Replay E-Book

Robin Brande

• Herausgeber: Ryer Publishing
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

I DIED.  For forty-two seconds I died.

They were operating on me—why isn't important anymore—and it was a simple surgery, everyone said so.  My dad didn't even take off work.

Breathing, breathing, not.

I can picture it.  The "oh, no," the scurrying around, the paddles on my chest, thwump.  Clear!  Thwump.  Beep beep, beep beep, she's back. 

Everything back to normal.

THEY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING.

**
Cara Campbell thought she had it made:  star athlete, popular student, winner.  But when she dies during surgery, she sees something she knows no one would ever believe.  The doctors manage to revive her, but what happened during those 42 seconds of death has changed everything.

Now Cara is having a hard time adjusting to her former life.  None of her friends or accomplishments matter anymore.  What does matter is the face she saw as she came rushing back into her body.  That face belongs to David Mayer, a brainy outcast who dislikes Cara even more than she does him.

As Cara sorts through the ramifications of her near-death experience, and struggles to overcome her fear of telling everyone what really happened, she discovers a path she never realized lay ahead of her.

And as Cara is about to learn, there are no coincidences.
 

Leseprobe

REPLAY

ROBIN BRANDE

RYER PUBLISHING

REPLAY

By Robin Brande

* * *

Copyright 2012 by Robin Brande

Published by Ryer Publishing

www.ryerpublishing.com

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Ziga Rebel

Cover design by gobookcoverdesign.com

ISBN: 978-1-952383-20-5

* * *

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Created with Vellum

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

About the Author

Also by Robin Brande

1

I died. For forty-two seconds I died.

They were operating on me—why isn’t important anymore—and it was a simple surgery, everyone said so. My dad didn’t even take off work.

Breathing, breathing, not.

I can picture it. The “oh, no,” the scurrying around, the paddles on my chest, thwump. Clear! Thwump. Beep beep, beep beep, she’s back. Everything back to normal.

They don’t know anything.

2

People think they understand time. They think it always means the same thing: sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, the same everywhere, in every universe, in every situation because we say so.

But it’s not true. I know that now. Time is a line, stretching out forever. It’s fluid. It’s loose. It stretches and it bends, and seconds in one place can be hours in another.

They’ll say I was just hallucinating. That my brain was deprived of oxygen, and it made pretty pictures for me, and what I saw wasn’t real. But I know what I know. I was there. And it was as real as anything I’ve ever been through in my life.

They’re all so careful not to talk about it. Forty-two seconds gone from my life, and no one even thinks to ask where I was?

Well, almost no one. For the first couple of days, Beth was all over me.

“What was it like? Could you tell you were dead? Did you see anything?”

I always lied, even though I’m not supposed to do that anymore. But I just don’t think my thirteen-year-old sister can handle what really happened to me. Especially since I’m not really sure myself.

So I told her I didn’t know anything was going on. That it was just like being asleep.

“Did you dream?”

“No, not really.”

Beth is not known for giving up. “So you didn’t feel anything? You couldn’t tell that something was wrong? You didn’t feel . . . different?”

No, no, and no.

But of course the answer’s yes. Yes to all of it: Yes I felt it, yes I knew, yes everything has changed.

Because now I understand Time. And how meaningless it is. And that I’m such a small part of it. This one life of mine—this Cara Lily Campbell life, 616 N. Waverly Street, Pinedale, Colorado, born February 3rd, parents Ron and Gretchen, sister Beth—this life is just one tiny speck of a moment among the huge vastness of Time, and for sixteen years I’ve been acting like my stupid life is the biggest deal in the world.

Well, I’m over that.

It’s hard to hang on to your delusions when you die on the operating table and find yourself a naked blob of light plopped down in the middle of a card game with four other naked blobs of light in a cold gray place that might be heaven, although I’m still not sure. That’s one of the things I have to figure out.

That, and why I woke up thinking about David.

3

The game was already going when I arrived. I dropped in like I’d been there all along. No one even looked up. They just accepted that I wasn’t there a second ago and now I was, deal me in, carry on. No, “Oh, hi, Cara, you’re dead, nice to see you.” Just flip me a card and expect me to know what to do with it.

It melted. A regular playing card—ten of clubs—and it melted right into me like the card was made of my own skin. Which, it turns out, it was.

All the cards in that round were made of skin. The jack of diamonds—brown. Three of hearts—black. Eight of spades—white. Nine of clubs—tan. The four people playing with me all drew cards and all got skin to go with the bodies they were about to win in the next round, but mine wouldn’t take. My card melted right away and left me what I was, just a glowing mass of light, no body to me at all, no face, no hair, no nothing.

