Being Dead is for Losers, Chapter Three
Danielle-
Samantha was on the ground, covered in dirt and sweat, her eyes bulging. I climbed out of the hole brushing off my dress and taking in a long deep breath of fresh air. Then I started toward her for a hug but she crab crawled backwards. Finally scrambling to her feet she looked ready to run; she was so… afraid of me. My heart sank. I couldn’t really blame her, hell, I was afraid of me.
“Sam, stop it,” I said, trying to keep my tone even, “please don’t leave me.” That last few words were weak and pathetic but I allowed them anyway. It was just Sam. I trusted Sam.
We stood across from each other, our chests heaving with the cold air filtering in and out of our systems. Her mouth hung open as her eyes trailed over me, as if making sure I was really there. The moonlight fell on her and I studied every inch of my best friend, the long chocolate brown hair and matching eyes-covered by glasses, the olive complexion, the full curve of her mouth-everything that made Samantha. It felt like it’d been years since I’d seen her and I practically ached for the familiarity of a hug. Then, as if reading my mind, she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around me, squeezing hard, “Don’t ever do that again,” she whispered.
She stepped back, looking at me. A cool breeze drifted past us and I shivered, “God, I’m like a total zombie,” I said, breaking the quiet. We both laughed. Memories of all the times we’d laughed rushed into my mind along with the countless sleepovers we’d had, all the pictures we’d taken, and all the times we held each other when we cried. Like when my parents got divorced.
“It’s been three months,” Sam told me, “since…since….” She trailed off, her gaze falling to the ground. She ran her hand through her hair, one of her nervous habits, and twirled the end of the strand.
“Did they catch him?” I asked. She looked at me confused, knitting her brows together.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“The guy who…you know…did they catch him? Who was it?” her expression didn’t change and I let out a huff, “The guy who killed me Sam, did they catch the guy who killed me?”
“Danielle,” she said, her tone tender and calm but with an undertone of fear. She paused, contemplating how to arrange her words, “Danielle…you killed yourself. You were h-hanging…there was a note.” Sam looked close to tears as she told me. I stood in shock for a few minutes, unable to process the words she was saying.
Killed myself? Why would I ever kill myself? I was young, beautiful, and everybody loved me. I had no reason to kill myself. Is that what everyone thought? Is that how everyone remembered me, as the girl who killed herself? That’s when I started to remember the fight Sam and I had the last time we saw each other. She’d gotten in to Berkeley, aka her dream school, the place she’d wanted to go her whole life. And I didn’t.
Sam was the smart one, she always had been. She helped me with all my school projects and papers. She even helped me fill out my college applications. She was the brains, I was the looks. Not that Sam wasn’t pretty-she was, she just didn’t know it so neither did anyone else.
And I was jealous. Berkeley was all we’d talked about all year. Getting out of Washington was all we cared about. We had a back up plan, that was Sam’s idea too, but I could see the happiness in her eyes. She’d already chosen Berkeley whether she knew it or not. She was going to leave me.
“You can’t go,” I’d said.
She muttered back about having to think about it, and it was a great opportunity.
I screamed at her in front of everyone. I told her I hated her. Then I went home. The last thing I ever told Sam was that I hated her. There were a lot of people I hated in my life. The list of people I didn’t hate was probably shorter, and Sam was on it, she was number one.
Before I could say anything a harsh, bright light flashed from somewhere in the dark graveyard.
“Who’s there?”
…
Samantha-
The flashlight sent my heart into a rapid frenzy. It was just my luck that we would get caught-nothing like that ever happened to Buffy. I grabbed Dani by the hand and we headed for the opening of the wrought iron fence that surrounded the land. We made it through before the guard could get any closer and we didn’t stop until we were out of sigh.
“What…do you mean…you didn’t…kill yourself?” I asked between gulps of air.
Dani didn’t even seem winded, “I was attacked. This guy strangled me. Of course I didn’t kill myself! Is that…is that what you thought?”
“It’s what everyone thought!” I shouted, “after we…after the fight you ran out of the cafeteria and no one saw you the rest of the day. Then when your parents got home you were hanging from your ceiling fan.” I tried to erase the memory of the blue and red flashing lights outside my house; Dani and I had lived across the street from each other our whole lives. My mom tried to convince me to stay inside I burst out the door just in time to watch them wheel her body out in a black zip up bag.
I rested my hands on my hips, trying to ignore the stitch in my side, and looked around. We were in front of our high school, the last place I saw Dani alive.
That was the last place anybody saw her alive. Until now.
We stood under a street lamplight and I smiled to myself a little. Three months of being dead and buried in the ground and Dani still looked like a super model on her way back from a photo shoot.
“Well whatever that note said, it isn’t true, I didn’t kill myself,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and letting out a huff of air.
“You mean it?” I asked. When she nodded I grabbed her again, hugging her tight, “Good,” I sniffed, “because it said that it was my fault because of that stupid fight. It said you hated me.” A few seconds of stiff silence passed and then I felt Dani’s arms mimic mine and she squeezed me back.
“Of course not,” she said, “I don’t hate you, I never could.” She pulled back and looked at me, “best friends forever.” She held her pinky up I wrapped mine around it.
She only let the tender moment last for a few seconds. Dani hated mushy stuff and she almost never cried. She shrugged her shoulders, “well, now what?” she asked and I realized I had no idea what to do.
She needed to remain unseen. If anybody knew Dani was alive again she would probably get hauled off to some government experimental facility and never be seen again. I tapped my finger against my chin, “you could stay in the tree house,” I said.
She scrunched her nose, “we haven’t been up there in years, it’s probably disgusting,” she said. She started pulling her platinum blonde locks up in to a pony tail and I handed her a hair tie from my wrist, “will you stay with me?”
“Of course,” I said, “just like old times.”
