Andy

It takes a lot for me to muster up the courage to grab the handle to Ashley’s room and push it open. I stand there in the hall for several minutes almost walking away twice in fear of facing him. I know Andy’s with him, where ever they are. Whether they’re waiting on the other side of the door or if they’re across town pursuing the adventures I’d turned down, that’s where he’ll be. Invisible to me, angry with me, and slowly growing apart.

It twists my heart into sad little knots to think of our relationship that way. Something that was destined to fail from the very start, but what else can I do? What else can I sacrifice to fix the growing crack.

The door glides open, revealing an empty room. I walk in, hesitating long enough to close the door behind me.

I take a deep breath, and look around. It doesn't take long for me to notice the bible I'd chucked at Ashley's head sitting precisely in the middle of the bed side table, one corner of the hardcover bent in a squashed up pose from where it had collided with the sheetrock.

My gaze instantly goes to the spot, but it's gone now. I peel off my white heels and climb up on the bed, standing on my knees, running my fingertips over the smooth surface. There's a little rough patch from where someone had sealed it, and repainted it in the same joyful pale shade of yellow as the rest of the room.

I can't tell if Ashley or Andy took the time to fix it, or if one of my parents had found it already and repaired it as a boredom project while the power was out.

The depressing darkness of the room starts to become too much. The white lace curtains around the window by the bed have been drawn, setting the room in a gloomy greyscale. I go towards them and tug them open, taking a moment to look out over the north side of the house that peeks over our privacy fence to the neighbors that live just to the right of us.

When I lean into the glass, I get a clear glimpse of the woods behind my house, and I look just in time to see what looks like a dark figure slipping into the foliage.

Now I'm no detective, and the logical thing to do when you see suspicious activity around your house is to tell an adult and call the cops, but you see, all the weird things that go on around my house cannot be explained by a forensics detective and cannot be justified with no evidence. This is a good job for myself.

I make a quick trip to my room to put on a trusty pair of Chuck Taylors, and grab my phone and jean jacket from the bed. Soon enough, I am on my way out.

I use the patio door that exits out of the music room and stand on the deck for a moment, looking into the woods, trying to find something worthy of chasing blindly. I don't see anything, so I step off the deck and walk down the slope towards the trees, and stand right in front of where the figure disappeared, looking down at the fresh mud for tracks.

Of course, there isn't any to be seen. So obviously what I'll be pursuing is going to paranormal. Why on earth would I be following something living, that's just not logical.

I grit my teeth and wonder for a minute if it's worth it. Ah, what else could I really lose?

With that reckless thought, I set off alone on my adventure, seeming to forget all together about the warning Andy had given me many times. I don't know why it slipped my mind until I was too far in to turn back, but when the house was out of sight and I started to feel truly alone in the trees, his words replayed in my skull, his voice seemingly loud and authorative as he reminds me to stay out of the trees.

At least today the trees aren't silent like before. There's birds chirping and movement above from the squirrels hurrying to catch up on lost time. I notice a doe standing on a small hill between two pinetrees several yards ahead, peacefully nibbling at the fresh, remaining grass.

I move deeper into the trees, and step down around a rocky knoll when I hear footsteps. I stop, and press my back firmly against the cold stone and listen hard, trying to decipher what direction they're coming from. When I gain some courage, I lean around the boulder a bit and peek out into this small, valley-like clearing no bigger than a small house, but it's empty.

I hear the crunching of leaves, twigs and grass, as well as the sifting sound of gravel shifting underneath swift feet.

I jump when a voice speaks up, luckily not to me.

"Where are we going, Ash?"

"Just for a walk."

I recognize the voices immediately and feel a little more relieved, but not completely. What on earth are they doing out here in the woods? Especially Andy. He showed so much fear towards entering these trees again, so what excuse did Ashley use on him to lure him out here?