“Because you’re not dead,” one of them told me—the pale one who had drawn the eight of spades. “Your body’s still down there—you’re not done with it yet.” She drew another card and grew a torso and legs and breasts and all the rest, and long brown hair and brown eyes.

It was gray where we were—overcast and colorless, no wind, no warmth, just gray. No light except what was coming from us—even after they had their bodies on, I could still see light seeping through. We sat around a table made of mottled gray marble that was too cold to the touch. I shivered every time I reached for a card.

New deal. The man on my left read out his—two of hearts. “Musician,” they all agreed as a patch of blue appeared where his heart should have been.

The next one drew Mathematician. Next one, Healer. And the woman picked Teacher, which seemed to make her happy.

I drew three cards in a row, but none of them mattered. They all melted away.

“You already drew before,” the woman explained. “You’re already set.”

Another round of play. This one was for place of birth. Darfur, New Delhi, Washington, D.C. The minute they read out their cards, the three men were gone, leaving just her and me.

“Aren’t you going to draw?” I asked.

“No, I think I’ll stay with you,” she said. “Until it’s time for you go back.”

Meanwhile, someone in the operating room had just figured it out. I heard him off in the distance. “We lost the heartbeat!”

Good, I thought. This might take a while.

4

I don’t know about anyone else who’s died and come back to life, but all I want is cheese.

Smooth, tangy, creamy, soft, orange or white—it’s all I’ve been eating for the past week, despite my mother’s badgering. When I first got home from the hospital I sat down and ate half a package of longhorn cheddar. Oh my God, heaven.

Cheese and sleep. I must have slept eighteen hours yesterday. Mom says I don’t have to go back to school until I feel a hundred percent strong. They’re used to me gutting it out, all those injuries over the years—the torn ACL, the broken wrist, the sprains and dislocations, everything else—so if I’m sleeping this much, they must figure I need it. The doctor told them that after a trauma—even a short one like mine—the body can need a long time to recover. Fine. I’ll take it. I have other things to do.

Like this morning. I sat out on the porch with my leg propped up, drinking tea, staring at the aspens in front of our house and really trying to understand them. That pale cool bark. The perfect construction of the leaves with their spindly stems that let them twist and flutter in the wind like fans whipping back and forth. Who decided on aspens? There are enough trees in the world, so why those? Is it just because they’re beautiful? God or someone decided hey, I need something white and green here, with some shimmer to it, and so bam, we have the aspen, ladies and gentlemen, hope you enjoy it.

Same with the birds. So many unnecessary varieties of them. The colors, the beaks, the wing patterns, the calls and cries, the bug-eaters and the nut-crackers and all the rest. Why? Isn’t the world busy enough? Why do we need wrens and parrots and ostriches? It’s obscene, it’s so overdone.

So I sat there looking at the pines and the aspens and listening to all the competing species of birds, and meanwhile somewhere in a high school three miles from here hundreds of teenagers were walking around in their own particular varieties—with and without zits, with blue eyes and brown eyes, boobs and no boobs, brains and no brains, everyone so worried about how they look and how everyone else sees them, and WHAT’S THE POINT?

And here I was, boobs of my own, green eyes, blond hair, and who cares? Because they’re all disposable. They don’t mean anything. They’re all just a flip of the cards.

I can’t tell anyone these thoughts. There are too many of them and most are clearly crazy—“Why are there birds? Why does anyone love me? Did I ever matter in this world?”—and meanwhile I smile and say thank you for the grilled cheese (which I keep scraping off the bread—not ready for bread yet), and try to keep it together until I can go to sleep again.

And then on top of all that, I can’t stop thinking about David.

And tell me that’s not crazy. We’re talking David Mayer here—bad clothes, bad hair, the guy who always smells like garlic and paint. That specimen.

So why was his face the one that flashed across my brain just as I was coming back to life? Not my parents, not my sister, not my friends, but David flippin’ Mayer. A guy I’ve never spoken more than three words to in my life.

But it has to mean something, right? You don’t just see a face for no reason as you’re flying back into your body.

So what am I supposed to do about it? Call him up, say, “Hey, David, want to hear something funny?” And then what comes after that? Does he have some message for me? Some series of tasks I’m supposed to complete, like Hercules? “Bring me the head of Gargantua . . .”

Reincarnation for Amateurs—that’s what I need. Some sort of manual to tell me how I’m supposed to be and act and think anymore. It can’t be that when you survive your own death all you’re meant to do with your life is sleep, eat cheese, and stare at trees all day.

