Proposal (The Mediator, #6.5)(4)

Well, except the ones I’m too late to help, like Jasmin. And Mark.

“Look,” I said to him, as he continued to stare at me in disbelief. Sometimes it takes a while for it to sink in to spirits, especially young ones, that they’re dead, and how they died—-even when they’re the ones responsible for said death. “What’s done is done. You can’t go back and change it. You can only move forward. Jasmin has, which is why she isn’t here. And now it’s time for you to move forward, too, Mark.”

“M--move forward?” He looked confused.

“Yes. To your next life, the afterlife, heaven, hell, whatever.” I didn’t want to get too technical about it because I don’t really know where spirits go after I encourage them to step into the light. All I have to do is get them there. “You can’t hang around here, though, taking out your anger issues on Jasmin’s grave. That isn’t healthy for anyone, especially you.”

“I’m not talking about anyone. I’m talking about that * Zack Farhat. He keeps coming and putting flowers on Jasmin’s grave, which isn’t right, because—-”

“Sure,” I said, still using my fake soothing tone. “The thing is, Mark, the sooner you start letting things like this Zack guy go, the sooner you can be with her.”

I was completely lying. I didn’t think for one minute that Mark was going to get to be with Jasmin in his next life—-or wherever he was going—-after what he’d done to her. But lying to him seemed like the quickest way to get the job over with. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Yes, it does,” he said. “It does matter. Why do you keep saying it doesn’t matter? And why do you keep saying I killed Jasmin. I didn’t.”

The temperature had begun to drop—-which was odd, since I’d checked the weather on my phone before coming out, and it had said we were in for a warm front. This should have been my first clue, but I missed it. Of course I missed it. I was so angry over what he’d done, I’d let my emotions cloud my common sense.

“I’m saying those things don’t matter, Mark. They don’t because you and Jasmin are dead. You both died instantly when you slammed your car into the side of that cliff out by Rocky Creek Bridge last week. Remember? You should. You were the one who was driving.”

It was at that exact moment that the wind picked up, and the fog began to swirl around us, along with some of the stray petals from the floral arrangement Mark had destroyed.

But even then, I didn’t realize what was happening.

“That isn’t how it happened at all!” Mark thundered. “I would never do that! I would never hurt Jasmin. I told you, I loved her!”

“Yeah, we all know how much you loved her, Mark.” I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on the signals then. But he’d really pissed me off. Murderers have a tendency to do that. “I know you proposed in the restaurant—-all the servers saw you get down on one knee and present her with your grandmother’s ring. They said it was incredibly sweet. But in the car, something happened, didn’t it? It must have, because no one could find the ring in the wreckage. It wasn’t on Jasmin’s finger, and it wasn’t in its velvet box anymore, either. What happened to it, Mark? Did you two have a fight coming home? Did she change her mind, and toss it out the window? Is that why you slammed your car into that cliff?”

His face had gone bloodless—-as bloodless as it was possible for a ghost to look. That was all the encouragement I needed to go on, even though it was the worst thing I could have done.

But it was cold, and it was Valentine’s Day, and I was in a cemetery with a boy who’d selfishly killed his girlfriend and now wouldn’t even allow others to leave flowers on her grave.

“Yeah,” I plunged on recklessly. “That’s what I thought. They’ll never find that ring, because that’s a coastal road, and it’s probably at the bottom of the ocean by now. But that’s why you killed her, isn’t it? Because she rejected you. You’re both so young, and she was going away to an Ivy League college next year, while you’re grades weren’t so good, so you were staying here and going to community college because that’s the only place you got in—-which there’s no shame in, believe me. I go to one, too. But maybe proposing to her was your way of trying to force her to be faithful to you while she was away, and in the heat of the moment, she accepted. But then the closer the two of you got to home, the more she realized what a mistake she’d made, so she—-”

“No!” he roared, so loudly that I was surprised -people from homes and businesses nearby didn’t come running outside to see what was going on.

But there’s only one other person besides me in the Monterey Bay area who could pick up on spectral sound waves—-especially now that Jesse is going to school so far away—-and that person happened to be away at a seminarian retreat in New Mexico. I knew because Father Dominic likes to keep his present (and former) students up to date on his daily activities on Facebook.

The day my old high school principal started his own Facebook account was the day I swore off social media forever. So far this has worked out fine since I prefer face--to--face interactions. It’s easier to tell when -people are lying.

Unless, of course, they’re ghosts. Then it gets a little tougher.