Hover & Sound – Chapter 3 (Eddie)

  Eddie stared out at the green fields, trying to process that Jace — who was too young to have wanted anything close to death, or even understood what dying really meant — had tried to die.

  “A few months ago,” Jace said. He shrugged and ran his hand through his hair. “It was stupid.”

  “Jace!” How would Jace dying help Gemma?

  Why did Eddie think it was Jace’s job to help Gemma?

  Eddie put his face in his hands. Jace was allowed to want to die. His life was hard. But that didn’t mean it was a good idea to want to die. 

  Eddie looked at Jace, who wasn’t even an adult yet. Jace had dropped out of school this year, although Eddie wasn’t supposed to know that. It was a big secret, probably because every adult here knew Niels and Eddie would leave school if they found out Jace had been allowed to.

  What had made Jace drop out? Eddie hadn’t asked because he wasn’t meant to know about it. Whatever it was…did it have anything to do with Jace wanting to die? It must. “What happened?”

  “Everyone agreed not to tell anyone. I.” Jace, failing to explain anything that had led him to conclude death was the only reasonable option, took a long draft of his cigarette. “I was feeling like shit. I failed out of school, and shit just…it’s been hard.”

  Yes. Everything was difficult, an ongoing spiral of what will go wrong this week?

  “I think,” Eddie murmured, “all our adults are watching the world fall apart and telling us to pretend it isn’t.”

  “Ja,” Jace said. “So. I got a bottle of pills and a bottle of the good stuff, and I went swimming. At night. In the ice. Under the ice.”

  Eddie imagined it. Winter — the coldest part of winter. Contrary to its reputation, Denmark was not the most frigid place in the winter. Often, the temperature hovered at or above freezing. For the lake to be thoroughly frozen, it would have had to be January or February. After winter break.

  Eddie had been studying through the C’s in the library at the time, and made it early into the D’s during the part of winter in question.

  “And you didn’t drown?” he asked.

  What Jace was saying was…impossible.

  “My far said he found me floating on the bank, face up, passed out. He said I must have dreamt swimming. But I found the bottle in the lake last week.”

  The bottle could have been there for other reasons, but it was unlikely. Eddie ran his hands through his hair, sorting. No one had told him. Even the ghost fars hadn’t breathed a word about it. “Do they know?” Maybe only Jace’s far, Birky, knew.

  Jace laughed. “They know I’ve always been a vivid dreamer, and drugs and alcohol can create powerful sensations including realistic dreams.” The way he said it sounded exactly like a hybrid of his parents and Giana, so vividly performed that Eddie could imagine them all standing over him, telling him what to believe.

  The bit about realistic dreams, though… “What do you remember?”

  Jace looked out at the grass, toward the house as if the parents might be listening in. In hushed tones, he said, “This place where you could do anything.”

  Death. Jace was describing dying, and he didn’t realize it. Eddie had asked Far Viggo enough times about the do anything aspect of Death to recognize it for what it was. “How long,” Eddie croaked, “did you realistic dream that place?”

  “A few hours?” Jace guessed. “Two, maybe three.”

  “Hours?” Jace hadn’t visited Death briefly, like his heart stopped and then someone had resuscitated him. He’d…he’d died.

  And yet here he sat, whole, corporeal, drunk.

  No wonder he was drunk. Eddie would need a lot more alcohol to cope with that, too. Specifically with the part about coming back, when he could have been free.

  “That’s not insane, in dream time,” Jace defended. “But this place was different.”

  Yes. It was real, not a dream. 

  “Weird things happen here,” Eddie told him. It was half meant as reassurance and half Eddie just thinking aloud about how in the world Jace had managed to die and still be alive and, more importantly, why no one had told him about it. “It’s a good place to be if you have to be anywhere.”

  “Ja, it is.” Jace reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of single shot bottles. He passed them to Eddie. “For the road. And don’t tell Niels or VJ? I don’t want their pity. I want to be here, with my mor. School is a waste of time.”

  Eddie nodded. “When Viggo was dying, Niels and I almost dropped out to be with him.” He stood. “I won’t tell.”

  “See?” Jace said. He waved his arm expansively, as if what Eddie could see was in the air between them. “You get it.”

  “We get it,” Eddie said. “I still won’t tell him.”

  “Hey Eddie?” Jace said. After a second he shook his head as if to clear away an errant thought. “Be safe.”

  “You were about to say something else,” Eddie accused.

  Jace groaned. “It’s stupid. I…I thought someone should know. You’re a good friend. The best.”

  Eddie waited, both tense and hopeful. Jace was so drunk that this might be the only time he was this open with Eddie. 

  “You’re gay,” Jace said. “Right?”

  Eddie flushed. It wasn’t a fact he shared with anyone, because if he admitted it, then the rest of his struggles would become obvious.

  “Or bi?” Jace guessed. “Somewhere not straight.”

  “Ja.” Eddie tucked his hands into his pockets and waited for Jace to reach his point.

  “Do you think things have changed enough, if I stay here? Your far and Viggo were shit on…you’ve had to have thought about it.”

  His far and Far Viggo had been attacked for many things, infidelity at the top of the list. The supposed perversion of being gay barely ever came up, relative to their sickness and their destruction of the good Poulsen name.

  Eddie regarded Jace through heavy lids, suddenly wary. Was this coming up because Jace liked him? He needed to address both things as delicately as possible. “I mean…I’m in love with someone I can’t have. But I don’t think anyone here would care if I was gay.”

  Jace nodded. “Then you should have them.” He met Eddie’s eyes. “Life is too short not to try.”

  Was that a challenge? A request?

  Still treading gingerly, Eddie explained, “He’s my brother.”

  Jace waved his arm, dismissive. “Ja, VJ, I know. He’s not really your brother.”

  Eddie breathed a silent sigh of relief that Jace didn’t want Eddie to be interested in him. “He’s not really my brother, but he is my brother in all the ways that count, to the people that love us both.” He didn’t want to have this argument. It wasn’t as if VJ even reciprocated the feelings. “Anyway, what about you?”

  “I met a guy,” Jace said. “Is all. He’s…eccentric. Online.”

  Online boyfriends could be dangerous. “If you go to meet him, let me know? Just in case.”

  Jace nodded. “Will do. His name’s Rhyss. I haven’t told anyone, but his name’s Rhyss.”

  Eddie smiled, teasy. “Jace and Rhyss.”

  Jace grinned back. “Eddie and VJ.”

  Eddie blushed and looked away.

  “He might be worth getting sober for,” Jace mused, and he didn’t share whether the he in question was Rhyss or VJ.

  Either way…it might just be true.