Liv, Forever by Amy Talkington Page A

saw her. I knew immediately it was Lydia. She was just as he’d described, Smiths T-shirt and all. She had a wild, raging look in her eyes.
    Gabe jumped to his feet. “Run, Liv! Come with me!” And I followed.

     
    AS WE WHISKED ACROSS campus something kicked in, a drive to figure things out. I hardly knew my adoptive grandmother, but when she died, I remember fixating on my mother. I don’t think she cried once those first few weeks. She immediately started taking care of business—making calls, folding clothes, cleaning the kitchen, posting the online obituary. She couldn’t really deal with her loss so she started doing other things instead. I felt like that.
    “Can you still hear me?” I asked.
    He nodded. Classes had just ended, so students were crawling all over.
    “Can you see me?”
    “No, I told you, I can only see the—” he started to say “ghosts” but stopped himself—“
them
in certain spots.”
    “I need to know what happened to me.”
    He nodded, with his head down. We crossed through the Art Center’s outside atrium, passing a cluster of students.
    “Just follow me,” he muttered.
    “Are we going to the well?”
    He kept his head down as we passed another set of Wickies, then quickly ducked behind the dumpsters by the Art Center. “I can’t just talk to you out in the open. You understand? They’ll lock me up. They’ll send me away somewhere. They’re desperate to get rid of me!”
    “Okay.” Of course, I hadn’t been thinking of him at all.
    “And,
yes
, we’re going to the well. Of course we’re going to the well.”
    Gabe walked so fast I had to run to keep up. I noticedI was lighter on my feet than I had been before. I could move fast, and I didn’t lose my breath.
    As Gabe arrived at the well, he squinted over the edge. “Nothing. I can’t see a thing.” He scoured the ground at its base. He studied its sides and its edges, looking for any clue, peeking over his shoulder nervously. As I approached, his gaze shifted to me, and he stepped back, almost as if awed. He looked directly into my eyes.
    “You can see me?”
    He nodded.
    I smiled. I never thought I’d feel so delighted just to be seen.
    “So well, too. You look so much more real than the others. More solid. Less …” he stopped himself again.
    “Don’t edit, Gabe.”
    “
Ghosty.
You look less ghosty. And that’s a good thing. It means you’re different from them.” He heard a sound and lurched around, looking, then turned to me to explain, “Sorry it’s just there’s a girl, the one with the bloody neck, who’s always hanging around here near that tree.” He gestured to the weeping willow.
    “I saw her here.” I paused. “And not just here, I saw her in my dream a few weeks ago.”
    He tilted his head, puzzled. “Okay, now
you
sound crazy.”
    He was right
—he
was supposed to be the insane one. “It’s true, though,” I insisted. “I mean, I think it was her.”
    “Well, I don’t know. That never happened to me.”
    “Tell me what
has
happened to you,” I said urgently. I drew closer, but not too close. I didn’t want to risk touchinghim, feeling that burn. “You have to tell me
everything.
I want to know everything you know.
Why
am I here?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know why any of them are. I don’t think
they
know.”
    “Well, what
do
you know?”
    “I’ll tell you, but not here. I don’t feel safe.”
    He glanced one last time at the well, then led me through the woods, explaining as we went. “I only see them in specific places, in charged spots. But I’ve heard them pretty much everywhere. Same way I hear you right now. But they mostly linger in the places where they died I think.”
    “What do they say?”
    “I don’t listen to them. I can’t stand to. I bolt every time I hear one.”
    “Can you think of anything you’ve heard them say?”
    He took a deep breath. “I think Lydia’s the only one who knows I can hear