After taking Charlotte home, I sit in the car, unwilling to go in the house. There’s still quite a bit of time until dinner, and I don’t feel like answering an inquisition from Mom about Charlotte and hearing her gush about the upcoming shopping trip, the dance, how much fun I’m going to have, and how proud she is of me for agreeing to go.
I don’t think I can get up to my room unnoticed—again, creaky stairs—so I decide doing my homework up in the tree house is my best option. The hinges on the old door squeal in protest as I push open the hatch for the first time in months.
I sneeze from the dust that has settled and shiver as I look around the empty room, but it’s not from the cold. It’s the memories of this tree house that make me shudder. When I was young, this place was my fortress. I was a princess and the tree house my castle. It was huge and magical—a world of endless possibility.
Now it seems so small and haunting. I’d experienced so much happiness, so much friendship, excitement, and love in here with my two best friends. Now all those feelings are nothing but memories—dreams as dusty as the old, faded wood the tree house is made of.
“You haven’t been up here in months.”
Spencer’s voice doesn’t startle me. If ever I’m going to conjure up a hallucination of my dead soul mate, it would be in our secret, special place.
I wait to make sure there’s no moisture in my eyes before I turn to face him. I don’t want him to see anything on my face except for the joy his presence—even imagined—brings. Our time together shouldn’t be filled with sadness.
When I turn around, my smile becomes genuine. I can’t help it. I know he’s not real, but my memory is vivid, and I see him in perfect clarity. Every detail is correct down to the last freckle. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. “A lot of memories to deal with up here,” I whisper.
He scans the small space and eyes the pile of blankets we kept up here for the nights he spent talking to me through my window. His walkie-talkie is still sitting in the windowsill. “The most amazing memories,” he says with a grin that’s almost naughty but not quite.
I can’t quite accomplish his playfulness. “Those are always the hardest memories to face.” I reach for him, and my hand passes through his. My heart slumps a little. “I like the dreams better. I miss being able to touch you.”
Spencer’s smile falters, making me feel bad for bringing down the mood. He motions for me to sit on the blankets. I take up my old spot and smooth out the blanket next to me, readying a spot for Spencer to join me even though he doesn’t really need a cushion to sit on. He settles down next to me, leaving an inch or so of space between us. We’re so close, and yet he’s impossibly out of my reach.
He studies my face with such longing in his eyes that my heart aches nearly as bad as it did the night I watched him die. His hand hovers above my cheek, unable to make contact. “More than anything, I wish I could kiss you one last time,” he murmurs, voice trembling. “I didn’t say good-bye to you that night. I didn’t tell you I loved you.”
“I knew,” I promise. My eyes fill with moisture. “Since that very first kiss, I’ve never doubted your love, Spencer. Not once.”
Spencer’s hand drops to his lap, but his face lights up again into his beautiful smile. “I hope so. I only said it a million times a day.”
I laugh. That was another Guinness record he was going for—saying “I love you” to one person more than anyone else in the world.
Spencer closes his eyes and lets his head fall back against the side of the tree house. It doesn’t quite rest against the boards as it would if it were solid. A serene smile washes over him, and he pulls a deep breath into his lungs. “I’ve missed the sound of your laugh. I’m glad you’ve found it again. I really like Charlotte. She seems to bring out the old you. You’ve smiled more today than you have all year.”
It’s strange talking about the new friend in my life with Spencer, but I suppose it makes sense. I’ve been thinking that same thing since I dropped her off at her house, and Spencer is a manifestation of my subconscious thoughts, after all. Of course he’s voicing the things weighing on my mind.
“I’m glad you’re going to the dance, too. I was hoping you would. I really think you’ll have a good time. I think you should take a date, though.”
My knees, which had been pulled up into my chest, slide forward as I bolt to an upright sit. “Wait. You want me to go to the dance?”
Spencer cuts me a glance. His mouth pulls into a crooked smile, as if he thinks I’m being ridiculous. “Of course I do. I stood you up last year, remember?”
I choke on the audacity of his statement. “You had a good excuse.”
Lifting one shoulder into a shrug, Spencer arches an eyebrow at me. “You still missed the dance because of me. I don’t want you to miss this one because of me, too. I want you to go and have fun, Bailey. Enjoy a night out with your friends. Laugh and smile…win a crown so that I can brag to all my new buddies on the other side that I snagged the homecoming queen in my former life.”
I reach out to shove Spencer, forgetting that I can’t touch him. When my hand meets no resistance, I lose my balance and fall to the side. It’s an awkward angle, and I can’t catch myself. My elbow smacks into the floor, hitting my funny bone in just the perfect way to send stinging pain up my arm and forcing me to burst into hysterical giggles.
Spencer tries to hold back from laughing for my sake, but he can’t stop his chest from shaking. When I meet his twinkling eyes, he finally explodes into a roar of laughter.
“It’s not funny!” I whine, rubbing my elbow. But the giggles in my voice say otherwise.
