“Dammit, dammit, dammit!”

I closed my eyes, massaging my temples in a poor attempt to block out Kendall’s curses.  Ever since we came to my room an hour ago, she’d been trying to pop from place to place—in vain, if it wasn’t obvious.  We both knew that it was a waste of time, but neither of us had the strength to call it quits completely.  And I definitely wasn’t going to tell her to give up.  What kind of sister would that make me?

“This can’t be happening,” Kendall muttered.  My eyes opened just in time to see her bring her hands frantically through her hair.  “No.  It’s definitely not happening.  I’m just—I’m just dreaming.”

I bit down the sudden urge to say, “But you’re dead.”  This situation was awful enough without getting pinched.

“But of course I’m not dreaming,” Kendall continued.  “How could I be?  I’m dead.  I’m dead.  Because of that son of a—”

“Kendall!” I exclaimed, cutting her off before she could continue.  Kendall’s eyes snapped over to me, wide and scared.  “When did you become me, exactly?”

Kendall snorted.  “Great,” she drawled, some of her old dry humor falling back into place.  “Stress has brought me down to your level.”

“Hey!” I hissed.  “Down to my level?  What is that supposed to mean?”

My sister’s lips tilted upward.  “Oh don’t get your panties in a twist, Mrs. B-Student.”

I gasped as though she’d wounded me.  Which, she kinda had—bringing in my grades was a low blow.  Low blow.  “My panties are not in a twist, you irk,” I retorted. 

“Oh, Isabel,” Kendall murmured with a soft laugh.  The humor in her tone and expression disappeared suddenly as she let out a sigh.  “This is really happening.”

I bit my lip, nodding slightly.  I wanted to say something—anything, really—but there didn’t seem to be anything appropriate to say.  What was I supposed to say?  Yes, you can’t appear and disappear at will anymore—sorry?  Nothing seemed right.

So I didn’t say anything.  I just got up from my bed and wrapped my arms around her, hugging her tightly.  Kendall stood stock still, her arms outstretched as though she didn’t really know what to do with them.  After a moment, she hugged me back, her arms loosely wrapping around me.

“What are you doing?”

Kendall and I sprang away from each other as I spun around in shock.  My dad stood in the doorway, a puzzled expression on his face as he watched me get over my surprise.  “Dad!” I practically shrieked.  “I didn’t hear you come upstairs—how long have you been there, exactly?”

 “Long enough to see you hugging the air,” my dad said, his bewildered expression remaining.  “Are you all right?”

I forced myself to keep my eyes off Kendall as I replied, “Yeah.  I was just…uh—hugging myself for a job well done on a book report.”

As though to prove to my dad that I was, in fact, hugging myself, I wrapped my arms around myself and squeezed tightly, a false, bright smile on my face as I did so.  I could hear Kendall snickering from behind me, and I had to fight the urge to turn around and slap her upside the head.  I’d like to see her explain hugging air to a parent.  It wasn’t exactly easy.

“Ah,” my dad said slowly.  “Okay.  Well, I just came in to tell you that I don’t have to go in to the office tomorrow morning, so I’ll be bringing you to school.”

My arms fell away from me as the instant shock ran through me.  The only thing I could think was: Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.  The words repeated over and over again within my brain.  Honestly, I had no idea how long I stood there gaping like a fish at my dad with what I hoped was not a horrified expression on my face.

“Isabel?” my dad asked, the confusion beginning to creep back into his face.  “Is there something wrong?”

“Oh, I—no.”  I smiled.  “It’s just—uh—I’ve been getting a ride from Elijah, with Diana.  So, um, I don’t really need a ride.”

Please just take the excuse, I mentally begged.  Please—

“Your mother told me,” my dad said with a nod.  He gave me a small grin.  “In all honesty, I was a little shocked to hear it.  I thought Elijah was too young to drive.”

My eyebrows rose.  “Dad, he’s in my grade.”

“Yes, well, I thought he was just advanced for his age.”  My dad shook his head, the smile remaining.  “You have to admit, he does look very young.”

Well, I couldn’t exactly disagree.

“That’s true.”  I sighed.  “But he is driving, so I don’t really need a ride.  But thank you!”

I thought this conversation would be over when I informed my dad that he didn’t need to drive me to the school I was no longer attending, but apparently my dad had a different plan in mind.  “Well, I don’t get the mornings off very often, and I haven’t driven you to school in such a long time.”  My dad gave me one of his please-just-agree-with-me smiles that he always gave when he wanted something.  “I think it would be fun.  What do you say?  You can ride with Elijah and Diana on Thursday.”

It became quite apparent that there was no way for me to win this battle.  No matter how imperative it was that I did win, there was no escape from this.  If I didn’t say yes, my dad would get agitated—and my parents agitated were never pleasant.  However, if I didn’t say no…

Well, wasn’t this just great?

“Okay,” I said finally, resisting the urge to sigh exasperatedly.  It was rather difficult, but I managed.  “Sounds great.”

My dad’s smile broadened.  “Superb!”

