Liv, Forever by Amy Talkington Read Free Book Online

‘silly myth’ like they say. Ask me questions. I’ll tell you about any of them.”
    I was silent.
    “Lydia’s in the catacombs. She’s the only one whose name I know. Sometimes she repeats it again and again. Her neck’s kind of tweaked like it was broken or something. She wears a Smiths T-shirt, and she’s insane. There’s another one in Main, in the lobby. And there’s one by the weeping willow tree near the well. And there’s a bloody one on top of Skellenger … and …”
    He stopped when he saw my face.
    “Let’s go to the infirmary,” I managed to say. “Let’s get you help.”
    He recoiled. “No!”
    “Did you take some drugs?”
    “No!”
    “Do you have, you know, a medical history?”
    He started to almost shake with frustration, but then he paused. Calmly, he said, “I understand why you think I’m crazy. I thought I was crazy, too. But it’s too consistent. Always the same voices, the same faces in the same places. I’m telling you it’s
real.
”
    I paused. How do you even respond to something like that?
    His demeanor changed. He was nervous now, almost desperate, and bargaining. “Look, it’s fine if you won’t believe me, but please, you
have
to promise me you won’t tell anyone.I’ve never told anyone else here. I don’t even know why I told you. I was just grateful. I thought you’d understand.”
    I couldn’t pretend I believed him, but I did promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. I only hoped he wasn’t dangerous. He didn’t seem the type to ever hurt anyone, but he definitely seemed capable of hurting himself. I’d hate to be the person who failed to report that kid before he snapped.
    He didn’t want to let me walk away. I could see he felt vulnerable. But there was nothing more to say.
    I’D NEVER THOUGHT MUCH about ghosts. I certainly didn’t believe in them. I’d been taught when you die, you go to heaven—that is, if you’ve accepted Jesus into your heart. So, let’s just say that is true, then what about everyone else? What about the kind man in Timbuktu who never even had a chance to hear about Jesus? My mother never had an answer for that one. My parents’ church had confused me. It’d actually driven me away from God, if there was one.
    But I couldn’t stop thinking about Gabe’s description of Lydia. What did a ghost look like? I didn’t know. Did it look like a Francis Bacon painting, distorted and ethereal? Or tortured, like Munch’s
The Scream
? Was a ghost more like the chubby cherubs of Titian or the horrific devils of Hieronymus Bosch?
    The thought of her haunted me, so I did what was natural. Alone in my studio, I drew her. I covered the paper in black charcoal and erased her out of the blackness: a ghoulish veil. I was interrupted by a text chime. I looked.
    At first it just said:
    hi liv. malcolm here.
    Just seeing the name made my chest thump. Seriously, like out of a Keith Haring painting—a giant heart, neon and throbbing. Before I could reply, another bubble popped up. He’d been looking for me. He finally got my number from the admissions office. He wanted to meet.
    I texted back, told him I was drawing.
    He offered to come meet me in the studio.
    I told him another day would be better.
    I wanted to see him, but my head was full of ghosts, and I couldn’t possibly tell him Gabe’s secret. Plus all that thumping. That rush like I had stood up too fast. Why did he do that to me? Excitement. Fear. I honestly didn’t know. For all I knew, that’s what love felt like. I just hoped I wouldn’t fall over or—God forbid—faint the next time I saw him. Avoiding him seemed the best course of action, at least for the moment.
    I made it back to my dorm just in time for Handshaking, the nightly ritual where every student has to shake hands with the dorm mistress and the dorm prefect, who, in my case, was Abigail. When she looked down and saw the charcoal I’d smudged on her palm, she huffed off to the bathroom.
    I just smiled and went to