Life After Death

Chapter 25

I was handed another slice of pizza with a milkshake this time.

Moira smiled at me, like a mother would smile at her daughter and I was reminded how my mother was fighting with my father back home, and how, maybe, she was having an affair with someone at her work place. My mother, my home, was unraveling. Another thing that was all my fault, another thing that I had to fix.

I had always been a fixer. Even when I was alive—maybe I was a fixer even more now than when I was alive—I had always had a tendency to try and fix something that I thought needed fixing.

My hair when I was ten. I thought it looked better with something long and short. I was wrong about. I had just grabbed the scissor and began to cut out chunks of hair.

Nathaniel's first girlfriend when he was fourteen. Jessica Lancaster. She always wore this ugly bright blue eye shadow that contrasted harshly toward her dark skin. So I had to fix her up. I was right there. Nathaniel actually thanked me for that.

My point is, I couldn't not try and fix the mess that had been created. Whether it was my fault or not.

"So I'm guessing you spoke to Meg?" Moira asked, sitting next to me and helping herself to a slice of chicken pizza.

"I did. And she helped a lot. I was sort of mean to Roman and now I have to apologize. I just have to. Before, you know, I move on..." I slurped up some milkshake, and wiggled my straw about in the thick pink foam.

"I see." Moira nodded. "That's awfully nice of you."

"Its the least I could do considering all he ever did for me." I said, and let out a deep, exaggerated sigh.

"What's wrong?"

"I just don't know how I'm supposed to contact him," I said. "So I can, you know, apologize."

"I see."

"Yeah, so how do you think I could contact him?" I asked, hesitantly.

"Call him. In a way you're bound to death, since you've been with a grim reaper for a long time now." Moira pondered. "So just call out to him and he'll answer. I'm sure of it."

I smiled at her. "Thanks, Moira."

She stood up and ruffled my hair. "Anytime, sweetie. I have to help out that girl. I'll be right back."

I watched as Moira helped a girl with dreadlocks and I thought back to Kassima and smiled unintentionally. I wondered how they were doing. I never even got to say goodbye to Topher before leaving the material realm.

I kind of felt bad for just up and leaving like that.

Then I remembered my promise to Topher on helping him. Damn, I really needed to stop making broken promises. It could get me into serious trouble in the long run.

I stood up and went over to a comfortable booth with my milkshake in hand. Sliding into a booth, I got comfy and was slurping up the milkshake. Wishing I had my phone on me. I would have been surfing Instagram, and Facebook, and Twitter, and Snapchat. I would be FaceTiming with Amy or taking endless selfies only to delete half on them in disgust—I didn't like my forehead. I never knew how many perks being alive had until I was dead.

It was sad how desperate I had become to be alive. I wanted to feel all the things I had been deprived from feeling—my first kiss, sex, and any other thing a normal teenager should have felt at my age.

I thought back to Jack Matthews, and remembered that him and I were in the same boat. Only he was at his Elysium already. Living it up in the afterlife.

I curled up in a ball in the booth, closed my eyes, and fell in a deep sleep.