The Dead Boy's Guide To Second Chances

29. completely, disastrously

SIX MONTHS AND SEVEN DAYS AFTER THE DEATH OF OLIVER SALLOW

Nine days.

Nine days, Oliver is gone.

Nine days, Finn wonders if he imagined the whole thing.

Nine days, Finn calls the number Oliver gave him and doesn't get through. He keeps trying regardless: calling, leaving messages, recording long voice messages that disappear into the ether.

Right now, he's doing the latter.

"Hey, Ollie. I'm at school. Today's the first day of A-Levels. Bio." He gives a little kick to the wall bordering the school's premises. "I don't know if you'll hear this, but... I guess I wanted to tell you I'm thinking of you. Wish me luck."

He slips his phone back into his pocket and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper in exchange. On it are notes from his last few study sessions with Aarun and James. It's been difficult, trying to revise these last few days while his thoughts kept straying to Oliver. He doesn't think that it's much use now, either, but he feels like he should at least try to hammer two or three bullet points into his short-term memory.

Around him, others are doing the same. The courtyard behind the wall is buzzing like a bee hive, a frantic energy in the air that makes the back of his neck prickle. He tries to ignore the chaos and breathes in deep like Samira taught him while he waits for his friends to arrive.

His eyes scan his notes without his brain processing any of the information contained in them. Something something Krebs cycle. Respiratory chain. An equation he has no recollection of writing. What is allosteric regulation again? There is literally no way he'll—

His phone buzzes, and he scrambles for it so quickly he drops his notes. He unlocks the screen, silently chanting Please be from Oliver, please be from Oliver.

It's not from Oliver. It's his mum wishing him good luck via a pixelated gif of a cat hugging another cat. Finn responds with a heart and bends down to pick up his cheat sheet, but before his fingertips can even graze it, it's being carried off by a sudden gust of wind.

The perpetrator is a motorcycle passing by in a blur of motion. Finn's heart skips a beat at the sight, but he firmly tamps down on the feeling. Twenty minutes before the exam that will potentially determine his entire academic future is not the bloody time to go back to the thinking-Oliver-is-just-around-the-corner stage.

Except the motorcycle returns.

And slows down.

And slides neatly into the spot where Lucretia always stood. Honestly, it looks a bit like Lucretia, but all motorcycles look the same to Finn when it comes down to it, and—

And then the biker gets off, and Finn's world tilts sideways.

Long legs that end in a pair of scuffed Doc Martens. A leather trench coat unbuttoned over a dark red blouse. Metal glittering on pale hands.

It's impossible. He's hallucinating. Maybe he fell out of bed and bonked his head. Maybe his body isn't taking his anxiety meds as well as he thought it was.

Whatever the reason, he resorts to the same thing he did the first time Oliver appeared in his bedroom: he closes his eyes and keeps them shut, unwilling to give in and hope for the impossible. Even as he hears steps nearing him. Even as he hears a voice say his name.

"Finn."

"No," he simply says.

"Finn."

"No."