Page 58 of It Must Be Fate

He can’t be.

Part of my tears are because I grew up, but he didn’t. I stand before him as a twenty-four-year-old adult, but he looks back at me as the same ten year old boy I last saw.

The same boy I knew. The same brilliant blond hair, the same easy grin.

This is the second time I’ve seen him since he died. The first was in a dream, when I was eighteen. He came to me and spoke only briefly, yet I cherish that memory more than I do almost any other.

But this isn’t a dream, I know that.

It doesn’t feel like it did last time.

It feels real and that’s instantly more sobering, because if I’m not dreaming him, then how are we here together?

“It’s good to see you,” he says, flashing me his signature crooked grin.

“It’s good to see you too,” I answer, more tears streaming down my face. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“You’re telling me.”

He says it like I shouldn’t be.

I look around me once more. This place looks like home, but it doesn’t feel right. It’s too quiet, the air too still, the colors around us almost muted.

“What are you doing here, ladybug?”

I look back at him, shaking my head gently. “I’m not sure,” I admit. “But this doesn’t feel like a dream.” Piecing together where I was before I woke up here, I ask the next obvious question. “Am I dead?”

I’m holding my breath for his answer, but then he ruffles his hair. He always used to do that when he was thinking through how to answer a complicated question. Seeing him do the same now sends a nostalgic pang to my stomach.

This may not actually be real, but it’s real to me in every way that matters.

“It isn’t a dream,” he confirms. “And you’re not dead. But you’re not amongst the living either.”

I blow out the breath I was holding. So, I was right. This isn’t a dream, this is my very own purgatory.

It all comes back to me, suddenly.

Pushing, the c-section, feeling so beyond weak.

Slipping into a deep sleep, oblivion beckoning to me with bewitching fingers.

Giving in and letting it take me.

The anesthesia explains why I’m having this hallucination. If I’m not dead, then the doctors must be working to save my life as we speak.

Surprisingly, I don’t freak out at the news that I’m dying. That same calm from earlier washes over me.

“I think I understand why I’m here, but why are you?” I ask. “How come I can see you and talk to you?”

He stares at me, his eyes lingering on mine.

“I’m here to take you to the next place, if you’re ready.”

The next place.

In a way, I realize my brain is recreating a modified version of what happened fifteen years ago — ride my bicycle into the street with Astor or fall behind and eventually find my way back to Phoenix.

Follow Astor into the next place and die or go back to Phoenix and live.

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