The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the children were laughing, and I was dead.

Whenever I pictured my funeral—not that I’d done it often—the weather was crappy. Black-clad people were crowded under dripping umbrellas, raindrops and tears mingling on their faces.

That was hardly the case. Like I said, the sun was out, full force. As if the universe had no respect for my untimely demise. I mean, the nerve.

Piper, my three-year-old sister, was wearing a pink tutu. I know, I couldn’t exactly blame her. Piper was, after all, a toddler. But my mother! She should have made the kid wear black. It was a funeral, for god’s sake!

At least my headstone was pretty. It was lovely white marble, fancy cursive letters spelling out my name. The numbers beneath it were stout and mocking. Haha, they seemed to say, Sloane Elizabeth Fallon was only alive for seventeen years. Sucker!

I sat in the only empty seat. It was near the back, between my soccer coach and Alison, my obnoxious second cousin. I couldn’t see very well, especially with Uncle Timothy, this six-foot yeti of a man, in front of me.

Yeah, I could have sat anywhere. I was, after all, completely invisible and insubstantial. Nothing more than a ghost. Still, there was something disturbing about parking myself on top of a random relative.

Honestly, I was rather surprised at how well-attended my funeral was. I’d expected close relatives, friends, and the girls from my soccer team.

No.

It seemed like every person I’d ever met, and some that I hadn’t, had showed up. Nothing like death to show exactly how popular you are.

I guess it’s a little late for that, though.

The pastor was a snooty old man in a black suit. He obviously didn’t give a damn about me. Who I’d been, anyway. The man was going on about my zest for life; how it was a pity I hadn’t gotten to enjoy more of it. These completely generic things.

Things you could say about anyone.

If it were someone else’s funeral, I probably would have said that the service was lovely.

It was everything a funeral service was supposed to be. It was touching and sweet and made me sound like a freaking hero.

Except, when you knew the pastor was saying these things about you, and you knew that these things were lies, they lost all their beauty.

I stood up slowly and started walking towards the casket. My casket. I slipped soundlessly between chairs, sometimes walking straight through people. They didn’t notice, but it left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

When I got to the front, where my family was sitting, I stopped.

My mother was staring upward, her eyes fixed on the sky. Silent tears streamed down her face, and she made no effort to wipe them away. She was holding Piper on her lap, and every now and then, the tears dripped onto the toddler’s red hair.

Piper was sucking on her thumb. I thought that the poor kid had gotten over that habit months ago. Her ginger hair was in limp ringlets, her blue eyes wide and confused. Her free hand, the one not wedged between her teeth, was clenched in the tulle of her tutu.

Dad had his arm around Mom’s shoulders. He wasn’t crying, but his teeth were digging into his bottom lip. He was watching the pastor, shaking his head slowly. It looked like he knew that the man was spouting a load of crap.

Sitting next to Dad, his muscular arms wrapped tightly around himself, was my older brother Jesse.

All I’m going to say about Jesse, is that he did not look good. And who can blame him, considering the fact that he’d been driving the car.

That’s right, I died in a car crash. So ordinary, I know. I wished I’d gone out with a bang, something really incredible that people would talk about for years. Like a violent, bloody murder. Or getting bitten by a poisonous snake. Not that there are a lot of poisonous snakes in northern Indiana, but still.

I reached out to Jesse, wanting to give him a huge hug. I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that I’d already forgiven him.

Unfortunately, you lose things when you die. Like being able to comfort your big brother or play dolls with your baby sister.

I stood behind Jesse, my ghostly hand resting on his shoulder. I hoped he could sense me, somehow. I really did. I wanted him to know that I was okay.

You know, other than being dead and all.

There was a bouquet of white lilies on my casket. I wondered absently who had picked them out. Probably my grandma Lucy. I don’t think my parents were able to pull themselves together in time to plan my funeral.

Not that I blame them, or anything.

Seventeen-year-olds are not supposed to die. They are supposed to go on dates and do stupid things and fail their chemistry tests. They don’t get thrown through the windshield of their brother’s car.

I looked over at my mom. Her chin was quivering, and she kept drawing in these great, gasping mouthfuls of air. I could tell that she was about to lose it.

“Mommy,” I whispered, letting go of Jesse’s shoulder and walking over to her. “Don’t cry. I’m okay, Mom. I fine. Please don’t cry.”

Mom didn’t give any sign that she’d heard me, not that I’d expected her to. However, Piper spun around and stared right at me, her blue eyes huge.

“Sloane,” she said loudly, pointing straight at me.

Mom spun around, but her gaze was locked about three feet to the left of me. “What did you say, sweetie?” she muttered, putting a hand on Piper’s shoulder.

“Sloane!” she cried. “Sloane right there!”

Now people were starting to stare. My parents tried desperately to quiet my sister, but she wouldn’t stop yelling my name.
Finally, I realized that it would be easier if I just left. Got myself out of Piper’s sight.

“Honey,” I said, just in case she could hear me. “I love you. Okay, Piper? I love you a lot.”

