“Eventually. Which brings me to my next point. Did you already forget about who got you down that mountain? Guess your afterlife connection isn’t as withholding as you say.”
He’s trying to be provoking, but he’s just too darn cute about it for me to be annoyed. More than that, he’s right. After that night in the snow it’s physically impossible for me to feel irritated with him. I’m glad he’s back, even if his conversation can make me feel like I’m spinning around in circles. I attempt to rise to the level of his banter. “Igot me down the mountain. You were just some sort of ethereal cheerleader. You might as well have been shaking pom-poms in a pleated skirt.”
“I do have the legs for it,” he says, considering his own legs. “And it won’t work.”
“What won’t work?”
“You know. That thing you do.”
“What thing I do?”
“Make like it’s you against the world. Put people in your life on the opposite side of a wall.” He goes from whistling to humming. He’s so proud of himself. Thinks he knows me inside and out.
“As usual, you are making zero sense. Me? Me put people onthe other side? Dude, that’s you.” I hike my backpack up on my shoulder as I pause at an intersection for a passing car, making eye contact with the driver. Nothing to see here, just two kids headed to school. One of them may or may not be dead. You probably can’t see him anyway, so forget I said anything.
“Guilty as charged.”
“That’s it?” I step off the curb and cross the street. The crisp air and brisk walk, and, let’s be honest, conversing with a ghost, have filled me with energy. I want to tussle with him, to push all his buttons and have him push mine, or I might have to start running to release this extra agitation. “No, no, you don’t get off that easy. I know you’re thinking shit about me at a million bytes per second. Give me your full analysis.”
Mason kicks pebbles ahead of us, his hands in his pockets. “Did you know that I was scheduled for surgery next month? Guess it’s canceled now. The surgeon probably gets a free day to golf.”
The 180-degree in tone of this admission takes me so off guard that I stop walking. I look at him sharply. “You were?”
“They were going to take out a piece of my brain,” he says, then adds with a slightly Austrian accent, “They ver going to experiment on zee mind!”
“Oh, damn. To stop the seizures?”
Mason snorted. “I mean, that’s what they said, but who knows? Every time they switched a medication, or added a medication, that’s what they said. And every time, I felt like I was losing options but keeping the seizures. My mom wouldsay things like, ‘So you can’t go on roller coasters. So what? Lots of people don’t like roller coasters.’ Which is true. ButIlike roller coasters. I never got to choose. I had no control. I was always trying to forget it, but my life became more about seizures than anything else. And after surgery? They said this wouldn’t happen, but what if the seizures were at the center of who I was? What if I woke up an entirely different person?”
This is the most I have heard Mason say about himself at one time in my entire life. I realize I’m holding my breath for fear that any sound from me will interrupt his train of thought. As much as I loved how funny he was the entire time I knew him, I always craved that he would be serious like this with me. It feels closer.
Unexpectedly, he laughs. “I mean, that was my take until I croaked. Now I know better. Now I know what zero control really looks like. Exhibit A.” He gestures to himself while turning slowly, like he’s the grand prize on a game show.
“But couldn’t you have told your parents? If you didn’t want the surgery? They wouldn’t have made you go through with it, would they?”
“I mean, if I didn’t give a shit about them, then yeah, sure, I could have told them. But my parents, my mom especially, needed todosomething. They didn’t want to feel powerless, either. Doesn’t matter now, right?” He paused, then said, “I don’t know if she’s free from all that with me gone or if she feels more helpless than ever.”
“Oh, Mason.” I wince. I’ve spent our conversations thinkingfar more about how his death has affected me, and far less about how it’s affecting him.
“Forget it,” he says, his voice harder now. “I’m just envious of you, is all.”
“Envious of me?” Crazy talk.
“Yeah, you. You think you don’t, but you’ve got power. A lot. You just ignore it most of the time.”
“Power to fuck up, you mean? I’m fully aware.”
“Hey, don’t knock fucking up. Fucking up is everything. It’s exciting.” He regains his swagger. “Especially when you do it, Murph. Your fucking up is epic, it’s multilayered, it’s breathtaking. Speaking of which, let’s talk more about how I saved your freezing ass.”
It’s times like these when I wish Mason’s arm wasn’t just mist and shadow, so I could give it a good shove. Or a really long hug.
I arrive at school and am almost to my locker when I freeze. Richard is striding toward me with purpose. Shit. I don’t want to deal with him and am fully regretting the decision to make today my own personal pajama day. I look around for an easy escape, but there’s none. Then a tiny little piece of hope buzzes in my chest. Maybe he’s coming to apologize. Maybe he’s going to say that just like me, altitude has an adverse effect on him, except in his case, it makes him a douchebag—clinically speaking, of course. And now he’s back to normal and oh so very sorry and won’t I please consider forgiving him or he doesn’t know how he’ll face himself in the mirror?
But when he gets within speaking distance, his eyes are dead and distant. “I’m gathering everyone up. Cast and crew meeting, onstage, five minutes.” I nod and he marches off, still a douchebag at sea level.
Inside the auditorium, most kids are already gathered, sitting cross-legged onstage. I see Asha and sit down next to her. I rest my head on her shoulder for a second to show her I come in peace and I’m not feeling explosive. She pulls her earbuds out of her ears and tucks them in their little charging case, then zips that into the inner pocket of her jacket. She lost the first set of earbuds she got for her birthday almost immediately, and had to use a whole lot of hours of minimum wage earnings scoopingice cream to buy a new pair. Not surprisingly, she takes conspicuous care of these. Once they are secure, she puts her arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze, accepting my peaceful offering with an olive branch of her own.
“So, give me all your intel before this meeting starts,” she says.
