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Cassie sighs and then slips out from under my head. Then I’m staring at her face, so much like mine, as she leans over me.
“You gave up,” she accuses gently. “You didn’t hold on. A few more minutes and they’d have gotten to you. You’d have been alright.”
“I didn’t give up, Cassie.” I clench my fists in the grass and try to hold it together. “I was shot. I bled out in the middle of my living room. It sucked.” I poke her in the middle of the forehead, but she doesn’t blink or even move.
Cassie snorts and then rolls her eyes. “You didn’t even feel it. Don’t give me that bullshit.”
“I don’t like you knowing everything there is to know about everything,” I harrumph. “Can’t we just have some nice dead time together? Is that too much to ask for?”
Cassie leans down until she is touching her nose to mine, and she burps in my face. Like the asshole she is. “No, we can’t have dead time together. You’re not supposed to be here. You need to get a handle on yourself and go home before you lose even more brain cells from the lack of oxygen. The longer you’re dead, the harder it is to regain all that shit. And we both know that I’m the smart one to begin with. You need all the help you can get because you’re teaching our future.”
For the first time since she died, I feel like everything is going to be okay, and I don’t want to give that up. She is my rock, my center. My ride or die. Even when Cassie’s giving me shit, I know that everything is going to be okay.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“I’m always with you, dorkfish. You didn’t have to die to see me.”
“I don’t want to go.”
Cassie presses a kiss to my cheek and then stands up, smoothing out the wrinkles in her bright-purple pajamas. “Come on. You have to see something.” She holds out a hand, and I take it.
One minute we’re together in the backyard, and the next we’re standing in the middle of the hospital waiting room, transported like she’s a holiday ghost taking me to see my past and present and future.
Everyone is there—Remy, Kennedy, Mom, Dad. All of them together, and they aren’t alone. Linc and his family are there too. But my attention is caught by an achingly familiar pair of green eyes, red-rimmed and openly crying with my sister and mom.
“Cole?”
He looks directly at me for almost a minute, and I’m sure that he sees me. But then he looks away and down at his clenched fists.
“Why is Cole here?”
“Cole’s here, just like everyone else is, because they love you. They want you to stop this shit and wake up. They don’t know that you’re still not breathing.”
She walks over next to him, waving a hand over his body. “He’s hot, by the way. Definitely got a lady boner when I saw him in your future. You couldn’t have picked a hotter baby maker than that.”
My baby.
I press both hands to my abdomen, scared and horrified by the reality waiting for me when I open my eyes. “I can’t believe I lost our baby.” A tear falls down my cheek. “I never even got to see it.”
For a moment, I’m lost in grief. Just a moment, though, because Cassie yanks me by the arm to get my attention.
“Stop that shit. No one said you lost the baby.”
I stare at her, trying to spell it out for her, because clearly, death messed with her just a little bit more than I thought.
“I was shot. In the stomach. There’s no way the baby survived.”
“To quote your favorite dinosaur movie, bitch. ‘Life, uh, finds a way’ and all that bullshit.”
“Donotblaspheme Jeff Goldblum like that. He’s a goddamn national treasure.”
Cassie smiles at me, and I know she’s inside my head again.
“You don’t have to be afraid, Casp. You need to wake up. For Cole. For that baby.”
Before anything happens, I pull her into a tight hug, refusing to let go. “I didn’t get to say goodbye.”
She hugs me back and brushes my hair to the side so she can whisper in my ear. “Why do you need to say goodbye? I’m literally always with you. Twins, girl. And I’ll always have your back. Tell Joel not to drop the soap when they catch him.” She lets go, looking at me with the smile we used to share when we were up to no good. “And name that baby after me.”
