My mind turned to dark things, but it was hard to stay positive when my backdrop was a sea of unending blue and gray, the two colors blending together until I could barely tell the difference between them anymore. For one crazy moment I imagined the sky was an ocean and the stairs a rock tied to my foot, pulling me down into an empty sea where no one would ever find me. Maybe I was being pulled into the cold, steely fingers of hell, and hell was a lonely creature waiting to slide its arms around me in an icy greeting. Maybe hell was not a place where fire burned after all.
Then I imagined the staircase was not a staircase at all, but rather my tombstone—a bleak monolith marking my ending. I was six feet below the ground, my fingers curling into the dirt as I tried to dig my way out, as I opened my mouth and screamed an earthy, silent scream.
Here lies Taylor Anderson, dead. Dead like a fly under a swatter. Dead like a fish in a toxic lake. Dead like a Thanksgiving turkey. Dead, dead, dead.
But I didn’t feel dead. That was the horrible thing.
I shook my head, trying to clear away the dark thoughts before they consumed me. Instead I tried to see the sky for what it was—a perfect blue heaven marking a beautiful, clear day. It was the kind of day when the parks would have been filled with sunbathers and the sidewalks filled with people pushing strollers and holding hands. The kind of day when Sunny and I would’ve slathered on baby oil and stretched out on the green-and-white striped lounge chairs circling the pool behind her house. I wondered if she was out there now, staring at the same cornflower sky and feeling guilty about what she’d done to me. Or maybe word about the car crash reached her, and she felt guilty and sad. That is, assuming she could feel anything at all. Maybe she wouldn’t give a crap that I’d been hit by a car. Maybe she’d feel relieved, because her secret died with me.
A few times I tried to trick the stairs. The first time, I raised my foot and acted like I was going to keep moving forward, and at the last second I tried to jerk it back and turn around. Then I attempted to walk backwards, thinking maybe I could make it back down to the bottom and away from the steps that way. But no matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn’t do it. I was stuck facing forward with only two choices: climb the stairs or stand still, and I was too ramped up about everything that had happened to stand still.
It was hard not to think about where the steps might really be taking me. I joked about the hell thing, but I had to admit it was a real possibility. Not that I was some terrible person—I hadn’t killed anybody or anything. But I wasn’t exactly perfect, either.
Like church. I only went to church on the big holidays or when my grandmother came to visit and insisted the whole family attend mass with her. I grumbled about it the whole time, complaining that I didn’t even think I was Catholic and it wasn’t fair to make me go against my will. It just seemed like if God really wanted us to all go to church, he would have found a way to make it more entertaining instead of all sad and somber. Or at least picked some better music or something, right? But what if I was wrong? What if God was mad at me for not going to church?
Then there was the other stuff you’re not supposed to do, like coveting. I totally coveted. Like the time Sunny got two pairs of those amazing jeans that make everyone’s butt look fantastic, or when her dad caved and bought her the black bag we’d both drooled over for months. I was so jealous I could’ve spit green right then and there.
And I lied from time to time, and I had improper thoughts and what not, although anyone would after seeing Justin Cobb. If that kind of thing sent people to the boiling flames of Hades, then the entire female population of Morris High would have been right there next to me walking up the stairs to hell.
But mostly what I thought about was Alana James. I hadn’t forgiven myself for that one, so how could I expect God to?
Alana ranked right up there with Sunny on the list of things I wanted to forget, but her ghost kept popping up in front of me on the stairs, forcing the memories forward no matter how hard I tried to push them back. And I wanted to push them back more than anything—they were the kind of memories that deserved body bags and cement feet.
This time she stood smack in the middle of the steps, making it nearly impossible for me to pretend she wasn’t there. Her eyes were somber, boring into me.
Remember, her eyes said. Remember what you did to me.
I opened my mouth to shout her away, but nothing came out. The sight of her unsmiling face knocked the wind out of me, replacing the air in my lungs with the thick feeling of regret.
Her chubby cheeks glistened in the afternoon light, but she didn’t bother to reach a hand up and wipe the wetness away. Instead she stood there watching me, still as a statue, her dark hair tangling around her in a gusting wind I could not feel. Her hands clutched a birthday present, wrapped carefully in pink-and-purple lined paper and topped with a glittering silver bow.
She held it out to me. My guilty hands reached for it, and I felt the slickness of the paper beneath my fingers. It was clear a lot of time had gone into wrapping the gift—the stripes were lined up perfectly so that you had to lean in close to find where the paper had been cut, and the tape was trimmed into tiny, barely visible strips.