Je Ne Sais Quoi

Stella had died in her sleep that very same night, still clutching the single red rose I had brought her the afternoon before, mere hours ago. It broke my heart.

As if her death wasn't enough drama to make a girl go mad, I now had nowhere to live, no cash on me, a suitcase full of everything I owned, and account rights for precisely $3,769,958.01 in my pocket with my brother's car keys.

Not the best things to have on hand when you need to make a quick escape, but the car keys helped; I was at least able to get to Zack's before the severity of what just happened hit me.

"Rave, you have to go to that funeral," Zack insisted softly after moments of silence, both of us lying down in the bed of his bright red '98 Ford pickup.

"Why? So my Uncle Atticus will frisk me to find his rightful millions?" I scoffed softly, gaze stuck skywards at the stars.

"So you can say goodbye," Zack replied softly.

"I saw her alive… there's no point in seeing her dead body, Zack," I snapped a touch harsher than I'd expected.

Zack just sighed, "Rave, I want you to go to make sure nothing happens within your family. They need you as a peacemaker, you know."

"Rose can go," I replied stubbornly before my lips went to the rim of my fluke, a small swallow of champagne sliding over the lump caught in my throat.

"You saw Rose," he chided me gently. "She's a wreck… you guys work better together, and you know it."

"I know, I know," I grumbled a bit. "But I hate funerals!"

"No one particularly likes them," Zack shot me an amused look, chuckling. "That's not so much the point."

"That's not what I meant," I insisted, laughing. "Imagine putting a recovering alcoholic in a liquor store or turning on QVC in a shopaholic's house; it's just a recipe for disaster."

"You have drinking problems?" Zack's head tilted a little.

"You know that's not what I meant," I scowled. "I'm literally asking for breakdown by going there, both because of my family and jeeze, the grief. It's nearly unbearable."

"Rave thinking something's too much for her superpowers?" he was only teasing, but I still didn't bite at the bait. "I'm genuinely shocked."

"You shouldn't be," I sighed. "I'm only human, no spandex included."

"Don't you want to go to pay your final respects?" he tried a different approach that yielded similar results.

"I don't like grieving with other people, if I'm forced to grieve at all," I drew my knees to my chest, blowing the hair from my face.

"What about the will?" he was clutching at straws now. "The meeting for that is right after the burial on Wednesday. Well, tomorrow, technically speaking."

"That, I have to go to," I agreed. "I'm kind of curious about why you want to go so desperately, actually."

"I can't resist Aunt Priscilla," he shook his head, as if the thought was too much, but laughed when I nearly gagged.

"She does seem to have quite a thing for younger men, namely you," I giggled. "After she separated with her husband, things just went downhill from there. That's the problem with marriage-- odds are, it's not going to last."

"Cynic!" Zack coughed the word with a smile. "Come on, one family member gets divorced and then you lose your faith in the whole institution? What about Stella and your grandfather?"

"He was a huge romantic," I smiled; I couldn't help it. "He proposed to her under the stars, up somewhere where you could feel the wind and see the world… it was absolutely amazing, even she said so. I hate to admit, I'd love it if my boyfriend popped the question like that. It wasn't that Stella was a cynic like me, she just never had a reason to believe in it."

"How much does that really mean, considering the woman was a psychic? Belief is something that should just come to her, no?" He grinned, the sight making me melt and cheer instantly, too.

"Hey, a sixth sense is nothing to poke fun about," I smiled, anyway. "I remember the first time I realized it... I was with Stefano, over Priscilla's beach house down in Ocean City for the summer. It was raining that day, so we were all in the living room with all the doors and windows open, the sounds and smells of the storm filling the tiny little house. The Yankees were playing on the TV my uncles and father were crowded around. I think Stefano and I figured out a little skit or magic trick or something, so we were trying to get their attention. I huffed, all attitude, and snapped something about how the pitcher was a royal screw-up, something I heard from Zeke, and that the loss would be his fault. That, and that the first baseman would get a home run."

"I don’t even have to ask if you were right or not," he shook his head in awe.

"They happened in that order less than two minutes later-- six walks and then a three-run home run that won the game in the ninth. Stella saw me and just smiled, and tried to explain it to me as best she could as I grew up. And she always liked to tell me stories about her ever-charming husband and how he stole her heart and gave her his. He died when I was two, so I never got the honor of meeting him. He was the one that was so good with animals and nature, which is where we think Zeke got his affinity from. Well, that along with how good he is with his muscle cars-- my grandpa, Biagio Chistoforo Vincenzo, was an amazing mechanic."