Maybe I should call David.

At some point.

5

“Hey,” Beth said, plopping her backpack onto the porch and sinking into the wicker chair beside mine. She was careful not to come anywhere near my leg, outstretched on the padded wicker footstool.

“How was school?” I asked.

“The usual. Seriously,” she said, pointing to the plate of cheese on my lap, “is that all you’re ever going to eat anymore?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe not.”

She reached into her backpack and brought out an assortment of chocolate bars, fanned out in her hands like playing cards.

“From that bakery by Dad’s,” she said.

“I could totally marry you right now.”

We didn’t gorge. Beth and I set up a proper chocolate sampling station on little table between our chairs, and we took our time working from one end of the selections to the other. The hazelnut/raisin combo. White and dark chocolate swirls. Milk chocolate over cookie with a caramel center, and plain milk chocolate that was anything but plain as it melted on my tongue and went directly into my blood stream and knitted together some of the gaps I’ve been feeling between nerve endings that have been making me so jittery lately.

By the end of the third bar I felt warm again. Almost happy. I didn’t realize how cold I’ve been these last few days—really, ever since I came back. It’s like my blood still hasn’t even returned to room temperature yet.

“I have a theory,” I told Beth, because I’d just come up with it and felt like telling someone besides myself. I’ve been alone inside my head for too long. It felt good to talk again.

“Let’s hear it,” she said with her mouth full.

“I think when you die and you come back—”

Beth’s eyes widened ever so slightly. I’d introduced the D word.

“—I think after that you’re assigned one section of the alphabet, and you have to eat off of it the rest of your life. I obviously got the ‘ch’s. Cheese, chocolate—”

“Oh, right,” she said, “so, Chex Mix, Cheerios—”

“Chick peas—”

“Chives—”

“Chestnuts,” I said.

“Chicken—”

That stopped me. “No. No chicken. Ever. No meat of any kind. That sounds repulsive.” Until I said it, I didn’t realize that’s how I felt. Considering that I’ve always eaten anything and everything—in massive quantities sometimes, depending on how long and hard I’ve pushed it all day—it was as much of a surprise to me as to Beth.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just the thought of eating flesh right now makes me want to gag.”

“Maybe you’re more . . . sensitive,” Beth ventured, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. I could see she wasn’t sure how far she could go. My parents must have said something to her before about all her questions. “You know, since . . .”

I ripped open the chocolate macadamia nut. “All right, Bethie, ask.”

“Ask what?” she said all innocently.

“I know you’ve been waiting. So go ahead.”

“Really?”

I nodded, and she launched right into it.

“Okay, so do you still feel weird? I mean, you’ve been all spaced out ever since you came back. Half the time I don’t know if you’re in a trance or sleeping or what. I mean, we talk to you and it’s like you can’t hear us or you don’t care or whatever. And then sometimes I can see you’re talking to yourself, but your lips don’t really move, it’s just your eyebrows crinkle up, or you shake your head or frown or act like you’re having this really intense conversation with someone. Can you see people now? Like, dead people? Are they talking to you?”

I snorted. “No.”

“Because it’s okay if you are,” she assured me. “I won’t tell Mom and Dad. But I just wonder what’s going on, you know? I mean, you died. You were really dead—no joke. You could have stayed dead. Is it one of those things where you have to actually decide if you want to come back?”

My head was starting to hurt. Maybe it was the chocolate rush, maybe it was so many words all at once after a full week of relative quiet. But I couldn’t just blow off my little sister again. I’m sure I’d have been just as curious if she were the one who had died.

So I gave her a little something. “I don’t think it was my time yet.”

“Yeah, but how did you know?”

Because I met a woman or an angel or some sort of celestial being, and she told me I was only there for a little while so she could basically talk some sense into me and then slap me on the butt and send me home. And someday, Bethie, when you die, you’re going to go to this strange place where you’ll play cards with a bunch of blobs of light, and that’s how you’ll find out everything you’re supposed to be in your next life. Isn’t that cool? Doesn’t that freak you out? Now let’s have some more chocolate.

But I didn’t say any of that. Because a part of me thinks maybe I’m not supposed to tell—maybe everyone is supposed to find out for themselves. And another part of me thinks it’s hard enough to deal with all that when you’re sixteen, and I don’t really need to burden my little sister with it.

And a part of me just plain thinks it’s private. Maybe I’m selfish. Maybe I want to hold it close to me as long as I can.

“Bethie, I’m getting kind of tired—”

“Oh, okay,” she said, clearly disappointed. She swung her legs over the arm of her chair and started to stand up.

