Page 34 of Aftertaste

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THE FIRST TIME I died, it was an accident.

It didn’t last long. Four minutes, thirteen seconds on the hospital monitor, the flatline a horizon.

There was no otherworldly announcement when it happened. No choir. No gates. Just the sight of my own body, doctors and nurses swarming, everything tinted with haze like a smudged camera lens, the film that separates the Living from the Dead revealing itself only after I passed through it.

I watched the hospital staff try to bring me back—paddles, clear, shock, pump, breathe.

I willed myself to live.

I wasn’t ready, yet, to go; I was twenty-one—a baby. It was Halloween. A year to the day of Everleigh’s death. I’d been at a party, in the bathroom with some guy I didn’t know, taking a mystery drug that was supposed to make me—his words—levitate.

That night, all I’d wanted was to forget. To not feel.

When Ev died, I couldn’t handle it; I didn’t know how. I should have been sadder. Bereft. Riddled with guilt, unable to untangle myself. Or crawling my way through those five stages of grief toward some halfhearted acceptance, a halcyon light. But I was young and stubborn and didn’t want to sit with those feelings. I wanted to act like I was fine. Like Everleigh had chosen to leave me behind, so I had no problem leaving her, too.

Grief shows up in a lot of complicated ways, and mine was denial.

After her funeral, I decided I wasn’t going to feel sad or angry or numb all the time. I just wanted to feel good again. To feel alive.

I started chasing thrills.

Ecstasy, adrenaline, spark—they beat the hell out of hurting.

It wasn’t a particularly deep or self-reflective period in my life. You could call me a hedonist, if you were being charitable. A steaming dumpster fire if you weren’t. A junkie. A pleasure-seeker. Attention whore. Party girl. I was all of the above.

The problem with living fast is you’re never satisfied. After a while, running doesn’t feel good anymore. You want to sprint. You want to fly. You seek out the next rush, and the next.

I looked for it everywhere. Anywhere. In tattoos, and piercings, and razor blades. In VIP, and secret clubs, and penthouse apartments. In drugs, and booze, and the bodies of strangers. In places I never should have gone.

And that night, finally, it all caught up to me.

An attending zipped around my body, barking commands. A nurse held a finger on my carotid. They backed away again, loaded another paddle, made me jerk.

I shimmered backward through the air, suddenly aware of this new way I moved—weightless. Bodyless. Then they were intubating, running thick, corrugated plastic down a throat, into a chest that used to be mine. I was seizing up, convulsing, something going wrong, and I didn’t want to watch anymore.

I closed my eyes, pictured a happier place, a happier time. A happier Halloween.

We were sitting on the porch. Eating Reese’s. Laughing. Everleigh and me.

It was one of those moments when we were entirely present. Charged by the magic of loving and being loved. Cemented by the flavor in our mouths. A taste, a memory, that brought my sister back to me.

And suddenly someone was saying my name.

M-Maura?

Ev’s voice went through me like water. When I opened my eyes, saw her there—staring, stunned, beside a booth in a carbon copy of our local arcade—it felt like every piece of my soul had filtered to the floor.

She looked so different. Still young, still lanky, still wild faced and violet haired, but there was a wrongness to her now. Her eyes had lost their flickering light; her skin stretched tight over her bones. Her mouth hung open, desperate.

She looked so hungry. So haunted.

But I didn’t care.

I threw my arms around her neck, and she hugged back, tight, and I felt her there, against my chest, spirit on spirit like solid flesh. Maybe it was worth it, I thought, dying, to feel this again.

Ev? I gasped. Everleigh? Are you all right?

She shook her head, her eyes wide and full of pain. Full of panic.

No , she whispered.

She wasn’t okay.

It’s the Hunger. Her words came fast, like she was running out of time. Maura, please—I need your help.

And I would have done anything for her then. Given anything.

I need you to let me—

BUT THE DOCTORS around the crash cart succeeded, then, in bringing me back to Life.

I woke to everyone cheering like they’d just performed a miracle.

I guess, technically, they had.

Don’t get me wrong—I was glad to be alive. But I was also devastated.

It was loss and grief and pain all over again. Only this time, I had watched my sister suffer. Had heard her beg for help. She was reaching out; she needed me.

And I know someone more skeptical might have questioned what they’d seen. Chalked it up to hallucination. A drug-induced dream. But if there was even a chance it was real, I had to try.

When Ev took her life, I hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to help her.

But now that she was Dead? Maybe I could.