AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He winced. “Yeah. Shit. Could you maybe forget I said that, though? Because Ireallydidn’t mean to say it.”
“But what does it mean? What am I supposed to remember?”
“Nothing,” he rushed to assure me, but I narrowed my eyes at him, and he cringed, gripping his head. “Oh God. I’m dead. I’m so dead. Foster’s gonna tokillme.”
“Foster?” I sat upright in surprise. “Foster Union?”
“What?No,” he tried to deny. He even waved his hands in an aggressive X to negate his own words. “Not that Foster. A completely different Foster.”
“But if you’re Oaklynn’s roommate,” I deduced, connecting the dots. “Then that would make you one of the seven. You’redefinitelyone of Foster Union’s friends.”
He closed one eye and hissed out a doomed breath, before cringing at me. “Yeah. Yes, okay, I am,” he admitted with some reluctance.
I shook my head, so completely lost by this entire conversation. “So what does me remembering your name when we’ve never even met have anything to do withhim?”
Alec started to wring his hands nervously. “Well, if he’s going to kill me anyway, I might as well just tell you everything, right?”
“Exactly,” I agreed encouragingly.
He nodded in relief. “Yeah. Okay. Great. So he said you were already dealing with enough, what with the coma and your sister and all?—”
When I flinched at the mention of Kinsey, Alec flinched along with me and whispered, “Sorry. Sorry. He just didn’t think you needed this heaped on you too if you didn’t remember. But if youareremembering?—”
“Rememberingwhat?” I cried desperately.
“Right…” He blew out a breath and then cringed. “You’re pretty accepting of supernatural things, correct? I mean, after you visited that psychic in Houston who was able to communicate with your mom, I’m sure you’re willing to believe some crazy shit, but this—this is really out there.”
“How—how do you know about the psychic in Houston?” I asked, blinking at him in shock.
“Oh!” He shrugged. “Foster mentioned it.”
“Foster?” I squinted suspiciously. “And how wouldheknow?”
Alec looked me straight in the eyes as he answered, “Because you told him.” Then he shifted my world on its axis by adding, “While you were in your coma.”
My mouth dropped open. “Wha…?” Then I furrowed my brow and tipped my face suspiciously before clearing my throat. “I’m sorry;saythat again.”
“So we’re guessing that your spirit, or soul, or whatever, was severed from your body while you were in the in-between. You know, not quite dead but not quite alive either.”
Alec nodded encouragingly at me as if to make sure I was following along with his explanation, but I just squinted at him harder, not understandinganyof this.
“And Foster,” he went on, anyway, “was the only person who could see and talk to your ghost for the entire two weeks you were unconscious.”
“Huh?”
“You’ve met me before,” he said carefully. “When Foster came to visit at Archer House. But you were in a coma and in ghost form, so I couldn’t see you. Foster had to translate for you if you ever wanted to say anything to us. But apparently, you liked watching funny reels over my shoulder when I was scrolling.”
I blinked at him before pointing. “The dog died.”
An immediate smile took over his face. “Yes! You wanted me to replay thedonate a dollar to save a dogvideo. Oh my God, you’re remembering. You’re really remembering.”
“I…” I shook my head to deny it, but if this was real, then it actually explained a lot.
“My nurse told me that Foster probably saved my life when I got a blood clot.”
Alec kept bobbing his head. “Oh yeah. Your leg started to hurt, so he ran over to the hospital at, like, three in the morning to make them check it out.”
“And—and… Someone cleaned my apartment.”
