Hereafter

The Jessica rule

The Jeep pitched and dived as it climbed the rocky hill toward nowhere. All I could see in front of me were the sky and stars, and I clung to the roll bar, just hoping that Bea was as adept behind the wheel as she seemed to think she was. Next to me on the bench backseat, Krista smiled with her head tipped back, as if enjoying the sensation of her hair being nearly ripped from her scalp. To her right, Fisher stared straight ahead, his mirrored sunglasses on to guard against the wind. Joaquin and Bea occasionally spoke to each other in the front seat, but with all the whooshing air in my ears, and the frantic tripping of my heart, I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

I had no idea where we were going. All I knew was it had taken Joaquin half an hour to wheedle me into the car, swearing left and right that whatever we were about to do was going to make me feel better about everything. It wasn’t until he mentioned that Tristan wouldn’t be there—he was working the closing shift at the Thirsty Swan—that I’d finally agreed to come.

“Just look at the stars!” Krista said, splaying out her arms.

“Yeah. They’re…great,” I replied flatly.

Up ahead, the ground seemed to just end, like we were coming to some sort of a drop-off.

“Um, Bea!” I shouted, leaning forward. “Maybe you should stop.”

“Don’t worry. It’s fine,” she called back, glancing over her shoulder at me.

“But you’re heading for a cliff!” I yelled, watching the edge of the world rushing toward me at an alarming speed.

“Don’t worry about it!” Fisher said with a smile.

My heart was in my throat. What was so cool about this? Were they going to drive me off a cliff just to prove I couldn’t die?

“I am worried about it!” I cried, frustrated by their calm. “I’m sorry if I’m not used to being a Lifer yet, but I just got here and I don’t want to—”

Bea suddenly applied the brake, and we skidded forward. I closed my eyes as the Jeep turned sideways, the back wheels swinging toward the precipice. I heard the dirt and rocks spray out over the edge and clenched my fists, waiting to feel the ground drop out from underneath me. Dreading the weightlessness. And then, we stopped.

“We’re here!”

“Everybody out!”

The Jeep bobbed as the others climbed out and jumped down onto the rocks. As my breathing began to slow, I could hear the waves crashing somewhere down below. Ever so slowly, I opened one eye, then the other. The stars winked overhead. I was still alive. Relatively speaking.

“What is the matter with you people?” I screeched, standing up on the seat. Instantly, the world swooped beneath me. The tire under my feet was aligned perfectly with the edge of the cliff and the water was miles below me. One wrong move and I would tip over the edge. Slowly, I sat down again, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. To my right, Bea and Fisher were stripping off their outer layers and walking to the far edge of the cliff, laughing and chatting along the way. Kevin parked his sleek black car nearby, and he, Lauren, and Cori clambered out, all of them shedding clothes along the way. There was no sign of Tristan. Or Nadia, for that matter.

Joaquin and Krista stood on the other side of the Jeep.

“Sorry. Bea’s our resident speed freak,” Krista said, tying her hair into a ponytail.

Joaquin stepped closer. “I’ll help you down.”

I slid across the bench and stood up shakily. Joaquin reached out and clasped my waist with his hands. I jumped down, assuming he’d back up, but he didn’t, and we grazed hips. I looked up into his brown eyes. He was still holding on to me.

“Well,” he said. “Maybe you’re not such a goody-goody.”

I blushed and stepped back. “What’re we doing here?”

“Come see!” Krista said excitedly.

The others were all gathered at the very edge of the cliff. I walked toward them on quivering knees, clinging to the front of my sweatshirt with both hands. The fierce wind whipped my hair against my face. In the distance I could see the bridge, the fog swirling lazily around its legs. I stood behind the others on my toes and looked down.

All I saw was water. Water and foam and spray and rocks.

“It’s a cliff,” I said flatly.

“Yep.” Shirtless, Fisher stepped backward toward the edge, tossing his sunglasses onto a pile of clothes. “And it’s perfect for this.”

My eyes widened. “Don’t!”

But it was too late. Fisher had stepped off the edge. He let out a loud, merry shout as he fell. It seemed like five minutes passed before he finally hit the water. He was so far below us I didn’t even hear the sound of the splash, but I saw the white water spray up around him.

For a long moment, no one said a word. I was sure I was never going to see Fisher again. No one, dead or alive, could survive a drop like that. But then, suddenly, the water broke and his head emerged. He let out a whoop and the crowd cheered. My shoulders slumped in relief as Fisher swam toward some low rocks and scrambled up onto them.

“That was awesome!” Joaquin shouted.

Fisher cupped his hands around his mouth, and a moment later I heard the faintest call. “Who’s next?”

Joaquin, Lauren, Bea, Kevin, Cori, and Krista all turned to look at me.

“Oh no,” I said, backing up. “No way. I’ll just wait for you guys in the Jeep.”

“Come on, Rory. It’s an amazing feeling,” Bea said imploringly.

“Here, look. I’ll do it. It’s fine,” Cori told me.

