Hereafter (Shadowlands 2)

I held my breath and slowly, shakily, reached for the doorknob.

“What’re you doing?”

My hand flew to my heart. Darcy stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the front hall, eyeing me as if I were conducting chemistry experiments on the kitchen table.

“Making pancakes?” I said dumbly, trying to recover from my moment of panic.

“Oh, yeah? How’s that working out for you?” she asked, padding over to the stove in her bare feet. She took a peek at the pan and wrinkled her nose at the gelatinous glop bubbling in the center of an oil slick.

“Not very well,” I replied, my shoulders drooping.

She picked up the pan and threw the whole mess into the sink. I opened the door quickly and glanced outside. Nothing but the marigolds rustling in the ocean breeze.

“It’s in the genes, I guess,” she said. “Remember when mom tried to make penguin-shaped pancakes?”

“Of course.” I smiled sadly as I closed the door. I would never forget that day. I was eight, and my mother had almost burned down the house with an oil fire, leaving a huge black stain on the kitchen ceiling, but instead of freaking out, she’d opened all the windows, dumped the pan and the remaining batter in the garbage, and found a coupon for IHOP.

“I think we polished off three dozen stacks that morning,” Darcy said as she opened a bottle of water.

“I miss IHOP,” I said with a nostalgic smile, wiping my hands on a kitchen towel. “The grease, the butter…the regret.”

Darcy laughed just as a crow landed on our windowsill, cawing at us.

“That should be our first meal when we get home,” she suggested, rinsing out the pan. “Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N’ Fruity.”

We locked eyes. “Extra on the fruity,” we said together.

And we both laughed. It was my mom’s line. Actually, it was my grandfather’s line, but my mom had claimed it as her own. Darcy reached for the pancake mix as tears filled my eyes.

Don’t cry. Do not cry over IHOP, I told myself, clutching the dish towel. There’s no way to explain that.

As I watched Darcy move around the kitchen, her graceful movements so much like my mom’s, I wondered what kind of selfless acts Darcy and my dad would need to do to make them Lifers—and how I could help them accomplish those feats. I’d already said good-bye to my mother; I didn’t want to have to say good-bye to them, too. Not if there was anything I could do about it.

“How about we start over?” Darcy said, pulling some eggs out of the fridge.

“We?” I asked, happily surprised.

She shrugged. “I’ve baked for a lot of bake sales. I must’ve learned something. Where’s your measuring cup?” Darcy asked, taking a clean bowl out of the cabinet.

I reached past her for the ceramic coffee cup I’d been using, and she grabbed my arm, staring down at my leather bracelet. My cheeks burned and I snatched my arm back.

“Where did you get that?” she demanded.

“Nowhere,” I said automatically. She gave me a “nice try” sort of look, and I sighed, busted. “Krista gave it to me.”

“She just gave you one. Just like that,” she said skeptically.

I shrugged one shoulder. Obviously Darcy had noticed, just like I had early on, that Tristan, Joaquin, and their entire crowd all wore these bracelets.

“So…what? Are you part of their little clique now?” she asked, opening a drawer so violently all the utensils inside came sliding to the front.

“No! Of course not. She just thought I’d like it,” I improvised. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Uh-huh.” She took out a set of plastic measuring cups and slammed the drawer. “Whatever you say.”

I swallowed hard, knowing how jealous Darcy must have felt. She was supposed to be the popular, cool girl, not me. If there was one thing she hated, it was being left out. Of anything.

“Darcy, I—”