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finds your body.”
    “And then what?” I whisper.
    He pauses, considering the question. “Then we find out what happened to you.”
    “We do?”
    “Yeah.” Another pause, this one longer than the last. “Maybe.”

Three
    But it does take a while for someone to find me. And when it finally happens, it’s terrible. Alex and I waited until the sun was all the way up before we decided to go inside the boat. I don’t know why it took us so long to get the idea. As we were sitting on the dock, watching my friends move around inside, I said, “I wish I could hear what they’re talking about in there.”
    “Oh, we can,” he said. “We can go in.”
    I looked at him, not saying anything. I just got up to walk inside.
    But when I reached the sliding glass doors to the boat, I stopped. “The doors are closed, boy genius,” I said. “How am I supposed to get in?”
    “You’re dead, Einstein,” he replied drolly. “You don’t exist in the physical world anymore. The rules don’t apply. Just walk through.”
    I hesitated. I reached out a hand, tentatively, and gasped when I saw that Alex was right—there’s a feeling of coolness where the door is, but my hand goes right through.
    My physical body is still in the same place, lodged awkwardly between the boat and the dock, except now both of my boots are long gone. And I’m not looking so hot anymore. Not that I was when I first saw myself, but a few more hours in the cold salt water has not been kind to my skin. I’ll leave it at that.
    Alex follows me onto the deck of the boat. “Go ahead,” he says. “Walk in.”
    So I do. Just like that. Like there’s no door or anything. As terrified as I am, I can’t help but feel the slightest bit exhilarated. I’m supernatural .
    As we step into the boat, all of my friends are huddled in the back, sitting quietly together.
    “Should we go to her house and check?” Mera asks.
    “Good timing,” Alex says. “They’re talking about you.”
    We take a seat on the steps and watch. I stare at Richie, who’s sitting right across from me on a sofa. My purse is in his lap. My cell phone is in his hand. So they’ve obviously gotten this far—they know I’m missing, and Richie looks worried now. He probably knows I wouldn’t go home without taking my purse. And there’s no way I’d leave my phone. It’s like my umbilical cord to the outside world, has been since I first got one at age ten. I’m lost without it.
    Oh, Richie. I want to go to him, wrap my arms around him. I close my eyes for a moment, imagining his touch.
    All of a sudden the uncomfortable feeling of cold is yanked away, and I feel like I’ve been submerged in a warm bath, except I can breathe. It’s just like before, when I put my hand on Alex’s shoulder and followed him into his memory of us at school. My surroundings kind of swirl into oblivion, and I find myself standing at the edge of the community playground in Noank. Two grown women are side by side in front of me. They’re each pushing toddlers on swings. One boy, one girl. The girl is me. I can’t be older than two.
    “She’s adorable,” the little boy’s mother says, nodding at me. She smiles at my own mom.
    My mom! I stare at her, trying to take it all in. Aside from photographs, it’s the first time I’ve seen her in nine years. I want to hold on to her, to curl up beside her, to hear her whisper in my ear. My whole body aches with the knowledge that I can’t do any of those things. I want to tell her how much I love her, even though she left us. Even though she left me, her little girl. I was nine years old and she left me alone, to be raised by my father, at least until he and Nicole got married.
    I used to feel so angry that she’d let herself die. But I recovered from my loss; I forgave her. Now, more than anything, all I want is to be with her—to really be with her—even if it means I’m not alive anymore.
    My mother was only twenty-four when she had me, which would