She nodded slowly, like she had understood every word.

Then I blew her a kiss and walked away.

If ghosts could cry, I would be. I would be sobbing my heart out. I was dead, for God’s sake! Dead! If that didn’t give me a good reason to cry, I didn’t know what would.

I had gotten to the edge of the graveyard when I was forced to stop. It was as if someone had grabbed the back of my shirt and tugged. I knew the reason, of course. I couldn’t stray too far from my body.

Which kinda sucked.

I mean, I’d had to watch myself get put back together again at the morgue. I had to stand there and watch them wash all the blood off me, comb my hair, dress me in my Sunday best.

I’d watched them spread putty-like make-up over the gashes on my face and my arms, listened to them talk about my stupidity.

“Why didn’t she wear a seatbelt?” the undertaker had said.
His assistant shrugged. “Kids can be real idiots sometimes. Think they’re invincible.”

Ha. I’d learned that lesson the hard way. Let me tell you, if there were any cars in the afterlife, I’d be buckling up tight.

I’d followed the hearse down the road, sat next to my casket during the viewing. That was the hardest part.

My parents couldn’t look at me. Jesse couldn’t look away. Piper played quietly in a corner, gazing perplexedly at all the weeping people.

I stood over my body, like some sort of screwed up guardian angel, as each person approached the open casket.

Liz, the goalie on my soccer team, had gently touched my hair. “Bye,” she’d said softly. My chemistry teacher had trailed a shaky finger along my clasped hands. My grandmother had kissed my chalky forehead. She’d smoothed my red curls and patted my head, just like she’d done when I was four years old.

Standing there, watching all of these people say their goodbyes, made me realize how much trouble I was really in.

Was this going to be my life? Just haunting the graveyard, tethered for eternity to my corpse?

God, I hoped not.

Standing at the edge of the cemetery, as far from my grave as I could get, I looked around. The funeral attendees were the only ones around. That was kind of surprising, actually. I mean, if you have to stay close to your corpse, then you’d think graveyards would be teeming with ghosts.

I sat down, leaning my ghostly self against the wrought-iron fence. You’d think death would give you a reprieve from headaches. No. If anything, they were worse.

For some reason, I’d never given much thought to what would happen after I died. Honestly, it didn’t seem like something I would have to worry about for a long time. I wasn’t sure if I believed in Heaven. Not the kind with harp-toting angels and pearly gates, anyway. Reincarnation was a load of crap, and Hell was something they used to scare the masses. Somehow, I didn’t believe that I’d just be gone. I knew that there was something after death.

But I hadn’t expected this.

I mean, what kind of universe ties you to your corpse for eternity? And didn’t even give you any interesting people to talk to?

Maybe I was in denial, but I didn’t believe that this was it.

I looked up, expecting to see all those mourning people still parked around my grave. But the service must have ended, because only my family was there. I stood up and walked towards them.

Mom had handed Piper off to Jesse, and she and my father were locked in an embrace. Mom’s face was buried in his shoulder, his hand knotted in her hair. I could tell by her shaking shoulders that she was crying. Sobbing, even.

Jesse was standing a little apart from them, staring at my casket. He kept shaking his head, so quickly and spastically that it could have been involuntary.

“Oh, Jesse,” I whispered. I stepped closer to him.

“Sloane,” he muttered. “You probably can’t hear me.”

“I can,” I told him. “I really can.”

“Nevermind,” Jesse said, stroking Piper’s red curls. She was asleep, her little arms wrapped around Jesse’s neck. “I don’t care whether I look crazy. And this is probably going to be really cheesy. I know you hate cheese, Sloane, but bear with me. I mean, you went and died on me. If anything gives me an excuse to be mushy and gross and chock-full of brotherly love, it’s that.”

God, I wished he could hear me. I would cut him off before he embarrassed himself.

Jesse gave a choking little laugh, and his gaze flitted to the sky. “The infamous graveside monologue,” he said. “How cliché. Anyway, Sloane, I just wanted to say sorry. You know, for throwing you through a windshield and all.”

“It’s not your fault!” I yelled, willing him to hear me. It was almost violent, how much I wanted Jesse to know that I was here.

“Sorry,” he whispered, wiping a few tears from his eyes. “Yeah, that’s all I really wanted to say. Oh, and I love you. But you knew that. I mean, you were a lot of things, Sloane, but you were never an idiot.”

Thanks. I think. I gave a reluctant laugh. Poor Jesse. Poor Piper. Poor Mom. Poor Dad.

Poor me.

After a while, Mom and Dad let go of each other and beckoned Jesse to follow them. They walked off, all that was left of the Fallon family. They looked strangely incomplete.

Maybe that was just because I knew that there was supposed to be one more person, but I didn’t think so. There was something in their eyes, something that hinted at a hidden pain.

God, death turned me into a freaking poet.

As soon as my family stepped through the cemetery gate, I felt a tug. It came from somewhere inside my stomach, and worried me in no small measure.

Then, the next thing I knew, I was going up.