“Sit,” I said between my teeth. A car had just pulled up.

6

“Hey, Cara Dara!” It was Toomy.

“Don’t let her stay too long,” I muttered to Beth, “okay? Tell her I get too tired or something.”

Beth gave me a strange look, which I understood, since Toomy has been my best friend since second grade.

“Ten minutes,” I said, “okay?”

I’d barely gotten it out before Toomy bounded onto the porch. She glanced at my leg and winced. “Yow, gimp.” She slapped my hand in greeting. “What’s shakin’, Bethie?”

“Not much.” Beth left us to go back inside, but not before tapping her watch at me, a little too theatrically.

“Okay, I promise.” I rolled my eyes at Toomy. “Nurse Campbell says I’m not to exert myself.”

Toomy noticed the plate on my lap, piled high with provolone and chocolate wrappers.

“Fully lettin’ yourself go, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Want some?”

Toomy chuffed. “I could so kick your ass at the hundred right now.”

And so it resumed. This weird combination the two of us have—part friendship, part competition. And the truth is I’m not interested in either anymore.

Toomy launched into her report about everything that’s been going on at school while I’ve been gone, and I just didn’t care. It meant as much to me as if she’d shown up to discuss Bangladeshi weather. As weird as I feel around my own family right now, I can’t even imagine what it will be like when I have to go back to school. I have nothing in common with any of those people anymore. I feel about a hundred years old.

And while Toomy was babbling away I was busy thinking, I wonder why her eyes are brown. Why her top lip is bigger than the bottom one. Which card she drew to get that pitching arm. Does she already know what she is? Did she pick Healer? Or Mother? Or maybe Killer? How many choices are in that deck? How specific does it get? Was Hitler born Hitler?

Toomy waved her hand in front of my face. “Hey—stoner—you listening?”

“Yeah,” I lied. “Just a little tired.”

Right on cue, thank you, Beth emerged from the house to point at her watch again. “Sorry,” she told me, “but you know what the doctor said.”

“Aye, aye,” I answered, saluting. “Sorry, Toom, my jailer is very strict.”

Toomy didn’t budge yet. “Alex been by?”

“Nope.” I let out a breath. I’d been waiting for that question.

“Huh? What’s up with that?”

“I’m sure he’s busy.” I felt like adding, “Good.”

“I’ll go ride his ass,” Toomy promised.

“No, that’s okay—”

“Happy to.” She stood up, took another serious look at my leg, and said, “How long do they think?”

“Months. At least through skiing, maybe into softball.”

Toomy whistled. “My dad’s not gonna like that.”

I shrugged. “I’m not having much fun with it, either.”

She slapped my hand again and set off. “I’m gonna go rag on your boy. Not coming over—what a dog.”

“It’s okay,” I called after her. “Don’t bother.”

But she was already dialing him on her cell. She waved over her shoulder. “No problem. He deserves some hell.”

I sank back in my chair. I really was exhausted.

Beth must have noticed. “Want some help?”

“Nah, I’m okay. Just hand me those.” Beth waited with my crutches while I gingerly lifted my leg from the footstool. “Hey, by the way—thanks for breaking it up.”

“Are you mad at her or something?”

“No. It’s just . . . I can’t really take all the noise anymore. It’s too much talking.”

Beth must have thought that included her, too, because she didn’t say anything else as she followed me inside and up the stairs. But she did suck in her breath every time it looked like I might bump my leg. Finally I had to tell her she was making me nervous.

“Sorry, it just looks so . . . painful.”

“I have to get used to it,” I said. “I’m going to be on these for a while.”

When we were finally outside my bedroom, Beth asked, “Do you want me to call you for dinner?”

“No, I think I’m just going to sleep. I’ll come down later if I’m hungry.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “Just shout. I’ll bring you something.”

How could you not love a sister like that? So why couldn’t it have been her face I saw as I came back to life? It would have made everything so much easier.

I shut my bedroom door and leaned against it. I really did want to go back to bed, but I knew I had to do something first—something I should have done days ago. There’s really no way of escaping it.

I went to my computer, did a quick search, and found David Mayer’s phone number. Because obviously the card I drew was Stalker.

Great start to my new life. I’m hunting down a freak.

7

Okay, so to be fair, David isn’t the worst guy at my school. That distinction would belong to Pete Allred, the guy who lives near the fish hatchery and always shows up reeking of b.o. and spawn. Major zits. A really thick nose and wide nostrils—that would be a problem if I’d woken up thinking about him. David isn’t disgusting, he’s just . . . wrong.

