And again, I see myself—at school this time, in fifth grade, playing four-square on the playground with Kate and Alex and another boy, whose name I can’t remember now. I’m laughing, the waves of my hair bouncing up and down. And I feel . . . longing, like this memory wants nothing more than to join in. But for some reason it can’t.
And again—in sixth grade, Alex and me walking my brother to school. I reach out and ruffle Jared’s hair. He swats at my hand, and I laugh.
And again. Again. Again. And again.
The scenes of my life play out in rapid succession, as if I’m an observer to my own life.
Celebrating good grades. Perfect test scores. Reading books during recess. Swim meets and ocean swims. The breakup of my friendship with Kate. Debate competitions with Alex. Tutoring Jared and Chris in the library after school. Lifeguarding, walking on the beach with Nick.
And the emotion I feel is undoubtedly love—heart aching, chest filling, so powerful it hurts, like these are memories of someone watching me, someone whose happiest moments are when he sees me smile, and someone who aches and feels powerless and heartbroken when he knows I’m sad. Someone who loves me.
“Stay with me,” the voice says. “Janelle, stay with me.”
My eyes flutter open, and through blurred vision, I see a figure leaning over me. The sun is above, silhouetting him so I can’t make out any features. My whole body throbs with the rhythm of my pulse—each beat emphasizing the excruciating, ripping pain as it ebbs and flows through my body. My bones feel broken, I can barely breathe, and my heart pounds at express-train speed.
I try to move, try to see the guy above me, but I can’t. Because I can’t control my arms. Or my legs. In fact, I can’t even feel my legs. For all I know, they’re just gone.
“Hold on, Janelle. Hold on,” he whispers. Then, “I’m sorry. This will hurt.”
He moves his hand, which I just now realize had been resting palm down on my heart. It moves up to my shoulder, the warmth of his bare hand against my bare skin oddly cooling, and as his hand passes over my collarbone, I feel bones move and snap, not like they’re breaking, but like they’re melding back together.
“Ben!” someone shouts.
His hand flows over my arm, then reaches underneath to my back, settling on my spine. As he touches me, everything in my whole being feels like it’s not just on fire, but like I’m seconds from spontaneous combustion.
A flash of white again, brighter than looking at the sun—I can’t see anything—then this time I see myself as I must have looked only minutes ago. Wearing my red bathing suit and matching shorts. A dusting of sand sprinkled in patches on my olive skin. Running sneakers, no socks, my brown hair pulled into a messy ponytail. My cell phone to my ear, I pause, close my eyes, and pinch the bridge of my nose like I always do when I’m debating something. And then the truck is there as if it came from nowhere, and it’s hurtling toward me at breakneck speed.
And then I can’t breathe.
“Ben! We gotta go!”
Cool lips lightly touch my forehead, and the pain subsides, fading to a dull ache all over my body. My vision returns, and a pair of dark brown eyes—so dark they’re almost black—hover above me. He smells like a mix of mint, sweat, and gasoline. “You’re going to be all right,” he says, the relief of the statement coming out in a sort of sigh as he leans back.
I try to focus, because I know I recognize him from somewhere.
“You’re going to be all right,” he says again, only it’s not like he’s trying to convince me I’m okay—it’s more like he’s saying it to himself . . . out of relief. His smile widens as his hand reaches out and brushes a strand of hair from my face.
Then, of all the people in the world, Elijah Palma, notorious bad boy and stoner extraordinaire, is suddenly in my face, grabbing the arm of the guy in front of me.
That’s when recognition sets in. Those huge brown eyes, the wavy dark hair, the tortured half smile belong to another Eastview stoner. Ben Michaels. We’ve gone to school together since fifth grade. I’ve never spoken to him. Not even once.
“Let’s go!” a third voice shouts, and this one I know. Reid Suitor, who’s been in my homeroom and a few of my classes since middle school. Kate had a crush on him in eighth grade, but he wasn’t interested.
Elijah pulls Ben away from me, and as the two of them disappear from my line of sight, I struggle to sit up. My chest hurts with each breath I take, and my whole body feels bruised and broken. I can’t help but wonder if I just imagined everything—if the truck swerved to avoid me, if Ben pulled me out of the way, or if there was even a truck at all.
But when I sit up, I see the pickup, crashed into an embankment, the front end smashed in. And in my right hand, I’m still holding my cell phone, only it’s been crushed to pieces.
As if it had been run over. By a truck.
I look up to the road toward Del Mar, and I see Reid, Elijah, and Ben riding bicycles up the hill. For some reason I want Ben to look back, but he doesn’t.
Then suddenly people are everywhere. Surrounding me and saying my name. I recognize Elise and a parent of one of the baseball kids. And Kevin and Nick.
I wonder how long I was dead. Because I know with absolute certainty that I was. Dead.
And I also know with absolute certainty that somehow— even though it defies any logical explanation—Ben Michaels brought me back.
Nick is with me, sitting next to me, holding my hand and talking about some time when he was a little kid and he fell off his bike. His dad was trying to teach him to ride, but since his dad isn’t patient or good at teaching anything, Nick fell.
I listen to him, to his story, and I try to focus on all the details—like the fact that it was a black-and-red Transformers bike his mom had bought custom-made down in Pacific Beach, and that his dad was really angry at him for falling and wanted him to get right back onto the bike. I know he’s just trying to help, so I swallow down the temptation to snort and say, You fell off your bike? I just got hit by a truck!
It’s weird, though. As he talks, I feel off—like I’m spacing out. I can’t help but think of Ben Michaels hovering over me, his hands on my skin, the way he said my name. The unflinching certainty that I was dead and now I’m not—and it’s because of Ben. Somehow, he brought me back to life.
Someone squeezes my hand, so I open my eyes—when did I close them?—and Nick smiles at me. He really is beautiful, but I honestly can’t remember how Nick even got here. Did he come in the ambulance with me? Or did he follow in his car?
“Janelle?” Nick asks. “Janelle, are you okay?”
He stands up and grips my hand too hard, and a wave of nausea rolls through me. He says something else, but I don’t hear him.
A nurse leans over me and shines a flashlight in my eyes. She turns and says something to someone close to her—not Nick. I’m not sure where he went. The nausea turns to cramps, and I just want to curl my knees into my chest and lie alone in the dark. But when I try to do that, someone grips my legs.