Free A Soul's Kiss by Debra Chapoton Page A

coffee pot to my left and I jumped, swung my head toward it. I expected both girls to react to the sound, too. I looked back and there was only Rashanda. I almost came out of my chair I was so startled.
    Crap. It was just a dream. I saw what I wanted to see, I guess. I must have dozed off, too.
    I got a text from my mom asking me how I felt. I confessed that I was at the hospital and about to visit Keith. Before she texted back I felt that weird feeling that I had in first hour when I saw Jessica’s book on her desk. Like she was near somehow. Then Rashanda started snoring and I went to look for Keith’s room.

 
    Jessica
    Friday

     
    I spot Rashanda in the waiting room trying to take a cat nap. If I can do one of those Vulcan mind-melds with her before she falls into a deep sleep, then we can communicate again.
    There’s some guy wearing a ball cap sitting off to the side with his head down. I’m extra quiet as I tiptoe in. I don’t want Rashanda to wake up and look like she’s talking to voices in her head if she can see me and he can’t.
    I bend over her and carefully touch foreheads. This time I notice the wisp of gray noise that accompanies my transfer from existing in the air to existing in her head.
    “Hi, Rashanda.”
    “How are you doing, Jessica?” Rashanda is dreaming our encounter. She puts both of her hands on my shoulders, frowns, and gives me a worried look though all of these actions are only in her head.
    “I’m fine.”
    “Your spleen? Can they . . . did they fix it?”
    “I don’t know,” I say. “I just walked out of the operating room and left them to do whatever they have to do.” She drops her hands and I use mine to fake like I was brushing the wrinkles out of the front of the hideous green hospital gown I’m wearing. “Look. No more blood.” That has to be a good sign. “And I feel pretty good.”
    Rashanda isn’t convinced. “Why are we here ?”
    “Huh?” I try to look up at the ceiling, but my neck won’t work. I can only look down or to the sides. What Rashanda is imagining now is the same place that I’d seen in Michael’s dream. Stony Park. The Quonset hut. We are standing next to a dirty brown mattress. “You tell me , Rashanda. This is your dream.”
    She says that this isn’t a dream it’s a memory . . . and then there’s a beep and I’m not with her anymore.
    I don’t know how I end up back in the operating room so fast, flung from Rashanda’s mind back here in an instant. I stand next to my physical body, which is on an operating table, and watch the doctor work on me. My head is immobilized. There’s a tube down my throat, breathing for me. An anesthesiologist monitors its function, but his eyes dart around the room. I wave my hands in front of his face but get no reaction.
    The doctors and nurses in the room speak in crisp, tense phrases behind their masks. They are agitated. The thought flits through my mind that my body could die. I might never wake up. I struggle and fight to concentrate on staying alive. I have no idea how to stay alive and yet I don’t panic. My thinking seems foggy. My body on the table shivers. I shiver. My feet are freezing on the cold floors. I start to quiver and throw my arms around myself and wish I was wearing something a lot more substantial than this flimsy gown.
    A gown that has a red bloodstain starting to grow on the front. Again.

 
    Tyler
    Friday

     
    I went up in the elevator two flights and followed the arrows to Keith’s room. Crap. His mom was in there with someone. I waited near the nurses’ station and tried to get up my nerve. I’ve heard my stepdad complain about his ex-wife’s bad temper and I’ve seen her in action at sporting events. She was always a little too loud, like she’d had a few drinks before she showed up.
    “Can I help you?” a nurse asked.
    Whoa, she was young and cute. “Uh,” I knew my mouth was catching flies, “uh, I’m just waiting to see my stepbrother, Keith.”
    “Oh,