Life After Theft
Page 60

I think chick flicks have superpowers. Really. They’re so boring that I theorize supersleep waves actually come rolling out of the television screen when you watch them. Because I know the movie didn’t get over any later than eight o’clock and by the time the credits rolled, I was out. Like out, out. I didn’t wake up until the next morning at six a.m.
With Kimberlee in my face, shouting. Not her usual mad shouting, but wild, crazy, panicked shouting.
“It didn’t work. Jeff, wake up! It didn’t work. I’ve been watching the minutes click by and nothing. Nothing!”
She continued ranting as I attempted to sit up. It felt like every bone in my back was out of alignment and my neck couldn’t turn more than about forty-five degrees to the left. My mouth tasted dry and sour after eating so much ice cream before falling asleep, but I managed to make it work and mumbled, “Wait a sec; I don’t get it.”
“I’m still here!” she shrieked, sounding much more like her normal, angry self.
“I can see that,” I said, shaking my head. It was starting to unfog and behind the fog lurked a sense of unease. This was not what I had planned.
I finally managed to stagger to my feet—still wearing my full uniform, including tie, mind you—and rubbed one eye, then the other as I looked at the clock and then at the window, where weak sunlight was starting to light the edge of the sky.
Kimberlee was silent—for once—and stared at me with an empty, hollow look in her eyes. “I’m not gone,” she finally said, voice trembling.
I let out a big breath. “No, you’re definitely not.” I walked over and sat on the edge of my bed. “Maybe . . . maybe it takes longer.”
But Kimberlee only shook her head. “I should have been gone yesterday, or at least by midnight.” She dropped onto the bed beside me and tears, real tears—I could tell by now—streaked down her face. “I’m stuck,” she whispered shakily. “It’s been over a year and I’ve done everything I can think of, and now I’m stuck.”
“You’re not stuck,” I said with very little conviction. “Ghosts don’t just get stuck.” But really, what did I know? I hadn’t even believed in ghosts until I met Kimberlee. The doubt I couldn’t keep out of my voice shattered whatever hope she’d been holding on to. Her chin dropped to her chest and her shoulders curled in as sobs shook her whole body.
“Kim,” I said softly. “Don’t—”
“I hate this,” she said, her voice a little muffled. “I hate everything about my life. My unlife, what-the-hell-ever! It’s torture every day and I’m so tired.”
“It’s not that bad,” I said, wishing I could pat her shoulder or something.
She looked up and pushed her hair away. “No, you don’t understand. I’m a nutcase. I’m a serious, lock-me-in-a-padded-room klepto and being a ghost is killing me.”
For a second I thought I’d misunderstood. “Wait, you’re pissed because you can’t steal?” The look on her face was answer enough. “Kimberlee!”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I thought dying would make everything easier.”
What? “You thought dying would make everything easier? You told me you got caught in a riptide!”
“I did. I didn’t commit suicide, okay? Chill.” She was silent for a long moment, but tears continued trailing their way down her face. “But I thought about it,” she confessed in a whisper. “I was down at our beach, my parents were gone—as always—and I was superdepressed. I stole, like, six things that day trying to feel better and nothing was working. And I . . . I considered it. Who hasn’t?”
I shrugged rather than answering. But thinking and doing are two very different things.
“It was sunny, but the water was freezing and I went out anyway. I was out way too deep in the water by myself—me, the water, and my chattering teeth. And I may have been a little drunk, so I wasn’t thinking very clearly. And I laid back floating with this little noodle thing, and I looked at the sky and wished I could just float out into the ocean and die.”
I checked my spider senses, but they didn’t seem to be tingling. I cautiously concluded that she was telling the truth. For now.
“So I . . . I had a good cry and started swimming in. And I noticed I was out farther than I thought and I tried to fight the stupid current—which you’re not supposed to do—and after a while I was so cold and tired I couldn’t hold on to the noodle anymore and I sank.” She looked up at me, her eyes wet. “And it turns out that all of your problems are actually worse when you’re dead. Stealing included.”
“But you couldn’t steal stuff anymore. Wasn’t that better?”
“I wish,” she said. “Cold-turkey withdrawals are a bitch. I couldn’t touch anything. The first few months were hell. No, really,” she said, turning to me for a second. “I thought I was in hell. Everything in me screamed out to grab things, to take things, and I. Just. Couldn’t. And it hurt. I spent so much time yelling and screaming and cursing God, and Buddha, and Allah, and anyone else who might have made me a ghost. But it was no use.” She gestured to herself. “Obviously.”
“Did the urges finally wear off?”
She shrugged noncommittally. “Yes and no. I mean, I found ways to deal with it—I had no choice—but it’s like being an alcoholic or a chain-smoker or something. You can quit, but you never lose that urge, especially when you’re around the good stuff. And I’m around stuff all the time. The best I can do is distract myself with other things. I can go wherever I want and listen to private conversations. Spy on private moments. Sometimes stealing people’s privacy feels almost as good as taking their stuff. But it’s not . . . it’s not the same. And it’s—” She paused for a second to take a few breaths and get a hold of her emotions. “It’s just so damn hard.”