Excerpt
1
ITS SNOWING OR MAYBE its raining … no, its snowing. I can feel the wet flakes gathering in the corners of my eyes, melting down my cheeks like tears. The warmth from the sun I felt on my face only an instant before is gone. When I blink, the only things I see are blotchy white bits of trees and clouds and lights. Where are those lights coming from? I stumble onto my feet and my legs feel Jell-O-y, like Ive been swimming for a really long time and now the ground feels too rigid.
I take one step and suddenly my whole body stings. I fall to my knees and clutch my middle. The worst pain Ive ever felt invades my limbs, like when your foot falls asleep except its my entire body and its epically stronger. Im screaming and gripping my sides, writhing in the fluffy white snow. And then the pain stops; as fast as it came, it stops. Filled with relief, I do a quick once-over of my body. I even pinch my arm to check if Im dreaming. How dumb is that?
I manage to open my eyes enough to see a silhouette standing above the waterline among the trees in Dover Park. He—at least I think its a he—is staring at me, but not at me, me. Hes staring at the bloody, twisted mess of me on the rocks along the riverbank.
Why are there two of me?! And how did I get in the river?
I run toward my Other, mangled body. I must be having a nightmare—but its like theres a force field around me. I sort of melt into the air, then get flung back. I land on my butt in a massive snowbank at the waters edge, waiting to feel the cold from sitting in waist-deep snow.
A jagged chunk of ice floats by, sparkling in the early-morning moonlight.
I still havent felt the cold.
The silhouette is talking now. I hear him, but the words are muffled as if hes talking underwater. I press my hands to the sides of my face and squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating. His voice comes clearer … Hes telling me he didnt mean to.
Mean to what?
Now hes telling me this isnt how it was supposed to go. This is her fault.
Is “her” me?
I open my eyes to check if hes talking to me, me. Hes not. I look at my Other body, broken and folded in ways a body should never bend over a mound of gray rocks. In one of my Other hands Im holding something, maybe a piece of paper, but I cant see it clearly. Snow piles high again around my eyes and my cheeks and now on my shoulders. It comes down, harder and harder, until I feel buried in it. I cant even see it and Im buried in it so deep that I cant breathe.
Slowly a thought creeps in, settles in the front of my mind. It tugs at something I feel like I know but cant quite remember. I open my mouth to speak it, but I dont see my breath the way I should in early March. I glance up at the silhouette. Hes crying or maybe hes yelling; either way, I can see his breath.
Im not breathing. I dont need to. The words float past my lips like a rehearsed chorus: “Im dead.”
Text copyright © 2014 by Bethany Neal