I peek out again when it seems like they're occupied in their nonchalant conversation. I spot them both, standing adjacent to an old, dead tree with roots that sprawl out across the ground, reaching for their leather boots standing just out of reach.

Their backs are facing me, but even so, I have to remain dead quiet in case they somehow sense me here and Andy has one more reason to be mad at me.

He reaches up and combs his fingers through his hair, and shifts his weight a bit.

"Ash, out of all the damn places we could spend the afternoon..." He sighs.

"Shut it." Ashley surprises me by laughing. I guess he only does that around people he likes. "What else are you going to do? Wait for Asheen to get home so you can kiss up to her?"

"Well I need to talk to her."

"She'll wait." Ashley shrugs, tugging at the tall grass reeds growing between them, grinding up the leaves in the palms of his leather biker gloves.

Andy mutters something under his breath, making Ashley laugh.

"She went after you, anyways. She should be apologizing, don't you think? She's trying to drive a wedge between us."

Andy looks over at his friend, conflict and confusion on his face before it softened into a blank stare with a frown. "Do you think she's jealous or something?"

Ashley smirks at him and casts the handful of ground up leaves on the forest floor when they no longer held any entertainment for him. "You can't even try to ignore it, man, have you seen how she looks at me when it's us three together somewhere."

Andy shrugs a bit, not disagreeing or agreeing. "Or maybe she just gets tired of you always being there."

"Hey man, she invites me."

"To be nice, it's in her nature, but to be honest, you like to root your way into plans and she just adapts because she doesn't want the trouble."

"Yeah? Well nice guys finish last. Anyways, are we gonna bicker over your problem or are we gonna finish up this hike before the rain comes?"

Andy looks annoyed, but doesn't say anything in response, which tugs at my heart a bit. He's working too hard to keep a fair argument where Ashley doesn't get territorial or jealous, and the only way to do that is to keep talking about me to a minimal and to be agreeable.

I'm kinda tempted to run into the meadow and to scare the shit out of the both of them, while announcing like the nosey eavesdropper I am that I'd heard every word... Not that Ashley would care too much, and in retrospect it'd probably just embarrass Andy and make him mad that I'd followed and put myself where I did not belong.

They start moving forward again, and I wait until they have gracefully made their way over the sprawling tree roots and go out of sight on the other side. I wait a few seconds before slinking out of my hiding place behind the rock.

Trying to keep a good pace when staying quiet is a near impossible task, especially in the woods during spring when there is too many dead, crunchy things to still be stepped on.

I hear them still talking, and that makes it easier to gauge how far ahead of me they are. I hold onto the roots and vault myself up and over the dirt bank, and crouch down in the grass, dirtying the magic dress.

"-So what happened to you after y'know... Everything?" Andy asks him.

"Everything?"

"After you died. Where did you go?"

"I was everywhere. But after a while, you run out of girls you want to chance, places to visit and things to experience and the whole ghost thing became very old after about a year or so."

"Why didn't you... Ever come find me?"

"I couldn't come back here. Not after everything that had happened, and everything that you.. Had done. I wasn't going to subject my sober mind to that. By the time it even crossed my thoughts to come back, I'd established a new lookout on life."

"You mean where you became an asshole?" And asks with a frown. "Ash, you never used to be like this, what happened to you?"

"I just changed."

"Yeah, but-"

"I changed, Andy. People do that." He stresses the words with gritted teeth, and the mood of their conversation takes and uncomfortably tense turn.

Andy's fingers clench in and out of a fist and his shifts his jaw, waiting for Ashley to either elaborate or change the subject.

"Look, Andy, I'm not as... Comfortable talking about my demise and the aftermath as you seem to be."

"I'm not 'comfortable'." Andy mutters, "but talking about it out loud makes it real and easier to understand. I was at the prime of my life when I died, so letting go of all the soon to be success is still a very hard thing to grip."

Ashley snorts and Andy glares at him a little, blue eyes narrowing coldly in his direction.

