New Things

Do you feel the slow turning of the world beneath you now? The weight of gravity pulling you down? The molecules in air crashing into your skin? Does it hurt? Life, I mean. Doesn’t it hurt? It looks like it does.

I think it hurts. I think it hurts a lot.

* * *

He called me a firecracker. “Watch out for her,” he had told his best friend, pointing his chin at me. “She’s a firecracker, that one.” He said it was because he had never met anyone else like me, but I don’t know if that was really it. He hated driving, but he would do it if I was in the passenger seat. He was really very sweet before the accident. I don’t remember when we fell in love.

He was probably the one who missed me the most after I died. I never understood why. He was the only one I never left.

* * *

You would think that I remember every detail of that night, but I don’t. Not really. He says that death messes with your memory. I know that it hurt at first, then not so much and then not at all. I remember everyone looking down at me where I lay on the sidewalk. I didn’t like the looks on their faces. I remember waking up in the hospital, looking at my mother. She was crying. He came later and held my hand. I remember dying. Everything was bright, and new and perfect. I don’t remember coming back. I just remember the look on his face when he walked into his apartment and there I was, sitting on the overstuffed chair near the window. He didn’t seem very surprised to see me.

“How long have you been here?” he asked, walking to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out two sodas, tossing one to me.

I caught it artfully, staring down at it curiously. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “It feels like I’ve always been here.”

He shook his head. “Couldn’t be. You just died half an hour ago.”

“Was that what it was?” I questioned lightly. I held up the can of soda. “I’m not thirsty.”

“You have to drink within an hour of coming back,” he told me. “Or else they’ll take you.”

I frowned. “Who will take me?”

He said nothing as he walked into his bedroom.

* * *
He said we had to leave. We couldn’t stay in this city because then someone I used to know might see me, and then where would we be? The new city was large and reminded me of a beehive. All through the train ride there, he kept his eyes on me. He had asked me how I felt. I had told him that I didn’t know. He had seemed disappointed and didn’t speak until we reached the new apartment. Everything had to be new. I didn’t know why. My thoughts were all jumbled up and I could not think straight. I remembered being pushed on a swing when I was five. I remembered seeing my siblings at my mother’s birthday party. I remember watching him sleep. I kept looking up at the sky and wanting to float up, away into blue nothingness. Something was terribly wrong.

“What have you done?” I asked when my thoughts had finally sorted themselves out.

He was standing above the coffee table, glancing down at a newspaper. “What are you talking about?”

I stood and walked over to him. “I’m not supposed to be here. What have you done?”

He brought his head up, looking at me innocently. “Why, I saved you, love. I saved you.”