Wherever You Go by Heather Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

And maybe then you'd be sure that what happened actually
did
happen. You wouldn't forget it.
    It was a funny thing, trying to remember>
    I spent the moments before I fell asleep that night forcing the good times to my mind. Making myself remember Rob and me laughing and smiling, remembering him kissing me, remembering him holding me. I was sure that it had been as real as anything. Even if it was work to hold those images close, I wasn't going to let them go.
    ***
    You don't sleep. You sit in chairs you can't feel beneath you. You lie on couches, benches, steps that give you no comfort. All this time, you're awake. Conscious. Waiting for the freaking light they're always talking about on TV and in movies. You wonder if maybe you took it a little too far complaining out on the cliff the other night. Maybe now you've pissed off whoever's in charge and you'll be doomed to walk the planet alone forever.
    You expect to see other wanderers. Seriously. Where are all the other dead people? You think maybe this is hell. Yeah, maybe hell is being completely alone.
    To waste time this evening, you stroll through your old house. Your kid sister, Kayla, is snoozing peacefully in the bottom bunk bed in her room. At the other end of the house, Mom's watching a late-show comedian with the sound turned down so low, you can barely hear it over Dad's snoring. Your golden retriever, Chuck, is in the kitchen, sleeping on the blue mat near the sliding glass door. He snorts in his sleep, paws still from twitching as he looks up and sleepily sniffs the air in your direction. His eyes tell you he senses something. It's like he knows you're there.
    "Thanks, Chuck. That means a lot," you say.
    You walk by the piano, hand brushing the air atop the pictures set in a line. Your senior picture at the end, freshly taken before you bit the big one. Your smile is electric, fake. The picture of you and Holly at last year's spring dance is missing, though. The one with you in a gray sport coat and Holly in a sexy black cocktail dress she found at some yard sale. It used to sit right next to your portrait on the end and now it's gone. You wonder where it went. Wonder if your mother ripped the photo into a million shreds.
    You find your answer back in Kayla's room. The gold-framed picture is perched on your sister's bookshelf, next to her favorite stuffed animal, a giraffe named Rudy. Someone remembers you. Someone remembers how happy you and Holly were. And that makes you smile, all the way down to your deep, nonexistent bones.
    ***
    "Where are we going?"
    "Just come on." I tugged Lena onto the bus after me and Grandpa Aldo and paid the fare for all three of us. It was a Wednesday after school and the bus was crowded with commuters. A skinny white dude covered in tattoos got up to let my gass to letrandpa take his seat while Lena and I stood in the aisle, holding on to one of the slick metal poles. My gaze kept drifting to the guy's inked arms. An angel smoking a cigar adorned one biceps, floating near a dragon that melted into its own blue and red flames. There were fresh black outlines penned in above the dragon, like the guy had just been to the tattoo shop to imagine what he would add next. I stared until the guy itched at the angel's wings. You always see something interesting on the city bus.
    A little while and a few neighborhoods later, we were in Magnolia on the grassy bluffs overlooking the Puget Sound. After taking in the view, Grandpa Aldo lowered his hands from his eyes. "Holly," he said, his voice cracking. "It's my park."
    "It was on the list, remember?"
    Lena pointed at the water far beyond the cliffs. "Can we go all the way down there?"
    "It's kind of a long walk," I said, taking Grandpa Aldo's hand. "Let's just go to the benches over there and sit down for a while."
    We passed the old military houses and barracks that had been full of officers and soldiers when Discovery Park was an active fort. Lena skipped ahead on the grassy path, pointing