Coma (Slowly Editing)

Day 28

 

Loud music blasted throughout the house. The lights were dimmed, but that only added to the atmosphere of the party. Cups were being filled up very quickly and everywhere I looked, the place was packed to the brim with kids from school. I smiled at a few of them nervously, my eyes scanning the sea of faces crowding all around me for a familiar pair of blue-grey eyes. He’s got to be here. He must be. He wouldn’t miss his own party, would he?

A pair of arms wrapped around me.

“THIS IS THE BEST. PARTY. EVER!” Tara screamed. She smelled of alcohol and smoke, and she was grinning lopsidedly at me. “WHO KNEW ANNALISE BELL COULD PLAN SUCH A RAD PARTY?”

“Oh please, you guys did all the dirty work,” I muttered back.

“WHAT?”

“NOTHING!” I yelled. “I’M GOING TO FIND SOPHIE! WILL YOU BE OKAY ALONE?”

She gave me two thumbs and I took that as a positive sign. I pulled away from her and headed towards the back of the house, where even more kids had spilled out around the balcony overlooking Central Park. This place belonged Stacey Wakerman’s parents, and they had kindly volunteered to let us host the party here when news spread about Seymour’s bucket list. (We had to bring in a few people to make the party possible and someone must have slipped. Thank god no one thought it weird that his neighbour had found the list – the same story I had told Sophie and Tara.)

Plus, it helped that all the cheerleaders were involved. No matter what the purpose of a party was for, if a cheerleader hosts it, you can expect a lot of people to attend which meant that a) pretty much the entire school body was here b) Seymour got his wish. As if in answer to my thoughts, I heard someone yell, “To Seymour!”

His proclaimation was repeated throughout the house, and people raised their glasses as a toast to him. Four things down, one last to go.

Despite the cheerful atmosphere, I felt a chill set over my heart. What if he was really gone? What if I was just doing all of these for nothing for nothing more than just the sake of his – mine – memories? What if that night was the last night? We had been talking about…oh god, I can’t even remember what we last spoke about. If this was a story, I thought, it would be a really shitty one. I took a deep breath and snatched a cup from the nearest person.

“HEY!” the guy protested as I drowned the beer in one shot. It tasted foul in my mouth so I handed the empty cup to him and drifted away.

I went back into the house. Searched the living room and the bedrooms. Wait around the bathrooms. I even looked into the Wakermans’ wine cellar, which was dark and eerie by itself. No signs of my favorite ghost. With each passing minute, the chill in my heart grew bigger and bigger, and I could feel it spreading to my lungs and then my neck and then my skin, until even my fingertips felt cold and numb and the pounding music sound empty in my ears.

Seymour was not coming. I was sure of it.

About half past eleven, I wandered out of their house and the party I helped to create and took the stairs up to the rooftop. The door to the roof seemed to be locked at first but upon a closer look, I realised the padlock was hanging halfway down. I removed it from the latch and pushed the door open.

The air on the roof was cold. It seeped into my clothes and rushed into my hair, sending brown tendrils fluttering all around me. The cement floor was dusty but other than that, the place was clean. I could see the dark silhouettes of the trees in Central Park, and the lights of the city glowing the dark. I remembered a quote somewhere that said, New York isn’t a city; it’s a world. And looking at the skyline from here, I could believe it. Anything could happen here. Anything.

I walked over to the ledge, my footsteps slowed down by the wind, which seemed to blow harder and harder the nearer I got to the edge. I leant over and looked down. Cars flew by on the streets below, lit up by each other’s headlights. Just weeks ago, Seymour had been in one of them but now he wasn’t. How did it feel like to be dead, I wonder? What had he feel? Nothing? Everything? Where did he go, now that he was no longer here? Was there a heaven he was now living in?

I glanced up at the skies. If New York is a world, then it is one without stars.