Before I Wake. Rachel Vincent

front hall. “Hey, Kaylee, we’re so glad you’re back.”

      “Thanks.” I walked faster, but she matched my speed.

      “So, I heard you died. Like, your heart stopped on the operating table.”

      “Only for a few minutes.” I had to concentrate on remaining corporeal, because my desire to disappear had never been so strong.

      “But the news said you were dead. For real. They showed a body bag on a gurney.”

      Chills traveled down my arms in consecutive waves. Knowing I’d died and hearing about it were two completely different things.

      A familiar hazel-eyed gaze met mine from across the hall, and my steps slowed as I passed Nash and Sabine, desperately wishing I could join them. That we could talk, or bicker, or just stand in uncomfortable silence, thinking of everything that had gone wrong between the three of us. Anything to avoid the stares and questions from relative strangers. To escape the crowd following me, a teen-paparazzi mob that felt more like a morbid funeral procession, a month too late.

      But Nash and Sabine only watched as the parade of crazy marched by. I wanted to stop and talk, but I had no idea where to begin. I hadn’t seen Nash since the day I came back from the dead, and “I’m so sorry I dumped you and framed you for my murder” seemed like a really bad way to start a conversation. Or rekindle a friendship. Or ask for forgiveness.

      Either way, Em had said the gossip mob only laid off Nash when everyone heard I was coming back to school, and I couldn’t suck him back into such a brutal spotlight. Not after what I’d already put him through.

      “Kaylee?” Chelsea said, staring at me from inches away, and I was horrified to realize she’d pulled out a pencil and a notepad, and was now taking notes. “The body bag?”

      “That was stock footage and a clerical error.” I finally spotted my own locker through the sea of heads. “I don’t know what else to tell you. The rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated,” I said, misquoting Mark Twain. But though she seemed to believe me—after all, I was walking evidence of my own survival—the questions didn’t stop.

      “Did you see a bright light? Did your life flash before your eyes?”

      “If so, it must have been the shortest, most boring recap in history,” my cousin Sophie said from her locker. But for once, her insult lacked real bite, which was just as well, because no one seemed to notice she’d spoken.

      The crowd parted in front of me as I headed for my locker, several doors down from Sophie’s, but before I could enter the combination, a girl from my French class stepped into my private space, leaning with one shoulder on the locker next to mine. I could tell from the bold combination of curiosity and determination in her eyes that someone had finally found the courage to ask what they all really wanted to know.

      “Is it true that Mr. Beck died in your bed?”

      On my bed. He’d died on my bed, not in it. But I knew better than to answer.

      I’d known this moment was coming, but knowing you’re about to be dunked headfirst into ice-cold water is never enough to prepare you for the shock. And with that one question from the masses, the floodgates opened on all queries personal and inappropriate, and I could only stand there, wishing it all away as voice after voice shouted at me, dissecting my personal trauma and baring my wounds for the world.

      “Why was he in your bed?”

      “Did you really kill him?”

      “Were you sleeping with Mr. Beck?”

      “Is that why Nash dumped you?”

      “Why was Nash arrested?”

      “Why did they let him go?”

      “Was he there that night?”

      “Did he kill Mr. Beck?”

      After all the time and concentration it had taken to reestablish breathing as a habit and convince my heart to beat, my body chose that moment to claim perfect recall of both processes. My heart pounded too hard. Blood rushed through my veins so fast my head swam. Air slid in and out of my lungs so quickly that if I’d had actual need of it, I probably would have passed out.

      Panicked, I glanced at Sophie, desperate for help, but she was edging slowly, silently out of the crowd, probably hoping no one knew she’d been there that night so they couldn’t assault her with the same questions. When I died, her dad had finally been forced to tell her the truth about our family. I wondered how she was handling it, but I couldn’t tell that from watching her back as she fled. I wanted to escape with her, but I couldn’t get through the crowd. I couldn’t even get my locker open, because there wasn’t room.

      There wasn’t room to move, and there wasn’t room to breathe. The world started to close in on me, and the only way I knew to escape was to disappear, and I couldn’t do that. No matter what, I couldn’t disappear in front of fifty fellow students.

      The questions kept coming, but the answers got stuck behind the lump in my throat. They weren’t the real answers, anyway, because I couldn’t tell them what had really happened, because the truth wouldn’t set me free. The truth would get me locked up.

      Distantly, I heard a couple of teachers yelling for order, but it was Emma who finally made it stop. “Back off, vultures!” she shouted, and I exhaled in relief as she pushed her way to the center of the crowd. “She just got out of the hospital. Why don’t you go gossip behind her back, like decent people?”

      I could have kissed her.

      Once Emma had achieved near-silence in the hall, the teachers were able to start herding everyone toward their classes again, and through the crowd, I saw Nash and Sabine heading away from us. Without a word.

      I don’t know what I expected. For all I knew, he might never forgive me, and I couldn’t really blame him.

      “Are you okay?” Coach Tucker, the girls’ softball coach, asked as I finally pulled my locker open.

      “Yeah, I’m fine.” What else could I say?

      “Here.” She pulled out a notepad and started scribbling on it, then ripped the top sheet off and handed it to me. It was a late pass, with my name on it. “Take a few minutes and get yourself together,” she said, already scribbling on a second pass for Emma.

      “Thanks.” But all I could think about was that she’d remembered my name for the first time in nearly three years.

      “I’m so sorry about what happened to you, Kaylee,” Coach Tucker said as she handed Em her pass. “I feel like one of us should have known something was wrong with him. We saw him every day. We talked to him. Ate with him. I’m so sorry we failed you.”

      I didn’t know what to say. The faculty had sent flowers to my house the day after I’d been restored from the dead, but I’d assumed the bouquet was an autoresponse from the secretary. Now I wondered if Coach Tucker had arranged the whole thing.

      “Nobody failed me. I’m fine. Really,” I said, but she didn’t look convinced.

      “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you get readjusted,” she said, and I nodded, then started removing books from my backpack and sliding them into my locker. I wasn’t trying to be rude. I just didn’t know what else to say.

      Finally Coach Tucker left to scold a couple kissing in the hall, and I exhaled slowly.

      “You okay?” Emma asked, leaning against the locker next to mine.

      “Been better. People suck.”

      Em smiled. “Yeah. People do suck.” Her smile died as I stared into my now-empty backpack, trying to remember what I’d been doing. What book I needed.

       Second period. Chemistry. Oh, yeah.

      “So, Thane’s back?” Em said softly as I dropped my chemistry