a June-snort. “I mean, who wants their time wasted?”
“I think most people spend their entire lives wasting time and waiting for something better,” he says softly. “You always seem like you know what you want. I’ve missed that about you.”
Sweat is pooling in my palms. I rub them as discreetly as I can against the sides of my legs. “You saw me a couple of days ago.”
“For a second,” he says, rolling his eyes. “It’s not the same.”
“Nothing’s the same,” I choke out. “Riley’s dead.”
Nodding, he rubs his hand over the back of his neck, keeping his focus trained on the ground. “Since everything happened,” he says slowly, and I know that he’s talking about June and Dayton and Riley, although I don’t know what order he’s putting them in, “I feel like I’ve been betraying them every time I’m not miserable. And I know that’s not how grief works. One second of being happy doesn’t erase all the other moments of mourning. I know that I can’t stay sad all day, every day. But I can’t help but feel like people are looking at me and judging me for not being sad enough. Or for being too sad. I can’t figure out what the normal amount is.”
I remember not being able to cry at Riley’s funeral and how I ached to look normal and squeeze out tears even though I wouldn’t have been able to feel them.
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“Right,” he stresses. He reaches out and touches my elbow, light as a feather settling in the crook of my arm and gone just as fast. “I don’t feel that way with you. I don’t feel trapped. I know you understand. You don’t need me to pretend to be something else.”