Death & Dying
"I'm not dead. I'm still me. I still have a body and everything." "You are still you but you don't have a body. What you're seeing is a thought form." He points to a tall gold urn up by the minister. "Your body is in there. You were cremated." Thunk thunk, thunk thunk. My heart pounds in my chest. Dread mushrooms in my stomach. Sweat beads on my forehead. "But everybody knows death is the end. That there's nothing left but matter." "Death is only the beginning, Logan. Hannah knows that. Lots of people do."
Have you ever faced fear
And jumped
Into churning waters
So deep there is no bottom?
Every hand I shake, I look into the person's face and wonder what they know. It didn't say in the announcement in the paper. Maybe they think my dad had a heart attack while he was driving. I don't want anyone to know. Because it's not like we really know for sure. I don't want people talking about him and thinking he did something when nobody knows for sure that he did.
I was going to die in the parking lot of Bartell Drugs, wearing that stupid red vest and with short hair. Mom would hate burying me without my long hair.
What a waste, I thought, seeing my body on the pavement. My first bee sting, and it's fatal. It was almost as stupid as Logan getting in that car.
"Mark was my firstborn son," my father says, reading the words he has written. "He was a good boy and a hard worker. His mother and I were so proud of him"
But that didn't stop someone from killing him.
The forest about me is absolutely still.
I shoot.
I shoot at the ground before the bear's massive paws. A scuff of snow flies up. In the next moment I lean the rifle against a tree trunk and grab my bear spray from my coat pocket where I've kept it warm. I pull off the safety clip, and this time I walk toward the bear.
Not away. I'm through with walking away.
I killed my best friend. Thirteen months and six days ago.
Not on purpose. It was an accident. Even the cops wrote it up that way. But if I hadn't dared Logan to race he'd still be alive.
Sometimes I swear I see him. Out of the corner of my eye. Just a glimpse. Like he's haunting me. That accident…I think about it every day. And most nights too.
