The In-Between by Rebecca K.S. Ansari

Author:Rebecca K.S. Ansari
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walden Pond Press
Published: 2020-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

18

Though Cooper had never hung out with a friend and his little sister at the same time, Gus didn’t seem to mind if Jess was around, and Cooper found his attitude contagious. Despite the weight of the conversation Cooper knew they needed to have, they made easy chitchat in the kitchen before Cooper cocked his head for the two of them to follow him upstairs.

On the way to his room, they passed a recent family portrait of Cooper, Jess, and their mom on the table at the top of the stairs.

“Oh! Is this your mom?” Gus said, picking up the frame. “I’ve seen her biking in the neighborhood.”

“Yup.”

“Jess, you look exactly like her!”

Jess beamed. There was no bigger compliment for her than being compared to Mom.

“Do you guys want to play Low Budget?” Gus asked. “We have three players again.”

Again.

Cooper had been pondering how to talk about Elena after their shaky start that morning, and this seemed as good an opportunity as any. “Gus, can you come over here a sec?” He walked into his room, to his window, and peeked through the curtain.

Elena was there, as she always was, swinging and staring up at him.

“What do you see down there, across the alley?”

Gus joined him. “You mean Elena?”

Cooper took a deep breath, then began. “Okay. So, I wasn’t kidding this morning when I said that my mom doesn’t see Elena. She’s apparently never seen her, even though she sits out there all the time. Staring at us.”

Gus smiled and said, “Yeah, I had a friend back home who my mom used to call Snuffleupagus because she didn’t meet him for two years. Like, he could never come over to play, so she joked around that he was like my imaginary friend.”

“You’re not hearing me.”

“He finally came to my birthday party and my mom said—”

“Gus! My mom literally can’t see her.” He jabbed his finger toward the window. “Or her house. Neither can Zack, or his brother. Like, not at all. As far as we can tell, the three of us are the only ones who know Elena exists.”

Gus turned to Jess as if to check if she was hearing this. She stared blankly back at him from her seat on Cooper’s bed and nodded. His expression faltered. “I don’t . . . really know what to do with that.”

Cooper laughed darkly. “Yeah, neither do we.”

“And we found a letter,” Jess added. “Elena wrote it, and we think that maybe she’s a ghost.”

Cooper had thought it better to tell the story gradually, leave the letter for last, but clearly Jess had different ideas.

Gus started to speak multiple times before managing, “What are you even talking about?”

“In the letter,” Jess said, “she talks about all these ways she’s died.”

Gus went still and then spoke in a very slow manner, like he was trying to explain a concept to someone who wasn’t very bright. “That’s . . . weird. And not actually possible.”

“Agreed,” Cooper said, nodding vigorously. “But that’s what the letter said.

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