The Awakening of Sunshine Girl (The Haunting of Sunshine Girl, #2)(3)
That he’s my mentor.
That he’s my father.
That I’m a member of a race of magical-mystical-guardian-angel-types for the entire human species.
Those aren’t exactly the kind of details a girl could just forget willy-nilly. However much she might want to.
“Can we please, please change the subject?” I beg, squeezing the car keys in my hand so hard it hurts. Part of me just wants to go. To hop in the car and drive off before the next spirit is drawn to me. I mean, it may feel good to help the dead find peace, but it can also be quite frightening when someone didn’t die so peacefully and they suddenly appear. Luckily I haven’t had to help any murder victims yet.
“All right,” Nolan acquiesces, leaning against the car beside me. “What do you think of our new visual arts teacher?”
If I could playfully shove him like half the girls across the parking lot are doing with their boyfriends, I would. Not that Nolan is my boyfriend. He’s not exactly not my boyfriend either. I mean, he’s my boy and he’s my friend and he’s really cute (even with that ridiculous hat) and I’d love it if he could be my boyfriend, but we can’t touch each other because every time he gets too close, I get queasy and not in the weak-in-the-knees, good kind of way. Feeling ill every time the boy you like touches you has never been the opening setup to a great romance.
“That’s not really changing the subject,” I joke, smiling just a little bit. Our new visual arts teacher, Mrs. Johnson, is nothing at all like our old one. Victoria Wilde wasn’t even a teacher at all, it turned out. Aidan planted her at Ridgemont High just so she and I could find each other. But now she’s gone, and I don’t know where.
“I should get going,” I say finally, pushing myself off of the car. “I can’t put this off much longer.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Nolan answers, but we both know he’s not talking about driving.
“Plus, if I have to look at that silly hat any longer, I might have a seizure or something.” I grin, glad that I managed to make a joke. Nolan smiles, impervious to my teasing.
I settle into the driver’s seat, checking my mirrors and adjusting my seat even though I already did all of that before I drove to school this morning. I push my sleeves back up over my wrists so my hands are free to grip the steering wheel. The door still open, Nolan leans down to say good-bye.
Looking through my windshield, I see other girls kissing their boyfriends before they drive away. Maybe I’ll have to add that to my list of questions for Aidan, if I can just get my vocal chords to work in his presence next time I see him: Why can’t I kiss the boy I like so much?
No. I will not ask him that. That’s way too personal for a person I barely know, even if he is my birth father. Anyway, I don’t even know whether Nolan wants me to kiss him. He’s never tried to kiss me. But, then again, the past few months since we met haven’t exactly been romantic; in fact, they’ve been terrifying. A high creepiness factor doesn’t really lend itself to lingering stares and heaving bosoms and long walks in the rain across the moors.
Get a grip, Sunshine. You’re a luiseach, not the main character in a Bront? novel.
“Good luck!” Nolan shouts, shutting the door for me.
Right, it’s time to drive. As I shift the car into drive and pull out of the parking lot, Nolan’s tousled sandy hair is visible in my rearview mirror. He must have taken off his hat, and I can’t help but smile. It doesn’t occur to me that this might be the last time I smile for a very long time.
CHAPTER TWO
Emergency
These aren’t nice, pretty, baby flurries. They’re big, fat, wet snowflakes, so heavy that the windshield wipers can barely move across the glass in front of me. The already intimidating drive from Ridgemont High to Mom’s hospital has turned downright treacherous. I inch along at a snail’s pace, which gives me plenty of time to think about the fact that the drive isn’t the only reason I’m not looking forward to picking Mom up. I mean, I’m definitely looking forward to the picking-her-up part; it’s the hospital part I’m not so crazy about.
I never used to be queasy about hospitals. Mom was—is—a neonatal nurse, and when I was a baby, I was a regular at the hospital’s day care back in Austin. Later, when Mom’s schedule was crazy and she couldn’t find a sitter for me after school, sometimes I’d hang out at the nurse’s station, quietly doing my homework. I got used to the sound of sirens and crying babies and even doctors and nurses shouting for aid.
But everything’s different now. The last time I was at this hospital I helped a spirit move on. In fact, it was my very first time helping a spirit move on. But that’s not what’s making me drive even slower than the slowest of cars on the road in front of me; it’s the fact that the last time I was at this hospital was also the day they told me Victoria was dead. Hearing those words was like a punch to the gut, like I’d never catch my breath again.
My thoughts are drowned out by the sound of sirens screaming. Ambulance after ambulance comes careening out of the hospital parking lot, and I’m barely able to pull into a spot before it starts.
It’s just one spirit at first. A young man who died seconds ago, a victim of a multiple-car pile-up on the freeway I just left behind. His name is Matt, and he’s sitting in the passenger seat beside me, his piercing blue eyes unwavering as he stares at me. He died from some sort of major trauma to his torso. I try not to let my gaze drift down to his midsection. I know seeing his wounds will be terrifying, so instead, I stare back into his eyes, which are filled with sadness. His was the car that started it. His bald tires skidded over a slick patch, drifting across the median and into oncoming traffic. I can feel the tremendous guilt saturating his spirit; he won’t know peace until he moves on.