He showed up freshman year, an import from Denver, and I suppose we weren’t exactly welcoming, but David didn’t help his case any by acting like he was Big City and we were just a bunch of hillbillies who ate our own dogs in the winter. Massive GPA, which didn’t add to his charm as far as a lot of people were concerned. Didn’t take long to bring him down. Alex and the rest of the guys made sure of it.

Toomy played her part, too. And I suppose I did, too, although I really didn’t want to bother. When someone is an insignificant little worm, isn’t it easier to just step over him than on him? But whatever. A little well-timed laughter every time he spoke in class, some significant looks and sarcastic smiles between all of us every time he passed—it didn’t take long for people to figure out this one Didn’t Belong. And David seemed to get it, too. He pretty much faded into the background after the first few weeks. Other than when he’s called on in class, I don’t think I’ve heard the guy speak the last two years.

So it wasn’t without some fear that I dialed his number.

And of course he was home, because where would a guy like him go after school? It was half past four, and he probably already had all his homework done. For the next month.

“Hi . . . David?”

“Speaking.”

“Oh. Hi. It’s Cara. Campbell.”

Silence. Then finally, “Cara Campbell.”

“From calc?”

“Yes, I know.”

That was it. Silence once again.

I hate people like that. No social skills whatsoever. Make me do all the heavy lifting.

“So,” I forged ahead, “I haven’t been in class this week.”

Nothing. Not even a “hm.” I felt like hanging up right then. But I was on a mission, and the time for hanging up was last week, in my past life, not this one anymore.

I said it quickly, just to save myself any more miserable pauses. “So I was hoping you might catch me up on what I’ve missed if you have some time this weekend since I’m probably going back on Monday and I don’t want to be totally behind and I can pay you if you want—like it’s tutoring—or maybe I’ll get a pizza or something—I was thinking you could come over Saturday afternoon.”

A long pause. Then, “Fine. Address?”

I gave it to him and hung up before I was tempted to say anything else. Jerk. Idiot. My palms were so sweaty you’d think I had just called Prince Harry and asked him out on a date.

This had better count.

Do you hear that, great God of the gray place? I am already sacrificing for you. Not that it won’t pay off, I’m sure, but do you see it isn’t easy? Just because I had this Thing happen to me, doesn’t mean I just jump right up and start this life all over again and I’m a completely different person and nothing is hard for me ever again.

Understand? It’s hard.

And then add to that the fact that I had barely hung up when my bedroom door flew open and there was my supposed boyfriend Alex of the Massive Pecs, grinning at me like he’d given me some huge gift just by walking in.

“Hey, babe.” He came over for his requisite kiss and grope.

Which he didn’t realize I wasn’t giving out anymore until I turned my head and nudged him off.

“Hey,” he said, “what’s up?” He tried again, like it had just been an oversight on my part, and I had to push him again.

He made a sound under his breath like he couldn’t believe I’d just done that.

I pretended to go back to studying something off the computer screen.

I’d thought a lot about that moment—had rehearsed it in my head a hundred times while I was in the hospital—but now that it was here I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. I was hyperaware of my bad leg jutting out between us. I think I thought he might kick it.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

I kept my eyes on the screen. “Nothing. I just don’t feel like it anymore.” I clenched my hands in my lap to keep them from trembling.

“Feel like what?” he asked, even though anyone could have figured it out from the fact that I hadn’t just opened my mouth wide and let him jam his tongue in there.

I used both hands to demonstrate. “No more of that.”

Alex stood there for a moment, not sure if I was teasing him or not. “What’re you talking about?”

“Us,” I said. “Done. Over.”

He still didn’t get it. “What, you’re pouting? Just because I didn’t visit you? I told you I had double workouts all this month. Why’re you being such a bitch?”

There was no point in defending myself, no matter how tempting it was. I’d already made up my mind, and I just needed to get it over with.

“No more sex,” I said plainly, finally looking him in the eye. “Ever. Never. That’s it. I’m breaking up with you. We’re done. Goodbye.” I turned back to my screen and pretended not to care how he was looking at me.

Alex stood there for a second, and my heart was pumping like I was in the middle of a marathon, and all I could think was, Not the leg, not the leg. But then he grunted something and disappeared through the door.

I could relax. Which meant I could start shaking. Which I did for about the next ten minutes, wondering if he was going to come back, and what I would do if he did.

It’s hard. Starting over is hard. The woman didn’t tell me that. You might know what’s the right thing to do, but that doesn’t always make it easy. I came back with a whole list of mistakes I have to clean up, and Alex was definitely one of them.

One down, fifty million to go.