Fear and nervousness gripped me in equal measure. I had no idea when the Reaper would return and what made it worse we had only come up with one, very drastic measure, to potentially stop him.

Memories of what happened to Parker were fresh on the my first day back at school. Even though he was still around as a ghost, I still mourned the human life he had lost. The mood inside the school was sombre. I saw a few of his friends lay some flowers by his locker. I swallowed. His friend Joey stood gazing at the flowers, his shoulders slumped.

“This sucks,” whispered Parker beside me. It wasn’t like anyone but me could have heard him anyway.

I nodded. There was no way I could answer back.

I moved off to the side out of the passage of students walking past the locker to be able to give Parker a side glance.

“You okay?” I whispered.

It had to be tough for him to be able to see his friends in pain and not be able to comfort them in some way.

“I haven’t had a chance to really think about the people and life I leave behind. You know?”

He had never sounded so somber. I glanced at him briefly. The sadness was so intense, I had to stop myself from trying to comfort him. There were too many eyes.

I looked back to Parker’s lock and Joey looked straight at me. Hating any kind of attention I moved back into the path of students hurrying to their class and headed to my first class.

I kept my head down and tried my best to concentrate on school work. There were quite a few absentees and I wondered how many students were seeking counseling after witnessing Parker die in front of the school so suddenly it had taken everyone by surprise.

Lunch time I found a quiet spot outside the doors of the cafeteria. I had been around too much emotion, the auras of the students were more bright and intense before. It made me feel raw and bruised to be around it for most of the morning. It was the first time I had ever experienced something like this and I no idea how to handle it. Escape was my only reprieve from it.

“You okay?” Damien asked.

I had my knees up to my chest as I stared at the grass trying to concentrate on anything but the sorrowful emotion I had been bombarded with.

“Yeah,” I murmured, softly. I let my gaze find his and then I turned my attention to the footsteps that drew near.

Joey was walking in my direction. I looked over my shoulder but there was no one behind me. He was here to talk to me.

He stopped a few feet from me.

I stiffened. Damien on one side of me stood and Parker on the other side of me.

“Hey,” he greeted with his hands in his pockets.

I frowned as I rose to stand, dusting off my jeans. “Hi.”

I didn’t know really know him and had no idea why he had approached me.

“Someone told me you were there when it happened…um…when Parker died.”

I swallowed and nodded slowly.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked softly, his eyes red rimmed.

I felt sympathetic for him. Losing a friend like he had lost Parker, so suddenly and without warning was hard. I didn’t for a second believe hearing how he died would give him the closure he was looking for but I didn’t have the heart to express it to him.

“There wasn’t a lot to see.” I shrugged. “One moment he was standing there and the next minute he collapsed. It was so quick.”

I left out all the details of the reaper and the scythe. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him anyway.

He nodded, still gazing at me. Like he was looking for something more.

“I wish I could give him a message,” Parker whispered beside me.

I didn’t know we could do that without facing questions that would require answers I wasn’t convinced he would believe. If I wasn’t living it, I wouldn’t believe me either.

“It doesn’t make it easier, does it?” he asked. I wasn’t sure if it was a rhetorical question or not.

“Losing someone is never easy, no matter the circumstances.” I had lost my entire family in one accident.

“I heard about your family.” He studied me and I lowered my gaze.

I didn’t want to hear the whispers about what happened to my family or the circumstances of the accident. Or the gossips as to why I was the only who had survived.

“You know what it feels like to lose someone you’re close to.”

I swallowed, hating how his words reopened the wounds from my past.

Parker vanished. He hadn’t been able to hold his form.

“What does this guy want?” Damien muttered, beside me.

“People lose loved ones everyday.” I lifted my attention back to him, refusing to allow the subject of losing my family rehash emotions from the past.

I couldn’t live in the past. That was one thing I had learned from my latest brush with death and the sudden passing of Parker. Life was precious and not to be wasted. I felt like I had wasted so much time warring with Damien over the years. Even now, if I only had a short time left, I didn’t want to spend it mourning and sad over what I had lost. I wanted to hold onto and celebrate all I had gained.

It took all my strength not to look to Damien who was glaring at Joe. “What, does he want to hold hands and sing Kumbaya?”

Joe studied me silently. “Let me know if you remember anything else you might want to share.”

I nodded. Was I being insensitive to his loss? I’d had years to come to terms with what I had lost. He had only lost Parker yesterday.

Joe made a move to walk away but I reached out and grabbed his arm. He halted.

“I’m sorry for your loss Joe. Please accept my sincerest condolences.”

He nodded. I released his arm and then watched him walk away.

Parker reappeared. “I wish I had a chance to say goodbye.” The hoarseness in Parker’s voice reached into my heart and squeezed it tight.

I didn’t know how to do it without making Joe think I was crazy. I couldn’t exactly just go up to him and give him a message from his dead friend. How on earth did I even start that type of conversation?

I had to be careful of the people I let in otherwise I ran the risk of being outed as some sort of crazy. Besides with the whole reaper situation, I didn’t know how long I had left. I glanced at Parker, his expression made me feel worse.

“We’ll work something out,” I whispered softly.

“You can’t do that Tessa,” Damien argued.

I shrugged. “Let’s discuss this later,” I murmured under my breath as I watched Joey disappear back into the cafeteria.

Every little thing set me on edge. The entire school day I waited for the skies to darken and for everything to freeze but it didn’t happen. I hated the waiting, not knowing when the reaper would return.

I was physically and emotionally exhausted when I got home, I went straight to bed and lay there. Staring up at the ceiling.

“You can’t give a message to Joey from Parker,” Damien said, rehashing the same subject again.

I lifted my head to see him across my room.

“Why not?” I asked, even when I knew all the reasons not to.

“It a bad idea. The less people who know about your gifts the better.”

“Gifts?” I sat up.

It was not the word I would use for what I was about o do. Curse would have been the word I would have used. Little good had come from my abilities to see ghosts.

He nodded. “Most people would kill to be able to do what you can.”

“I doubt anyone is lining up to take my place in the current situation,” I sighed. “And what good are they if I can’t do something good with them.”

My eyes found his.

“Like giving Joey the closure he so desperately needs. You saw him today. He needs this.” My heart felt heavy. “Parker needs this too.”