SAM LETS ME CRYuntil my body is totally spent. I fake being asleep so that he will drift off because I know that he needs to rest and refuel. There’s no chance my mind will settle, and I don’t know how to talk about this, even with Sam. The shock is too strong.
At four in the morning, Amy’s words from the day of the accident replay in my mind.
“And what about that other kid? I saw it.That poor kid. I wish we were all dead! What is this?”
Thepoor kidwas Costa.
Andthisis death tripping.
I’m ashamed that I never thought more about her words after that day, but maybe that denial was part of how I shut down and coped. I didn’t want to know what Amy had meant.
My father had started this chain of events.
Everything goes back to him. Without him, Costa wouldn’t have lost his son, Sam wouldn’t have been a death tripper, I wouldn’t have been his power augmenter or a death tripper myself. Amy would have still loved me, and my father would never have abandoned us.
Of course, Amy and Costa would be dead. There would be no Toby and no sister or father to lose.
The impact of what he’d done by tripping Amy and Costa must have been too much for my father, and he left us all. That was a huge unforgivable mistake. Not only could he have helped Amy and Costa come to grips with what they are, but he could also have been a wealth of understanding for us all.
I hate my father, and I love him more than ever. Maybe he didn’t give up on his family. Maybe he gave up on himself.
I throw on sweatpants and a tee and take my phone into one of the spare bedrooms.
The call I make rings and rings and eventually goes to voice mail. I call again and again. Finally, my sister answers.
“What?” she barks groggily.
“Amy,” I say, “it’s Stella.”
“Jesus Christ. What doyouwant?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Screw you. You left. Nobody cares. Don’t call again.”
I know that she’s about to hang up, so I have to keep her on the line. “I know about Dad.”
There’s silence. “What do you mean?”
“I know about Dad, about the car accident…how you…died, how he saved you.” Speaking has never been so hard. “And the other boy. His name is Costa.”
Amy doesn’t say anything, but I can hear her breathing.
“I went to Watermark, Maine, to find Sam Bishop. I met him that day in the hospital. He was Costa’s friend. I drove to The Coastal Inn that Sam’s parents own, and I found him. Costa and Sam can do what you can do. They call themselves death trippers.” I pause. “I’m one now, too.”
Amy finally makes a noise. A gasp or a cry, I’m not sure. But it’s enough to let me know that she’s listening.
“I know you’re not using and that you’re not suicidal. I know that. When you surface after dying, Sam and Costa call it a surge. That’s the rush we get. It’s how I found you at your condo. I understand everything now, Amy.” I’m getting teary, but it feels good to say some of this out loud. I can hear Amy crying, which I find momentarily reassuring. “Do you know where Dad is?”
“No, and I’m fucking happy about it. Our mother hired a PI to find him, and that turned up nothing. I hope he’s dead. For real.” Amy’s venom crawls through the phone. “Don’t call me again.” She hangs up.
The quiet is deafening. I whisper to nobody, “Please come back to me, and be my sister again. I miss you. I need you. You are my only family left.”
I sit alone in the dark bedroom for a while. Amy is as bitter as Costa is. As we all are. We’re victims of someone else’s power. Tonight, it feels as though there is nothing but heartache and hate in all of us.
There just has to be beauty somewhere.
I go downstairs. A light is on in the kitchen, and Costa is sitting on one of the barstools at the island. When he hears my footsteps, he turns and gives me a look of such apology and misery that I immediately fall apart again.