"I love your family. And do they all have awesome names?" Zack let out a contented sigh and leaned back. "You know how you ask me sometimes to just trust you? Can you do me the honors of retaliation by just trusting me on this one, just this once, by going tomorrow?"

"Oh, alright," I smiled. "But only because you flattered my Italian side first. I know you only want to go because you want to see Priscilla."

"You caught me," he chuckled, nudging me gently with his elbow. "Come on, it’s almost three. You can sleep here tonight, considering I doubt you'll let me house you for the last two years of high school."

"You’re right," I smiled, letting Zack take my hand to help me jump out of his truck's bed after he dismounted clumsily with a small smile. "I talked to Nick and Sean before I came here, and they agreed on letting me stay. Nick graduated law school last year and he's already rolling in it; it's not like they can't spare a bedroom for a little while." I whispered as we silently ran up the stairs to his bedroom, the champagne in my one hand and my sweatshirt in the other.

"Are you trying to make me feel worse by comparison?" he raised one eyebrow, moving a couple of dumbbells and his Nikes off the bed, sitting down cross-legged to face me.

"Definitely not," I insisted, taking a pillow and curling up with it hugged to my chest. "Something tells me you guys will be even more successful than Nick soon enough."

"Is that your sixth-sense talking or your natural instinct to make me try to feel better?"

"Both," I replied, hand automatically going to the envelope folded in half in my pocket, the bank statement curling around my thigh.

"Good," he smiled, pulling a comforter and pillow from the foot of his bed and lying down on the carpet, shifting awkwardly. I tilted my head as he punched the pillow into a comfortable shape against his dresser, butt in the air as he attempted to get comfortable.

"What isn't good is all of this gentleman crap," I glared jokingly down at him from his bed, smiling a little. "Get your scrawny white boy ass up here before I kick it."

A smile toyed with the corners of his mouth before he shook his head. "You're the guest, so you get the bed."

"I can share…" I tempted by pulling the blankets back and patting the empty mattress at my side, secretly hoped he'd come up here and curl up with me.

"That's not very chivalrous," he pondered, getting up anyway. I beamed when he slid under the blankets with me, hand curling around his cheekbone and elbow on the pillow to prop his head up.

"I'm not tired," I frowned, matching his pose. I resisted the urge to let out a contented sigh as I settled down in his bed; the sheets held Zack's scent, the aroma comforting and sweet.

"Neither am I," he agreed, wrinkling his nose as he thought. "I suggest a game."

"What kind of game?" I asked, curious.

"The one-word answer game?" he said it like an announcer trying to sell me a get-rich-quick scheme with a greased-up toupee and a very eighties suit.

"What about the flat-out question game?" I smiled through my proposition.

"What on earth is that?" his announcer stint ended as soon as it started and he reassumed his usual voice. Even though it was tinged with bemusement, it still made me smile a little brighter.

"Zack, really?" I withheld from rolling my eyes. "What can you infer from the name?"

"You just ask questions? Is that all?"

"You have to be honest, though," I clarified, eyebrows raised.

"Like I'd lie to you," he scoffed, waving off my comment with a grin that made my heart stutter. "Can I ask first?"

"If you’d like."

"What… would you get out of if you could get out of any unpleasant obligation?"

"The funeral tomorrow, this bed with you," I giggled at how affronted he looked at my joke. "Hey, I said untruthfulness wasn't allowed, but I never said anything about screwing with your head."

"You’re the one that suggested the bed-sharing," he reminded me, tone lighthearted. "But, seriously?"

"I would…"I scrunched up my lips as I pondered, "get out of the whole emotion aspect of tomorrow's funeral, and I'm being dead serious. Oh, jeeze. Unintentional puns kind of kill the whole somber-- shit, I did it again!"

"First 'dead,' then 'kill,' and then 'did it again,'" he smirked. "If I didn't know you better, I'd accuse you of some serious corniness, necrophilia, or of being Britney Spears."

"Hardy har har," I smiled. "You just wait and see me tomorrow… you've never seen me deal with an emotion overload, can you?" He shook his head, serious now. "Brace yourself, hun. It's not pretty."