The View From Who I Was by Heather Sappenfield Page B

Free.”
    â€œSafe? Free?”
    â€œWe have a roof over our heads, insurance, clothes, food.”
    Corpse studied the game’s upside-down lid in her lap. Warning laced the air, and she tilted her head against it. Her left hand rested on the I , with the E, the F, the L surrounding it. “I was wondering”—she felt her nervous words hovering at the edges of themselves—“if you wanted to hang out, play LIFE or something.”
    Dad looked at the game, and she thought how to him it would appear right-side-up.
    â€œIsn’t Gabe here?”
    â€œHe left.” In a green square on the box’s bottom corner, Corpse read Family, Ages 9+.
    Sweat beads rose on Dad’s brow, and though the house was hot, I knew that wasn’t why. “Oona, I—” Not a hint of those chocolate eyes.
    â€œThat’s okay.” She bolted up, moving toward the door, that little army marching under her arm. “No worries.”
    In the hall, Corpse leaned against the wall and shut her eyes. What was she afraid of? A memory rose up like connect the dots: us, a first grader, wanting to hold Mom’s hand, but scared and looking up at her as she leaned against this very wall, eyes closed just like this.

Eight
    From Oona’s journal:
    In its liquid form, water’s hydrogen bonds are fragile, lasting only a few trillionths of a second before bonding with a new partner. This constant, rapid change creates a phenomenon called cohesion. It is structure not found in most other liquids.
    â€”Biology: Life’s Course
    â€œSo you’ll call me if you want a ride home. Or if you need to come home early.” Mom drove her Range Rover slower than the spitting snow warranted, and the wipers screeked across the windshield.
    â€œGabe and I will walk.”
    â€œOkay, but if you’re tired—”
    â€œI won’t be,” Corpse said.
    â€œYou might get cold.”
    â€œI won’t.”
    Mom’s look said Sure you won’t .
    She turned into the Crystal High parking lot and steered to the drop-off lane at the front entrance. Gabe waited there, his breaths warm puffs rising on the cold. Corpse watched several puffs disappear. I thought of The Daily Crystal article after our suicide, of the angry rumors Ash had probably spread in the month since the winter formal. Today’s headline: DEAD GIRL RETURNS .
    â€œOona,” Mom said. She reached over and grasped Corpse’s hand, and they seemed to look inside one another. The words for something big hung on Mom’s lips. Instead she said, “Good luck,” and let go.
    Corpse nodded and climbed out. Gabe took that hand. They walked up to the entrance. As we crossed through the first set of doors, Mom still watched, and Corpse waved back in the space between her and Gabe’s heads. Through me.
    My first touch. An electric shock brimming with confusion and longing.
    I’d always hated being touched when I was in Corpse, but that was skin. This was way worse. Like touching a person’s soul.
    Corpse rubbed her two fingers and thumb together like they itched, then rubbed them against her jeans. We passed through the second set of doors and into the building.
    We’d forgotten school’s smell. The cafeteria’s fake butter mixed with the janitor’s barfy cleaner. Dr. Bell, the principal, stocky and shorter than half the guys in the school, stood outside his office speaking with two freshmen, but his face lit up when he saw Corpse.
    At her shoulder, I reeled. All those years inside, I’d never allowed her feelings to seep into me. I mean, I knew them intimately. Manipulated them daily. Felt them? Never.
    In the school’s entrance lobby, across from the main office, stretched a sitting area made of two knee-high carpeted steps. Here, the kids of workers from Mexico or South America hung out. Some mornings they’d all be bawling because a raid at work the day before had rounded