Spencer calms himself, wiping invisible tears from his eyes. “You’re laughing again.” His laughter evolves into a dreamy smile. “How many times is that today? Four? Five? Talking to Charlotte was good for you. The dance will be, too.”
“Okay,” I admit. I do feel a little lighter this evening than I have in a long time. “Maybe going with Charlotte won’t be so bad.”
“I think you should go with a date.”
“What?” I giggle, thinking he’s being a comedian again, but he’s not laughing. All the play in my voice evaporates. “You can’t be serious.”
“A girl like you isn’t meant to go stag.”
“Oh, what, so you think I should say yes to Chase, then? Let him be my king in your place?”
“Chase Lansing?” Spencer snorts. “Bay, if you ever hook up with that tool, I’ll haunt you.”
“You’re already haunting me, smarty pants, and I hate to break it to you, but Chase is probably the only guy in school still without a date.”
“You should ask Wes.”
My mouth falls slightly open and I gape at him, unable to form any kind of reply.
He made the suggestion lightly, but I know he’s serious because he’s turned his face away from me. Feeling my gaze on him, Spencer peeks up at me in a series of fleeting glances from beneath a fan of auburn lashes.
“Wes?” I screech. “You think I should ask Wes to homecoming? Are you kidding me?”
My anger makes him defensive. His face falls into a deep frown, and he pulls his shoulders back, puffing his chest out in determination. “Why not? He’s a better guy than Chase Lansing, and you have a lot in common. You could have fun together, maybe even be good for each other.”
His request, though meant with love, hurts deeply. He wants me to move on. He wants me to give my heart to someone else. And not just anyone, but his best friend. He’s gone, and he’s trying to pawn me off on his best friend like I’m one of his precious football trading cards. How could he want that?
I shake my head, refusing to listen to anymore. This isn’t right. Spencer’s just an illusion. He’s a manifestation of my own subconscious, and I can’t possibly want that. I can’t even consider the idea, because that would be the worst kind of betrayal. And it would bring up questions I’ve been refusing to answer since the night Spencer died.
“No. That’s crazy. He doesn’t even like me. He’s hated me since the day I asked you to be my boyfriend.”
Spencer rakes a hand through his hair, unsure how to argue with me when he can’t deny the strained relationship Wes and I had. “Things were…complicated with the three of us,” he admits. I scoff at the understatement. “But Wes never meant to hurt you. I know he didn’t. Give him a chance, Bailey. Trust me. Ask him to the dance, and just see what happens.”
The image of Wes in the school hallway flashes into my mind. I can feel his arms around me, smell him, hear his low, steady voice as he asks if I’m okay. I hate that part of me really wants to go with him. A really big part. I can’t deal with this anymore. “I am not asking Wes to homecoming. No way. This discussion is over.”
I let out a startled yelp as Julia pokes her head up into the tree house. “Wes Delaney?” she asks. “He is so hot. I would die to go to homecoming with him, even if he did spend the last year in juvie.”
I was going to ask her what she’s doing here, but her question distracts me. “Juvie?”
Nodding, Julia wipes her index finger along the floor of the tree house and scrunches up her face in disgust at the dust. It’s not until her gaze roams the entire room that I realize Spencer is gone.
“That’s the reigning theory at school,” Julia says. “Everyone thinks Wes joined a gang after the accident and spent the last year in the slammer. Now he has to homeschool so he can still graduate when he’s eighteen.”
That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Well, the second most ridiculous. The first being that I should ask Wes to the homecoming dance. “What does everyone think he was in for?”
“Drugs, assault, stealing cars…” Julia shrugs. “Who knows, and who cares? Did you see him yesterday? He totally has that hardened, sexy, dangerous, bad-boy look going for him now, and it works. He is seriously yum on a stick.”
I blink. Yum on a stick? My sister is insane.
“You do know that you were crazy for dating Spencer instead of him, right?”
I glare at her, and she rolls her eyes. For the first time since she came up here, she realizes I’m alone and asks, “Who were you talking to?”
I scramble for a lie and try to mingle some truth into it so that it sounds legit. “Liz. She’s determined to make me go to homecoming with a date.”
She eyes my empty hands with a scowl. “Liz, huh? Where’s your phone?”
She looks so unconvinced that I wonder if she already knows my cell phone is charging on the kitchen counter right now. She waits for an answer, but there’s no way I am explaining my hallucinations to her. She already thinks I’m psychotic as it is. She’d rat me out to Mom and Dad, and then I’d get locked up in the crazy house. I decide to ignore the question entirely. “What do you want?”
The change of subject makes her angry, but I don’t care because she stops harassing me about my one-sided conversation. “Dad got home early,” she snaps. “He has to leave town tomorrow for a week, so we’re all going to dinner. Mom sent me up here to get you.” She starts to climb down the ladder, but before she disappears, she glares at me one more time and adds, “I heard them talking about starting you back on regular appointments with the shrink, so if I were you, I’d stop having conversations with yourself.”