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“How do you know Foster?” I asked, shaking my head.
The boy pulled back in surprise. “I’m his brother, of course. I’mHayes, the one who died when he was nine.”
I swear my heart stopped cold in my chest. “You’re…dead?” Taking a step back, I pressed a hand to my heart, trying to breathe normally again. “What’re you doing here, then? Why am I with you? Does this meanI’mdead?”
“What?No!” Hayes waved his hands as if my question was ludicrous. But then he gripped his head and grimaced. “Well, I guess youdiddie two or three times there. You kept flatlining at the hospital after your accident. And that’s what created the pathway, whereIcould get through to you. And visit.”
Puffing up his chest with some self-importance, he splayed a hand over himself. “I’m a guide, you see. I help newcomers cross over.” With a quick shrug, he added, “That way, I can sneak back and check in on my family every now and then, make sure they’re doing okay, you know.”
I nodded, following along with his explanation. “That’s…neat.”
“Yeah.” He nodded with a ready smile that struck me as oddly familiar until I realized it was Foster’s smile. “Anyway, the first time you came to me, I sent you back. To Foster. I didn’t actually mean totetheryou to him, but…” He made a face. “I’m still working out all the kinks of everything I can do.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him.
He shook his head, however. “No. It’s not. Because he became attached to you in return. Emotionally. And I’m sure it broke his heart when you left. So you gotta go back, Raina. He loves you so much. You can’t just hurt him like this.”
I shook my head, overwhelmed by his insistence. Chest filled with dread, I rasped, “But I don’t remember any of our time together. I can’t just—it seems to hurt himmorewhen I’m there and look at him like he’s a stranger. I’m not…whereheis in the relationship anymore.”
Hayes scowled briefly as if he wanted to argue with me, but then he said, “So if you remembered—if you remembered why you loved him too, you’d go back?”
“I…” Unsure how to answer because what if Ihadn’tloved Foster, I only shrugged. “I have no idea.”
The blond boy was undeterred. “I can help you,” he assured with a firm nod as he stepped toward me. “I was able to sort through the pathway back into your dreams; I can untangle the mess in your memories so you can remember correctly again. I just know it.”
“Well, I mean…” I lifted one shoulder. “If you think you can help me, then by all means.”
When I splayed out a hand in acceptance, his eyes brightened. “Really? You’ll let me try?”
“Sure.” But when he started toward me, I pulled back. “It won’t hurt, will it?”
“Did it hurt when I found my way into your dreams?”
I shook my head. “No.”
With a more assured nod, he announced, “Then this shouldn’t either. Could you kneel down here so I can reach your head?”
“Oh! Uh…” This already felt more invasive than him plowing his way into my dreams. He hadn’t had to touch me then. But I knelt down anyway, hoping it worked. “I guess.”
Once my knees were in the sand and Hayes and I were more eye-to-eye with each other, he smiled at me, and I shook my head in wonder.
“You look so much like him.”
“Thank you.” He nodded regally at the compliment. “Now, hold still.” Then he reached out with young hands and gently cradled the sides of my head in his palms.
The only thing I felt was a pleasant warmth.
“Oh yeah,” he murmured with a relishing nod as his smile spread. “I can work with this. Close your eyes, Miss Raina. And when you open them again, you’ll remember everything from your coma.” Then he paused with a wince. “But maybe even the actual wreck, too. Are you okay with that?”
I nodded. “Yes. I want to see it all.”
“Alright, then,” he told me. “Open your eyes.”
I did and found myself staring up at the ceiling of my childhood bedroom. Morning light crept in through the window, and the ceiling fan overhead swept around in a lazy circle, with a handful of glow-in-the-dark stars I’d pasted on its fan blades when I was a kid.
Sitting up slowly, I blinked, remembering the roof of a beach house I’d gotten stranded on and then Foster arriving through the darkness to walk me inside. I recalled running from the owners the next morning, breaking into the hospital together, hanging out in his bedroom, snuggling close each night, delivering pizzas, attending classes, visiting his friends, and…
The shower.
