Wake Me Up

6. A Truth Worth Dying For

Chrissy

"Where do you think you'd be if you were still alive?" Eddie asks, after a long stretch of silence.

I've been so focused on navigating the dead woods, it didn't occur to me how many minutes have passed since either one of us spoke.

We've been climbing these limestone hills for the better part of an hour, deep into a forest of impossibly tall, dead pines with leaves long turned to dust. As far as I know, it goes for miles and miles, all the way until the abyss.

And with nothing other than our deaths to talk about, I find the silence to be comforting. Especially since it's now a choice.

Funny, because all I used to do was talk. I was the cheer captain and Hawkin's valedictorian; it became routine to be social, no matter what. That was my life.

Now, finding things to say seems almost as impossible as living again.

So I muse over his question, having not thought about my dreams and aspirations in months.

"I suppose I'd be getting ready for Yale," I reply, looking down at my white cheer shoes.

I kick a pebble out of frustration, striking it against the bottom of a charred tree trunk. "I joined the cheer team to impress them. To prove myself."

"Yale...." he repeats, his tone all posh and sarcastic. "Of course you would."

I glare at him. He has no idea what Yale meant to me. To my father.

His eyes soften. "Sorry."

"... I had a tour that summer to see the campus," I continue, looking back at him. "I woulda been eighteen. I could have done anything." I bite back a smile, fixing a strand of blonde hair behind my ear. "I was actually planning on getting a tattoo."

That gets his attention.

"Chrissy Cunningham getting a tattoo?" he snickers. "Oh, I'd pay to see that!"

The back of my neck instantly grows hot. "You wouldn't have been able to."

"And why's that?" 

"It's... private."

He stops walking and throws his hand over his heart. "Chrissy, please put me out of my misery. Were you thinking of getting a tramp stamp?"

I widen my eyes. "HOW did you know?!"

"I didn't," he admits, lifting an eyebrow. A sparkle dances in his eyes as he looks me up and down. "You just told me. Good thing you died before you could get that monstrosity done."

My mouth drops.

What the hell is his problem?

Despite my initial shock at his morbid humor, for some reason, it makes me smile. But I smack his shoulder anyways, not giving him the satisfaction. "Asshole."

He beams, then drops his eyes just below my nose. "I'm sure it woulda looked hot on you tho."

I tilt my head up at him, trying not to blush. "Eddie Munson gave out a compliment?" I tease, crossing my arms. "Thought I'd never see the day."

He pierces his lips together. "Technically you haven't."

You haven't.

The words hit me like shards of ice— the same feeling my mother gave me.

Because you're dead, she whispers in the back of my mind.

And because of that, you'll never go to Yale.