This was going way too fast for me. I had never even been to a movie with a guy. For all of Hannah’s efforts to get her brother’s friends to notice her — and dragging me along with her during most of her attempts — none of them ever had.
And now I was in this incredibly sexy guy’s room, and he’d given me this necklace, and I didn’t even know where my clothes were.
I ducked out from beneath his arm and said, leaping from the chair, “Well, thank you very much, John. But I should probably be going, because I’m sure my mother must be looking for me. She’s probably very worried. You know how mothers are. So, if you’ll just tell me how to get home from here, I’ll go.”
A part of me knew it was futile. But I had to try. Maybe there was car service. My dad always said wherever I was, if I called for car service, he would pay, even if it was from New Jersey.
“Then,” I finished, “you can get back to whatever it is that…you…do.…”
My voice trailed off as I watched the expression on his face go from mildly amused to grimly serious.
“What?” I said. I did not like the look on his face. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He was frowning now. “Pierce, I thought you knew.”
And then I heard his voice reminding me of how I had tripped and hit my head, had fallen in the pool and drowned, and that’s why my clothes had been wet, and…
Dead. That was the main word I heard. I was dead.
That’s where I stopped listening.
I suppose a part of me had known all along. But actually hearing him say the word — Dead. I was dead — was the biggest shock of all. Worse than the blow to my head. Worse than choking on the water. Worse than lying at the bottom of that pool, knowing my dad was never going to come in time to save me, and that I’d died because of a bird. A bird!
A bird that hadn’t been hurt at all but just stunned by the cold or something, because it had flown away as soon as I hit the pool cover. I’d seen it as I drowned.
Dead. I was dead.
So many things made sense now. That’s why no one’s cell phone had worked. Their cell phones were dead.
Just like we were.
I felt frozen. All of me. Like I was still at the bottom of that pool, in that icy, icy water.
I was only fifteen. Just a few hours ago, I had been talking to Hannah on the phone. We’d been planning on going to the mall to see a movie later. I’d managed to convince her to have her mom drop us by the stables to visit Double Dare first —
Mom! My mom didn’t even know where I was. I had to let my mother know where I was.
“I…” My tongue and lips seemed to be the only parts of me that weren’t frozen. “Thank you,” I said to him, interrupting whatever he’d been explaining. Because John was still talking. Who knew what he was saying? He looked nervous again. “Thank you so much for everything. But I have to go now. Good-bye.”
I turned away from him and started to walk off in the direction of those gauzy curtains, towards the courtyard. He took a quick step forward, blocking my path.
“I know it’s upsetting,” he said. “But it doesn’t exactly work that way. You see, once you’ve arrived here, you can’t leave.”
I shook my head. “But I have to,” I said. “I have to let my mom know I’m all right. Except for the being dead part,” I added. I wasn’t quite sure how she was going to take that news.
“Your mom is fine,” he assured me, laying his hands on my bare shoulders and physically steering me back into the room. “I told you, you can’t leave. And I think you should sit down again. You’ve had a shock.”
“What do you mean, I can’t leave?” I spun back around to face him. Suddenly, I didn’t feel vague anymore. “What about all those people down by the lake? They’re leaving, aren’t they?”
He shrugged. “In a way. To their final destination.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Their just rewards,” he said, a little bitterly.
“That’s where the boat is taking them?” I asked. “Aren’t I supposed to be getting on the boat? The one that’s leaving?”
My voice trailed off as I read his expression. It was more serious than I’d ever seen it.
“The one that just left, you mean,” he said.
The words seemed to echo around the room. Although they didn’t really.
“Wait,” I said. “What?”
“The boat is gone,” he said. “I asked if you wanted to go someplace else, and you said yes, please. And now the boat is gone. You chose me over the boat, and now this is where you’re going to have to stay. Look, you really don’t seem well. I think you should sit down. Won’t you eat something? What about a drink? Some hot tea?”
Thunder rumbled. But it was inside my head, not outside. Suddenly, I was freezing again, in spite of the blazing fire in the enormous hearth.
“Are you telling me that I have to stay here with you forever because you made me miss the boat?” I demanded.
He was so tall, I had to crane my neck to look into his face. What I saw there — the muscle leaping in his lean cheek, the stubborn set of his jaw — made me as frightened as I’d felt back down by the lake.
Even when, despite the determination I could see in his face, I noticed the sadness in those silver eyes…