When Kendall cleared her throat—a sheer sign that she thought my decision was incredibly stupid—a sudden thought popped into my head.  “Oh!  Um, Dad, could you please drop me off early tomorrow?  I, uh, have to ask a teacher for help on something.”

I knew I’d made a mistake even before I heard Kendall slap a hand to her head.  Saying I needed to ask a teacher for help was like signing my death certificate.  They were now going to think I was struggling and would be harping on me non-stop for the rest of my high school career.

Oops.

“Help?”  My dad frowned, and I sensed a fatherly speech on its way.  “Isabel, are you having a problem in one of your classes?”

“No!” I exclaimed quickly, waving my hands dismissively—another wrong move, but there was no taking it back now.  “I was just doing some extra credit to bring up that 93, and I wanted to make sure I understood the instructions fully before starting the assignment.”

Kendall snorted.  “Suck up,” she teased.

Shut up, I retorted mentally.

“Oh!”  My dad’s smile returned.  “It’s great that you’re working hard, Isabel!  All right, I’ll bring you in early.”

“Thank you,” I said.  Honestly, I just wished he would leave already.  Pretending to smile this much was beginning to make my mouth muscles ache. 

“You’re welcome.”

With that, my dad finally left the room.  As my door shut behind him, I collapsed onto my bed and brought my hands over my eyes, letting out an aggravated groan.  What were we going to do?  If we were late for school tomorrow, then that could result in the school calling our houses.  And if the school called our houses, this entire plan would be ruined.  It was already going badly—we didn’t need it being destroyed, as well.

“Iz,” Kendall said.

I let my hands fall, meeting Kendall’s gaze.  “What?” I asked.

“Might I remind you that you don’t attend Willow High anymore?”

I scowled.  “I’m aware.  But what exactly was I supposed to say?  Dad isn’t exactly used to not getting his way.”

“True, but how are we supposed to get to Gardner if we get dropped off at your old school?” Kendall demanded.

“I’ll figure something out,” I assured her.  I decided to keep the “hopefully” to myself.

∞

As it turned out, figuring our way around this hiccup in the plan wasn’t all that difficult.  All I had to do was ride with my dad to my old school, walk into the school building, wait a few seconds, and then walk right back out.  My dad always waited for me to get into the building before leaving—which was inconvenient at this moment, but not something that was impossible to deal with—so that was why I had to make the effort and actually walk all the way inside just to come back out.  Elijah told me he’d be parked right outside with Diana, so we could get out of there as soon as possible.  We could only hope that we didn’t run into my dad on the road.  That would be hard to explain.

I went over the plan again within my head as my dad, Kendall, and I sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast.  Well, my dad and I were eating breakfast, anyway.

“Is it just me or does Dad have a really hard time getting his cereal into his mouth?” Kendall mused in a bored voice. 

I folded my lips together to keep from laughing as I nodded as discreetly as I could.  Over the years, I’d noticed the same thing.  My dad always read the morning paper while eating, and he became so entranced with all the horrible things going on in the world that he almost always lost at least half the cereal he initially scooped with his spoon.

“We should probably get going,” Kendall continued.  “Just so you know.”

My eyes drifted over to the clock on the oven and I almost let out a gasp.  “Dad,” I said hurriedly, hopping up from my seat and scrambling to empty my bowl.  As I set it as gently as I could in the sink, I continued with a quick, “We need to get going.  I’m going to be late.”

My dad glanced at the clock before nodding.  “Oh yes!” he said.  “Sorry, honey, I was just so interested in…”

I blocked out my dad’s babble about world events as I headed into the living room to grab my bad.  Kendall followed me, her arms crossed over her chest.  She had her lips pursed, and I knew that she was just itching to pop outside and wait by the car.  I felt my stomach tighten as I thought about how awful this must have been for her.  How awful and frightening.

Kendall caught my expression and gave me a tiny smile.  “I’m fine,” she said.

I didn’t believe her, but I didn’t argue her on it either.  Instead, I looked over at my dad as he entered the room and followed him toward the front door, Kendall trailing behind.

My dad hummed under his breath as he padded down the porch steps and headed over to our silver SUV parked in the driveway.  I paused before shutting the door behind me, giving Kendall enough time to walk by before closing it.  While I was sure that she could walk through the door if she had to, I also knew that she didn’t exactly like to.  And from the thankful expression on Kendall’s face as I closed the door behind us, I could tell I’d made the right decision.

“So everything is going all right at school?” my dad asked as he rounded the car.  I watched as he opened his door and hopped in, slamming the door behind him.

I glanced at Kendall before opening my door and gesturing discreetly for her to get in.  Kendall tossed another grateful glance and complied.  “Yes,” I replied, hoping my dad wouldn’t question the length of time it was taking me to get in the car.  I tried to hide it by taking my bag off my shoulders and fiddling with the zipper.  For the most part, it seemed to work.

After Kendall was in the back, I hopped into the car and shut the door behind me.  I could feel my dad’s stare as I buckled my seat, but I tried to ignore it.  How long was he going to keep looking at me like I was an insect under a microscope?  I wasn’t acting that odd.  Right?

