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Chapter Ninety-Nine
Point of View: Zoe



I don't remember much from the fire. Everything I remember I was told later by someone else. I remember snapping Nick with the dish towel and I remember hearing the gunshot whose bullet hit my calve. I remember that it was intended for Nick, but ricocheted off the stove. I remember Nick attempting to pick me up. But most of all, even in the swirling mass of smoke and blank darkness, the part I remember most vividly is the fear in his voice when he was screaming for someone to save me.

The next thing, after Nick's voice, that I remember was a vision.

At first, I thought it was Nick. I was looking at a tall man, with blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes, and a million dollar smile. But it couldn't be Nick because this man's cheeks were rounder, his cheeks dimpled the way a Cabbage Patch Doll's are, his waist several sizes larger than Nick's, and besides that, Nick stopped dyeing his hair.

It was David.



When Zara and I were sixteen, we lived in a relatively small town with our parents. Our mother was very strict, and also exceedingly Catholic. We were raised to be good girls with our skirts cut so long and our hair braided just right and our scapulas around our necks. Zara was okay with this. In fact, she adapted quite well to it. She liked the school uniforms, thought they were cute.

I, however, hated it.

I used to hike mine up the moment we got out the door until it was brushing my thighs. I can't tell you how many times nuns made me kneel on the stairs to measure my skirt. "It has to touch the steps," they'd croak.

"It does touch the step," I pointed out, as it brushed the step above the one I was kneeling on.

"Why do you have to be such a slut?" Zara whispered one day, embarrassed because there was a rumor that the star quarterback and I had made out.. the fact was we'd done a little more than making out.

"Why do you have to be such a prude?" I'd responded.

I was the wild child. Which was why when David moved into town, nobody ever would have expected me to go for him.

He was a preppy, goody-two-shoes who wore cardigan sweater vests and button up shirts with ties and loafers -- even when he wasn't in school. He had blonde hair and it was cut cleanly in the same style that the children Zara babysat on Friday nights had.

The first time I met David, I made fun of him.

"You're all talk Zoe Sinclair," he said, smirking, "All talk. And you know what? Someday, I'm gonna marry you."

I'd blinked in surprise, "What?" I said, laughing.

My boyfriend - the quarterback - stepped forward. "You looking to start something, punk?"

David shook his head, "Nope." He looked at me and smiled. "I'm just saying."

The second time I met David, we were paired together as bio lab partners. I could only think about the first time. What made him say that to me? I wondered, staring at him as he did the work on our biology project. I twirled my pencil around the inside of my mouth and stared at his hands as he moved the slides around the table.

On Friday nights, the fire department sponsored a dance for the local high school kids. My mother wouldn't let me go. Zara was baby sitting until ten, but I couldn't go to a dance until ten. So... I snuck out the window.

I was at the dance, wearing my school skirt, hiked up of course, and I'd tied up my blouse so that my belly button showed. My saddle shoes were lame, but they were all I had. I undid my braids from the day, and my hair went wild around my face, like the mane of a lion, and helped myself to punch.

"You've got an awful lot of skin tonight," David was suddenly at my side at the punch bowl. "Is that really appropriate?"

"Are you a nun?" I asked, "Should I call you Sister David?"

"As your future husband, and bio lab partner, I must say I don't approve," he said, smirking.

I looked up at him and almost spilled the punch.

He had on a form-fitting white undershirt that clung to his body like it had been painted on, which he'd paired with a pair of loose fitting jeans that hung off his hips almost provocatively. I felt my breath ease out of my lungs. "Wow," I whispered.

He looked down. "I spilled juice on my shirt," he explained.

"That was fortunate," I whispered.

David laughed.

I looked up at his eyes, and noticed how freaking clear blue they were, how deep through them into his soul you could see. "Why do you think you're my future husband?" I asked his eyes. I felt like I was talking to a Magic 8 Ball.

"Because, Zoe Sinclaire," he said, "I just know. I knew the moment I saw you."

"How?"

"I don't know," he answered.

"You aren't my type."

David laughed, "How do you know? What do you know about me?"

"You wear sweater-vests," I answered.

He held out his arms, "I'm not right now."

"Only because of the fruit punch."

David smiled, "My point is, a sweater-vest really isn't a part of me, it's something I wear."

"It takes a special kind of person to wear a sweater-vest," I replied.

David laughed, "Yes, yes it does. But Zoe, you know what? You just admitted I'm special." He winked.

"So?"

He held out his hand, "Will you dance with me?"

Nobody else had asked me to dance yet. I was itching to get out on the floor, to cut up a rug. Dancing, I'll have you know, was my most extremely favorite thing to do in all of the world. I took lessons on every kind of dance you can imagine - it was one of the few things that my mother allowed me to do that she didn't particularly approve of, those classes. I dreamed everyday of one day becoming a famous dancer, of being on a stage and performing, gliding across the stage, being the one in the magical costumes, singing and wowing a crowd with the way my feet moved...

"If you're bad, I stop," I said, taking his hand.

We abandoned the juice and he led me to the center of the floor and smiled at me. We started dancing. David completely shocked me. He knew how to dance. In a crowd of flailing boy limbs and awkward girls in heels, David and I moved together, coordinated, as though the music was flowing through us. David's eyes never left mine, though my eyes wandered along the length of his body, to his feet, and watched as he moved, his stupid loafers hitting the floor just right.

Then the uptempo music stopped and I started to turn back to the juice, but he grabbed my hand. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"To get punch," I said, as singles moved off the floor, leaving only coupled pairs in the center of the gymnasium the dance was being held at.

David shook his head, "C'mere." He pulled me closer. My chest bumped against his, and his arms encircled me. I awkwardly put my hands on his hips. One of his hands was on the small of my back, his fingers splayed out, clutching me close. Our fingers entwined on the other hand.

I'll be seeing you, the Jimmy Durante version, started playing.

David stared at me as the music plinked and swelled and moved me in a most debonair style across the gymnasium floor, swaying and spinning us gently along. Then he pulled me close and rested his cheek on my shoulder, and he sang along with the song, very softly, "I'll be seeing you... in every lovely, summer's day... and everything that's bright and gay... I'll always think of you that way... I'll find you in the morning sun... and when the night is new..." he pulled back and looked into my eyes.

His eyes were full of emotion... of adoration.

"I'll be looking at the moon..." he sang, his voice off key but beautiful to me, "But I'll be seeing.. you."

I couldn't breathe.

"David?" I whispered.

He smiled.

Surely, I'm dead, I thought. I've died. But somehow, looking at David standing there, I didn't give a damn even if I was dead.

"No, Zoe, its not your time," he said, as though he were reading my thoughts. "Not yet."

"Then why are you here?" I asked.

"To make you to go back."

"No," I begged. I moved toward him, intending to hold him, to cling to him... but he vanished. "Don't go," I whimpered.

"Zoe?" But it wasn't David's voice... it was Kayla's.

I blinked opened my eyes. Kayla was sitting beside me, her eyes concerned, and leaning over her shoulder was AJ.

"Kayla?" I whispered.

Kayla leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me. "You're awake," she said, relief in every syllable.

I felt haunted... torn between being glad to see Kayla, to be alive... and disappointment that once again David had been taken away from me.