Page 55 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You do.”
She moaned softly. “I don’twantto.”
“I know. But it’s time.”
The sky went red, a fiery shade, and Annie felt her head jerk upwards, as if someone had yanked her hair; she was back to that day at Ruby Pier, looking up at her impending death. She saw a giant cart tilting at the top of Freddy’s Free Fall. She saw riders being frantically pulled to safety. She saw people pointing and covering their mouths. She saw Eddie pushing through them, yelling instructions to clear out, to run. She saw people pushing and shoving in one direction and she saw herself run the other way, to an empty platform, crawling onto it and curling into a ball. She saw her body shaking. She saw herself mumbling, “Ma... Ma... Ma...”
She saw Eddie running towards her, his face contorted. She saw the massive black cart dropping like a bomb. She saw Eddie lunging, arms out. His big hands impacted her chest, pushing her backwards. She fell off the ledge, her bottom first, then the back of her legs, then her heels. Just as she lost contact, she glimpsed Eddie’s body flat on the platform.
The cart crushed him like a boot crushing a bug.
Then something smaller came flying at Annie, so fast there wasn’t time to blink. It chopped her wrist and she screamed louder than she’d ever screamed and hereyes closed and all details vanished, as if that dropping bomb had blown up everything, Annie, Eddie, the day, life itself.
***
“Oh, God, that’s what happened,” Annie groaned, as if waking from a dream. “I remember now. You pushed me. You saved my life. That piece chopped off my hand and I blacked out.”
“Things get pretty clear up here,” Eddie said.
Annie’s mouth fell open and her eyes darted back and forth. She replayed the scene in her head.
“But...”
She let go of Eddie’s grip. Her voice dropped.
“Then I did kill you.”
“A cart killed me.”
“It was my fault.”
“A cable’s fault.”
“I blocked it out.”
“You weren’t ready.”
“For what?”
“The truth.”
“That you died?”
“There’s more to truth than that.”
He stepped away, his work boots squishing the soft ground. “On earth, we get the what of things. The why takes a little longer.”
“No,” Annie insisted. “There was no why! There was just me being where I shouldn’t have been. And people covering it up. Nobody told me. I couldn’t remember, and my mother kept it secret.”
“She was protecting you.”
“From what?”