"Allow me to rephrase: I still wake up in the morning with my daily routine burned into the backs of my eyelids and I still fumble for my phone on the nightstand to check the time and make sure that I am not late for school. I had things finally lining up and I was coming home to make amends with everyone I'd left behind in a cloud of my teenage angst. Being robbed of that is the coldest thing you can imagine, and the furthest possible thing from being comfortable."

"Yeah, well.." Ashley keeps walking, seeming to ignore every word of the heart breaking speech he just gave. His words phrased in his cold, saddened voice puts the memory in a new light, and I see it in a way he never allowed me to before. His death has always been something to make light of in our friendship, but beneath all the joke he made, there was some true hurt and regret to be found.

His narration mixes in with my memory of that night and it sends an icy chill down my spine. His face, cold and motionless, and his eyes are closed. The wind picking up after the rain storm was tossing his hair and there was moisture sticking to his skin like droplets of dew.

I stood there frozen like a statue, looking down at him, a confusing mixture of sorrow and intrique stirring in my heart.

I remember thinking of him, trying to figure out who he was, who his family was, and what someone like him was doing in a place like Pendant. I connected dots and tried to imagine, but in the end nothing fit his peculiar self.

Andy shakes his head, and keeps following him deeper into the trees and for some reason I decide to keep following them instead of turning back.

"How'd you even meet that kid again?" Ashley asks boredly, stepping over ferns and pushing branches aside, almost smacking Andy in the face with them when he'd let go of them.

I crouch low and shift forward in the grass. I don't have much cover here since the flood squashed almost all ground vegtation.

"Why do we have to refresh this story over and over?" Andy groans in embarassment.

"Tell me."

"You already know."

"Tell me again."

"I'll tell you what, for every story you tell me about what you've been up to since you died, I'll tell you a story in return. Conversations are two sided, you know."

"Fine, whatever, fire your question."

"How did you know you had died? You drowned to death, didn't it just bleed in from one reality to the next?"

Ashley shrugs, and I slink forward, planting my hands in the spongey neon moss on the ground, trying to remain a small, silent target lurking in the background.

"I guess it kind of did... I just remember feeling really cold, then numb as I adjusted to the temperature and started to sink to the bottom. Then I just sort of..." He stops and looks up at the branches. He stops so suddenly I freeze, thinking he'd heard me, but then he releases a long sigh and finishes his sentence. "Detached. I seperated from myself, and I reached for my own hand as I pulled away, the current continued to roll my body over the rocks at the bottom of the river and I just sort of hovered there, not affected by the movement or temperature."

"How did you get out?"

"I didn't. I just stayed there, too confused and terrified to do anything else. When you're told your whole life how suicide and death works, it feels very straight forward and easy. All you've got to do is stop the heart. What no one tells you is what happens after it stops, and your soul is peeled from your flesh. It's not your home anymore, and you don't belong to a vessel, and worst of all, you're still in pain, but now you have no body to contend with. Suicide fixed nothing for me, it just made me invisible and harder for people to notice than before. If I were given the chance, I never would have jumped."

"You should have waited for me." Andy frowns.

"Why? So we could fulfill our gang death pact?"

Andy chuckles but it lacks amusement. "That was one of my greatest mistakes... But no. I could have stopped you, I think... None of this had to happen."

"Andy." Ashley turns towards him and places his hand on his shoulder, the kindest gesture I have seen between them since they hugged on the night they reunited. "Nothing could have stopped me. Some people can't be saved, that's not on you. I chose that route to end my life. I had it planed for months, actually. I knew I'd never make it out of high school and I knew I'd never make it to my eighteenth birthday. I'm not content with it, but I'm okay, and that's all I need to be, alright? Hey, it's your turn to spill your secrets."

He slaps his arm playfully, and chuckles, moving back into the leading position at the head of our tour, carrying us deeper into the heart of the woods, our adventure narrated with sad tales of lost lives and dead dreams.