Then she turned and jumped, disappearing from view in a snap. The rest of them cheered, hooted, and hollered. This time I didn’t look, but I heard her shout up to us when she emerged.

“The water’s perfect!”

Crazy. They were all crazy. Every last one of them. I turned and walked away as fast as I could, my pulse thrumming in my ears. Krista, Bea, and Lauren came after me, but I threw my hands up at them, my sneakers crunching across the pebbles and sand.

“You guys do whatever you want to do,” I said. “But just FYI, peer pressure is pretty lost on me.”

“We’re not trying to peer-pressure you,” Bea said, screwing up her face as if I’d offended her. “If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it.”

“Why are you even doing it?” I demanded, feeling annoyed and embarrassed that they were all so blasé about something that scared the breath out of me. “That has to be a twenty-story drop!”

Bea shrugged. “Because we can. There’s a lot you can do when you realize you can’t die.”

My gaze darted past her to the edge. So that was what this was about. Illustrating Joaquin’s point. I was going to “live” forever. Which meant nothing could hurt me. Not in a permanent way.

But still. That didn’t mean I was ready to jump off a cliff.

“Hey, if you don’t want to jump, don’t worry,” Krista said, reaching for my hand with both of hers. Her skin was warm and soft. “We’ll sit this one out with you.”

“We will?” Bea asked, disappointed.

“Don’t let me stop you,” I said.

“No. We want to hang out with you, right?” Krista said to the others as she tugged me toward a grouping of large rocks. “Let’s sit.”

Bea sighed, looking longingly over at the cliff. “Fine.”

“I’m in,” Lauren said with a shrug.

Krista and I settled down on a wide, flat, gray rock and Bea and Lauren perched around us. Bea sat with her knees together, her feet apart, and pushed her hair behind her shoulders, her jaw clenched. Lauren fiddled with the gold seashell she wore on a chain around her neck. I glanced over my shoulder at the waves far below, feeling awkward. Being the center of attention was not my thing.

“So,” Krista began, biting her lip. “Are you okay?”

I froze. Had Tristan said something to her? “Yeah. Why?”

“Just Joaquin kept going on about how we had to cheer you up, and when Tristan came into the general store this morning after your tour, he wouldn’t even look me in the eye,” Krista explained. “Did something happen between you two?”

“Me and Tristan?” I squeaked. “No. Of course not. We’re not, I mean, he’s not—”

“Oh god. You like him, don’t you?” Krista squealed.

“Ugh. Not another one,” Bea said bluntly.

“What do you mean, another one?” I asked.

Lauren leaned back on her hands. “Just don’t let Nadia find out.”

“I knew it!” I exclaimed. “She likes him, doesn’t she?”

Silence. The three of them exchanged knowing looks, and a new and awful thought occurred to me, one that would explain everything that had happened this morning and also make it ten times more embarrassing.

“Wait a minute. Are Tristan and Nadia, like, together?”

“Uh, no,” Krista said with a scoff. “Please.”

“Not that she doesn’t want to,” Lauren sang, pushing her legs out straight.

“Lauren!” Bea kicked Lauren’s shin with her toe.

“What?” Lauren was wide-eyed. “I’m just saying! Rory should know. If you have a thing for Tristan, it’s better to know. Trust me.”

I blinked. Did Lauren have a thing for Tristan, too?

“What do you mean? Wait, is that why she’s always lurking around and glaring at me?”

“She’s been lurking?” Krista blurted out.

Bea sighed loudly and raised her eyes to the stars. “I don’t know about the lurking, but Lauren’s talking about the Jessica Rule.”

“What’s the Jessica Rule?” I asked.

Someone let out a loud whoop, and when we looked over, Kevin had disappeared from sight. We waited a couple of minutes until we heard him whoop again, his voice echoing up from the depths.

“Are you losers doing this or what?” Joaquin shouted to us.

“Keep your pants on!” Bea shouted back.

He laughed, then pulled off his shirt before diving over the edge.

“What’s the Jessica Rule?” I repeated.

“Basically, the deal is this,” Lauren began, tucking her glossy dark hair behind her ears. “Jessica was this Lifer who got here way before the three of us did, and apparently Tristan fell for her. Like, big-time fell. We’re talking running barefoot through the fields, swearing undying devotion under the stars, epic kind of romance.”

I squirmed, my toes curling inside my sneakers. “And?”

Lauren’s eyes sparkled with mischief in a way that made me think of my sister and her friends back home. They got that exact same look on their face when they had good dirt. She leaned toward me conspiratorially.

“And then she—”

“Broke up with him,” Bea interrupted curtly. Lauren whipped around to glare at her. “She broke up with him, broke his heart, and he vowed to never get into a relationship with another Lifer. Which is what Nadia found out when she tried to get together with him upon her arrival. What was it? Thirty years ago now?”

“Why not?” I asked. “I mean, why not ever get into another relationship? People break up all the time.”

