Page 63 of Starrily

“I’m not arguing.” He reached out his hands to calm her down. “I’m only trying to find an explanation.”

“I swear if this is a prank …”

“How could I make my arm disappear as a prank?”

“I don’t know. I …” She turned away, put a hand to her forehead, then turned back. Tears glistened in her eyes, and it hit him—she wasn’t angry at some supposed prank. She was afraid. Scaredfor him. “When something unexplainable happens, people like to jump to conclusions that involve the supernatural,” she said.

“True.”

“There has to be a better explanation. Why would turning into a ghost be the best one?”

“Well.” He sat back down on the blanket, careful of his arm, as if it had been hurt. He extended the other one in an invitation, and Callie kneeled next to him. “Remember my car crash? When I’d been badly hurt?”

She nodded.

“I was in a coma for days due to my brain injuries. From what they told me, I even had no brain function for a bit.”

“That’s awful. You’ve made a remarkable recovery.”

He had. The doctors called it miraculous: one day, he was practically a vegetable, and a week later, all that was left to remind him of the injuries were the surface-level scratches and stitches on his head.

“That’s not all, though. When I was there, in the hospital, I died. Maybe for seconds, maybe for minutes, but I did.”

“You mean, they had to revive you?”

“Not exactly.” How could he explain the strangeness of that time? He couldn’t tell her about Raleigh. That was too much to pile onto her, and now wasn’t the time. Maybe it would never be.

“So what happened?” Callie asked.

“I think I died, and then I was brought back to life. Not zapped with a defibrillator by the doctors, but actually brought back by some other force.”

Callie closed her eyes as she shook her head. “Simon … I understand it must’ve been a traumatic time for you, and you probably don’t remember most of it. People in conditions like yours can have vivid dreams. Maybe you dreamed something strange was happening, that you floated above your body or saw a tunnel with light in the end—”

“No. Iknowsomething strange happened.”

“Then how come nobody else does? You’re an important person. If you had died, or even nearly died, surely it would’ve been in the news.”

“Everett helped keep it under wraps. He didn’t want more chaos or the company’s stock to drop.”

Callie snorted. “Sure, can’t have that.”

“Point is, something happened, and this is the result. I think whatever force resurrected me is taking it back. It’s being reversed.”

“That’s why you believe you’re turning into a ghost?”

“What else could it be?”

“Anything. Literally anything else. A strange medical condition.”

“That no one’s ever had before?”

“There’s a first for everything.”

He wished she was right. A medical condition sounded much less frightening than what he’d conjured up. And if it could be fixed—well, he had enough money for treatment. It was a whole lot better than becoming a ghost.

And yet, in his heart, he felt it wouldn’t be that simple.

“You told me once that you try to make the most out of your life,” she said, somber.