Rush The Game

murky lake, hearing the words through water. I lose track of their conversation, then the girl says, “. . . didn’t make it back . . .”
    “. . . selfish jerk . . . ,” the boy answers. “Put all of us at risk so many times. Hanging back and stealing the hit points . . . all he cared about was himself and getting out. . . .”
    “Doesn’t mean he deserved to . . .”
    “He put you at risk. As far as I’m concerned, that means he deserved . . .”
    The girl’s voice changes, becomes softer. “. . . Ty . . .”
    The conversation fades until all I can hear is my own heartbeat. I focus on that, only that. But there’s something about my heartbeat, something I should know. My thoughts are sludgy. I try to sift through the mess. I’m—
    In a sickening burst, I remember. The little girl. The truck. The blood. That’s why the grass feels wrong. Because last thing I remember I was lying in the road.
    —I’m dead.
    My eyes snap open again. With a gasp I try to push upright, but there’s a hand flat on the middle of my chest, holding me down.
    “I told you to wait. Lie still.” This voice I recognize. It’s the boy, the voice in my head. Except now he’s not in my head. He’s hunkered down next to me with the heel of his palm on my breastbone and his fingers splayed toward my throat.
    “Is this heaven?” The words slide free before I can think them through. I wish I could call them back.
    “Hardly.” He sounds amused.
    My gaze lifts to his face. Whatever I mean to say shrivels on my lips and all I can do is stare.
    Of all the things I ought to notice at this precise moment, his appearance should be the last on my list. But I notice anyway. Not because he’s beautiful, though he definitely is that. He’s about my age, with the sort of wide-shouldered, lean build that makes girls look. His hair is light brown, shot with gold and honey, worn in long, messy layers that fall to frame high, chiseled cheekbones. But the part I most want to see—his eyes—are hidden by mirrored, old-school aviator sunglasses.
    That’s why I stare. Because of those glasses. I’m afraid they aren’t real, that none of this is real.
    I remember Carly’s description of the hot new guy and his aviator shades, just like the ones this boy is wearing. I shiver. What if I’m not here, lying on the ground under a too-blue sky? What if I’m unconscious in a hospital bed attached to tubes and wires and all of this is conjured by my imagination and wispy memories of Carly’s words?
    “It’s real,” he says, his tone flat. I watch his mouth shape the words. He has beautiful lips, the lower slightly fuller than the upper.
    “What—” The word comes out as a croak. I roll my lips inward and swipe them with my tongue, then try again. “You can read my mind?” Not a possibility I’d normally even consider, but today’s shaping up to be a day that’s anything but normal.
    He smiles, a faint curve of his lips that reveals the barest hint of a long dimple carved in his right cheek. “No, but I can read your expression. And I’ve been doing this long enough that I know what most people tend to think when they first open their eyes.”
    “Doing what long enough?”
    “This,” he says, and nothing more.
    A second of silence stretches into two. Though I can’t see behind his glasses, I have the feeling he’s not looking at me anymore, that he’s scanning the area, looking for . . . something. But as I stare at him, I see me—tiny distorted reflections of me in the shiny, convex lenses. He leans a little closer and my image sharpens, my skin too pale, my hair too dark. The contrast makes me look like a goth.
    This time he smiles with a flash of white teeth, and the dimple carves a little deeper. “A goth,” he echoes.
    “I said that out loud.”
    “Yeah. Happens to all the new arrivals. Hard to separate thought from speech at first.” He tips his head a bit to the side, studying me. “It’ll pass.”
    “I heard you,” I whisper.
    “That’s a good thing. Your hearing’s fine.”
    “No, I mean I heard you earlier, inside my head.”
    “Did you now?” He doesn’t sound surprised, or even curious.
    I wait, and when he doesn’t say anything more, I sift through the bunch of questions that are clamoring for release and pick the simplest one. “Where am I?”
    “The lobby.”
    I glance around at the wide patch of long grass bounded by trees. “Lobbies have marble tiles.”
    “Not