Krista took a breath. “Because she—”

Suddenly I was blinded by a flash of light. We all turned around at the sound of a gunned engine. A black sports car with a huge firebird painted on its hood came flying up the hill out of nowhere and skidded to a stop, spraying dirt and pebbles all over the place. Pete clambered out from behind the wheel and jogged over to the jumping point, leaving the engine running and the radio and lights on. He peeled a white tank top off over his head.

“Woo-hoo!” he shouted. And then he flipped off the edge.

Yep. Crazy people. I was living among a bunch of crazy people. I was just turning back to the conversation when the passenger-side door opened, and Nadia stepped out. She looked right at me with a cocky expression, slammed the door, and sauntered over. Her Mohawk was spikier this evening, and she wore thick black eyeliner that made her dark eyes look huge.

“What’re you girls doing?” she said teasingly, pushing her hands into the pockets of her black vinyl jacket. “Getting a knitting circle going?”

They were the first words I’d actually heard her speak. Bea, Lauren, and Krista all turned to look at me.

“What?” Nadia said, looking down her nose at me.

I pushed myself up to my feet, my insides shivering and sliding. Nadia eyed me with interest.

“Do you have a problem with me?” I demanded. Bea, Lauren, and Krista all stood up around us, forming a circle.

She lifted a shoulder. “I have a few, actually,” she spat, looking me up and down like I was dirt.

“What?” I asked, turning my palms out. “If this is about Tristan—”

“Tristan?” she barked indignantly. “Are you kidding me? This is not about Tristan. It’s about the fact that I don’t trust you.”

My jaw dropped. “What did I ever do to you?”

Bea and Lauren exchanged an alarmed glance, as if they knew what was coming and didn’t like it.

“Like you don’t know,” Nadia said, jutting her chin.

My fingers curled in frustration. “Enlighten me.”

“Okay, fine,” Nadia said. “Ever since you got here, something’s off. All this strange stuff has been happening.”

My eyes narrowed. “What strange stuff?”

“That’s not her fault,” Lauren said to Nadia, not defensively, but as if my innocence were obvious.

“How do you know?” Nadia demanded. “No one knows for sure.”

“What strange stuff?” I repeated, looking around at the others.

“Stop acting like you don’t know!” Nadia shouted, getting right in my face.

“Nadia, that’s enough!” Bea shouted, grabbing her arm.

“Lay off, Beatrice.” Nadia whirled on her. “You don’t tell me what I can and can’t say.”

“If Tristan were here, he would say the same thing,” Bea said, stepping toward her menacingly. She was a good foot taller than Nadia, with a lot more muscle. “So, shut. The hell. Up.”

Nadia’s pale face grew red. “Fine. But I know I’m right,” she said, glaring at me. “And I’m going to prove it.”

Then she turned around and took off, storming across the dirt and rocks toward Pete’s car. No one spoke. Nadia got behind the wheel and peeled out.

“What was she talking about?” I asked when the growl of the engine faded to a dull hum. “What weird stuff has been happening since I got here?”

Krista opened her mouth to speak, but Bea shook her head, silencing her.

“Lauren?” I said.

“I can’t. It’s not my place,” she told me, pulling her hands up under the cuffs of her sweatshirt.

Frustration burbled inside my chest, threatening to boil over. “Then whose place is it?”

No one said a word.

“Whose place is it?” I shouted. “Is it Tristan’s?”

Still no answer. Lauren looked over her shoulder as if there were someone there who could help them out of this awkward mess.

“Fine. I’m outta here,” I spat, striding away. “So glad I can trust my new family.”

“Rory! Come on! It’s at least two miles back to town!” Krista cried after me.

“Good thing I’m a runner!” I called back.

I kept walking, charging straight into the dark, my feet twisting and slipping over the uneven terrain. Trees rose up on both sides of the road, and a stiff wind sent a shower of curled brown leaves over my head and shoulders. I pulled my sweatshirt tighter and clenched my teeth.

I trudged around a bend in the road and froze when I saw a pair of headlights gleaming up ahead, illuminating a wild stretch of weeds. The car was sleek and silver, idling in the silence. The brake lights were on, and the window started to slide down as I arrived. Something moved off to my right, and I ducked down behind a wild berry bush, peering over the uneven branches. Officer Dorn slid down an embankment—an embankment from which he could have seen everything going on at the cliff—and walked over to the car, his black patent-leather shoes gleaming in the moonlight.

He leaned in toward the car window to talk to the driver, but I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the blood whooshing in my ears. The conversation went on for a few minutes before the window slid up again and the car slowly rolled away. Dorn stood up straight, sighed, and checked his watch before moving off in the opposite direction.

When I stood up on solid ground once more, my knees were shaking.

Dorn seemed to be everywhere lately. I thought of the accusatory look he and Grantz had given me in the park along with Nadia, and that odd feeling I’d had at Tristan’s this morning, like someone was listening—watching. And was it just a coincidence that Pete had happened by on the bay last night, or had he been following me, too?

A cold wind blew all around me, and I shivered from head to toe. I raced up to the road and headed south as fast as I could. I wanted answers, and as far as I could tell, there was only one place on this island I could get them.