Under the Light - By Laura Whitcomb Page 0,9

the mountain across the valley still glowed pink from the sunset. It made me smile, thinking of him standing there in the field alone. The same way he’d left me.

But as the light crept away, I started to realize that I might never see him again. How could I find him? Even if I raced around the globe at light speed, the chance of crossing paths with him again might be microscopic. And it wasn’t as if I could go back to my body and look him up in the phone book. I didn’t know his name or what part of the world he lived in. The only thing connecting us was that stretch of grass.

When I came back to the field, the sky was turning a deep shade of purplish blue. I walked around pretending that his absence didn’t hurt. The way the grass refused to part for me, no matter how I kicked as I passed through, made me mad. I walked in smaller and smaller wheels, and if I’d been solid I bet I would’ve made a spiral crop circle—finally I lay down on my back as the stars came out. I don’t think I could’ve been lonelier if I’d been on Jupiter.

“Hey.”

My joy was offset by the look on his face. Zero recognition. He knelt, leaning over me and smiling.

“Who are you?” he asked.

CHAPTER 5

Jenny

HE DIDN’T REMEMBER ME! I sat up, speechless. And he sat back, laughing.

“Just kidding,” he said. “I was going to pick you some flowers, but it didn’t work.”

“How did you know I’d still be here?”

“Hmmm.” He looked me up and down.

“Do you think you’re that irresistible?”

“Hey,” he said. “I tried to pick you flowers and now you’re making fun of me.”

The field was dark. I shouldn’t have been able to see anything. But there were his eyelashes catching the starlight and the white of his teeth as he smiled and a strand of his hair moving in the breeze. We were seeing each other with our minds, I supposed, instead of eyes. “Really, how did you know I’d be here?”

“You didn’t say goodbye,” he said with a shrug. “And you seem like a nice person, like someone who would at least leave a note if you were never coming back.”

I tried not to look disappointed, but having a boy think you’re nice usually means he thinks of you as a sister. I didn’t have to be that sisterly girl. He didn’t know anything about the old me. It was like I always hoped college would be someday—a new beginning. A place you can create yourself from scratch and start over.

“Okay.” I still didn’t trust him. There must be some catch. He was talking to me—most boys didn’t. And he was cute. “I could’ve left without saying goodbye,” I told him.

“Yeah?”

“I left my old life without saying goodbye,” I said, but then I felt bad because he looked sort of haunted.

“So did I,” he said.

Maybe he had someone who would miss him. I bet his family would notice if an empty body was walking around like a robot all of a sudden.

“You didn’t have to come back just to say goodbye to me,” he said. “You’re free to do whatever you want.”

“I know.” I tried to fake indifference. “It’s not like we’re friends. We just met.” But I was trying too hard—he could tell I was glad he’d come back.

“You’re my only spirit friend,” he said. “There’s no one else to talk to.” Then he held up a hand. “That sounded bad. I meant, even if there was a hundred spirits standing around here, I’d want to talk to you.”

Again, how could I blush? “‘My only spirit friend’? Are you a third-grader?”

“We said we weren’t gonna talk about our pasts, including what grade I’m in or if I’m flunking out. That was then. Now I’m a superhero. I can fly, and dematerialize, and I’m working on turning back time.”

It was funny that he thought being out of body made him powerful, because most of the time it made me feel powerless. I couldn’t move a blade of grass or be heard by anyone no matter how loud I yelled in their ears; I couldn’t even make a shadow in the blazing sun. I felt just as trapped in this out-of-body world as I had in the old one. But he was right—we could fly. That had always been at the top of my wish list when I was little.

“Where did you fly to