Well, if I didn’t consider “hugging air” odd, then sure.

“Good,” my dad said finally.  “You ready to go?”

I nodded.  “Yep!”

My dad smiled.  “All right then!  Let’s go.”

“Yes,” Kendall said with a sarcastic cheerfulness that almost made me snicker, “let’s.”

∞

“Have a good day, Isabel.”

I met my dad’s gaze and forced on a smile.  “You too, Dad,” I said.

With that, I unbuckled and hopped out of the car, thankful for the fact that putting on my backpack gave me a valid excuse for not shutting the door right away.  Kendall hopped out quickly enough, so I wasn’t left to look ridiculous whilst standing in front of an open door and doing nothing.  The second her feet hit the cement, I grabbed onto the door and slammed it shut, making sure to wave to my dad before spinning around and speed-walking toward the building.  Kendall didn’t follow, just stayed where she was with her arms crossed loosely over her chest.  Last night she’d proclaimed that she wasn’t going to waste the energy walking to the building and back when she didn’t have to (“As you just adore pointing out, I’m dead—so there’s no point.”).

I sighed deeply as I hurried toward the building.  The car ride over here had been almost as awkward as that time at dinner when Diana just found out that I wasn’t delusional and that Kendall’s ghost actually existed.  It was worse, really, because not only did I have to pretend that Kendall wasn’t there, but I also had to answer a bunch of questions that were becoming increasingly tougher to answer.  How was I supposed to know how my class with Mr. Carter or Mrs. Walsh was going?  I didn’t have a class with them anymore.  So how was I supposed to discuss what I learned last class and what I was supposed to learn today?  How was I supposed to know when the next test was going to be?

I was just glad that I was finally out of there before I suffocated.

It would be easier if my parents liked to talk about things other than school.  But nowadays it felt like that was all they really cared about.

I reached the building and pulled the door open, walking inside and stopping for just a moment to look around.  The building felt so familiar that for a moment I almost forgot I wasn’t still attending.  I almost smiled when I caught sight of students I actually knew the names of and had been to classes with since middle school.  Though I wasn’t friends with any of them, it was nice to see some familiarity again.

After a moment of two, I pushed the doors open again and stepped back outside.  I found Kendall in the spot I’d left her in, her arms still crossed over her chest as she stared at the building’s general direction.  I didn’t hesitate before rushing over to her.  “There,” I said, giving her a breathless smile.  “That wasn’t so hard.  Now all we have to do is find Diana and Elijah.”

“Let’s just hope you make it in time for first period,” Kendall said unhelpfully.  “If you’re late—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.  But I refuse to worry about that right now because I was already stressed out enough in the car.”

Kendall grinned.  “You did pretty well.”

“Thank you.”  I paused, taking a moment to glance around.  “Now where are they?”

Kendall pointed to a car that looked like Elijah’s, which was parked in the parking lot.  “There.”

We walked over to Elijah’s car in silence.  As we got closer, I could see Diana in the passenger seat, her arms waving around as she spoke about something or other.  From the exasperated expression on Elijah’s face, I could only guess that she was making fun of him.  Which, seeing how she was Diana and he was Elijah, it wasn’t that far-fetched of a guess.

“Finally,” Elijah grumbled as I followed Kendall into the car.  “I thought I was going to die if I had to listen to her talk for two more seconds.”

“I can still talk even though she’s in the car, dumbass,” Diana said, shaking her head.  She glanced back at me, her eyes wide.  “This was such a close call, holy crap.”

“I know,” I agreed with a nod.  And I did.  All night, I’d mentally gone over every little thing that could possibly go wrong from here on out.  Sure, right now my dad had only asked to drive me to school.  But what else could happen?  What other road blocks could we hit along the way?

“Did he even suspect at all?” Diana asked.

“Well, not really.” I shrugged.  “He does think I’m acting a little odd, but I’ll worry about that later.”

“Why don’t you hug yourself to make you feel better?” Kendall suggested.  “I mean, you hug yourself for book reports, so why not?”

I slapped her playfully.  “Shut up, Kendall!” I exclaimed. 

Diana laughed, while Elijah sighed and started the car.  “You know what I think?” she mused, twirling her finger through her hair.

“What?”

Diana broke into a huge grin.  “I think we are awesome.”

“You couldn’t have thought of a better adjective?”  Elijah rolled his eyes.  “Damn, Diana.”

“What?” Diana demanded defensively.  “Barney says 'awesome' all the time—so obviously ‘awesome’ is a perfectly good word.”

“There are better ways to describe us.”

“Oh yeah, Eli?  What word would you use?”

“Kickass.”

“How about I kick you in the ass?” 

Elijah didn’t reply, just swerved the car so abruptly that Diana whacked her head against the window. 

“Dammit, Eli!” Diana shrieked.  “You could seriously hurt someone by doing that, you idiot.”

Elijah shrugged.  “I didn’t feel a thing.”

I laughed along with Kendall as we pulled out onto the street and headed down the street.

Only them.