The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried(63)

Yeah. I am regretting that decision.

Zora’s room is kind of disgusting. We were friendly, but we weren’t friends, and I’d never been to her house. She lives in a duplex near the railroad tracks in the kind of neighborhood my mom would lock the doors while driving through, which would definitely be making presumptuous and erroneous assumptions about the people who live here. The house itself is fine; it’s Zora’s bedroom that’s gross. When the girl who’s literally rotting from the inside out is afraid of catching the plague or a flesh-eating bacterial infection, you might want to do a little spring cleaning.

“We’ve been in theater together for two years,” I say. “How did I not know you gamed?”

Zora stretches her legs out in front of her. “You never asked.”

The answer is technically true, and it hits like a slap. “Was I that self-absorbed?”

“Kind of.” Zora’s head bobs on her shoulders. It’s not quite a nod, but it’s close. “Don’t get upset about it. We’re all a little self-absorbed.”

“Some of us more than others, apparently.”

“Sure but . . .” Zora stops whatever she was going to say and seemingly changes course. “I liked you, July. I admired you. But I was happy when I heard you’d died because I thought I’d finally gotten my shot. I thought I was going to have to wait for you to graduate before escaping your shadow. Don’t get me wrong, I was obviously sad you’d died, but your death shoved me to the front of the line a year early.”

Zora dumps it out there without the slightest trace of self-recrimination or embarrassment, and I don’t know how to respond. “Glad I could help?”

“Whatever,” she says. “Point is, we’re basically selfish animals. I wish we could’ve been friends when you weren’t a zombie, but I’m glad for the chance to get to know you now.”

“Me too. I think.” I fake a cough so that I can change the subject. “You don’t have to entertain me. Sleep, eat, do whatever weird activities you do when there’s not an animated corpse hiding in your room.”

Zora glances at the TV and then the controllers. “This is what I do. Aside from rehearsing for the musical. And working.”

“You have a job?”

“McDonalds.” Zora wrinkles her nose. “My parents need whatever help they can get, and I don’t mind.” She shrugs. “Most nights I’m awake until three or four in the morning, and then I sleep until noon.”

“Great.” I’d eat some brains for ten minutes of quiet. Since I won’t be getting that, I pick up the controller and convince Zora to play a couple more games, and I even let her win one. Probably because I’m preoccupied thinking about Dino and how I keep yawning but I’m not getting any more tired, so I don’t know what to do. Zora heads out into the kitchen for a few minutes and comes back with a plate of little bagel pizzas.

“Do you have to eat those in front of me?” I snap.

Zora, sitting in her desk chair, spins around so that she’s not facing me anymore.

“Ha-ha.”

“Do you want one?” She holds one of the bagel pizzas in the air.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I can’t eat?”

Zora rotates to face me. “I’m not holding you hostage. You can leave whenever you want.” She says it with a smile that’s equal parts sweet and creepy.

“Seriously, I used to think you were a shy loser who spent her nights scheming ways to shove me off the stage so I’d break my leg and you could steal my place, but that you lacked the spine to actually do it.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m glad I underestimated you.”

“Is that an apology?”

“Call it whatever you want,” I say. “It’s just that I’m frustrated as hell.” I run my hand through my hair. It’s starting to feel a little brittle, and I look at my fingers to make certain it’s not coming out in clumps. “I didn’t ask to die, but it happened. Don’t I deserve my white light and a heaven full of puppies that never grow up into annoying dogs and stores that only serve free cake? Instead, I get this. A not-death tied to a rotting body where I can’t see my family and the only friend I have pretty much hates me.”

Zora clears her throat. “Plus, you’re most likely responsible for the pain and suffering of the people who can’t die but wish they could.”

“I don’t know what else to do!” I say. “I let my family bury me and have their closure. I fixed Dino and his stupid hot boyfriend so that he could let me go, and then I kicked his ass so he’d leave. What am I missing?”

Zora sets the plate of bagel pizzas on her desk and sits on the floor beside me. A second later, she scoots a bit farther away. “You ever think this isn’t about them? That it might be about you?”

“Only every second since I woke up. But, as Dino keeps saying, not everything’s about me.”

“Right,” Zora says. “Well, what if this is?”

“Explain.”

“Maybe your parents and your sister and Dino aren’t the ones who need to let go. Maybe you are.”

“Oh, I let go.”

Zora wrinkles her nose in this way she has that kind of makes her look like a cute piglet. “Have you? Because I get the impression that you never let go of anything.”