Not Quite Dead Yet

by Holly Jackson

Because that was the real thing, that cold, barbed thing between Jet and Sophia. You go away to college and your best friend who stopped calling and stopped replying—and stopped caring—sets her sights on your brother instead.

Actually, it didn’t matter: next year she wouldn’t even be here anymore.

“Later is a great word,” Jet said, voice rising as she turned away from her parents. “Means I never have to be useful. See you at home.”

Jet had time to find the right thing; she had all the time in the world, remember? And then life would really begin, and when it did, you better believe she’d be shoving it down all of their throats in return. Just you wait.

What kind of choice was that? Jet couldn’t even decide what to have for breakfast most days. Die now, or die in a week? Toast or cereal? Both?

But Jet was tough, everyone said so. Billy was soft. Used to cry when Jet stomped on spiders.

She wanted what she’d always wanted. To do something, achieve something big, something undeniably great, to prove that she could. So that life could finally begin. Jet had played the waiting game too long, and now she was out of time. She’d run out of road, and she’d run out of later. Someone had taken them from her.

“Do something?” Mom cried. “What do you mean? Do what?” Something great. Something no one had ever done before. “I’m going to solve my own murder.”

Could it ever be a home again, now that it had been a murder scene?

“It’s possible, yes,” Jet said. “Likely. Seventy-five percent chance it was left unlocked.” Because she spoke in percentages now.

Didn’t see her. Because she was small? Or because she was dead in a week and didn’t matter as much as the other people here, the ones who didn’t have a countdown hanging over them. Halfway between the living and the not, her edges less defined somehow. No…probably just the small thing.

“And if they brought the murder weapon with them”—Jet paused, not long enough to lose the budding thought—“that means they came here with one purpose. It wasn’t a stranger. It wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. It was someone I know. And they came here to kill me.”

Come on, she was the one dying; they could at least pity-laugh.

“Don’t go in,” Jet muttered darkly, warning her past self as she pulled out her keys and slotted them in the door. The Jet who was still alive, the one who had everything: all the time and all the laters she could ever want. Jet envied her, hated her a little. “Don’t go in.”

“Well, you’ve probably ruled some things out. I’m no detective, but it probably wasn’t aliens or Taylor Swift. She’s very busy.”

But JJ was missing. JJ sent her a Sorry text after the time of the attack. JJ was wearing a red wig with straight hair on Halloween, on the night Jet was killed. Jet could see it in Mr. Finney’s eyes, could count them one by one. Three strikes against JJ.

He's being framed, calling it right now

Was this what it felt like to be a man? Walking on this creepy dark bridge, not scared for a second that she wouldn’t make it out the other side, because it didn’t really make a difference whether she did or not. The night belonged to her now too. A dead woman walking. And dead women had no use for fear.

That look in his eyes was bigger than worry. It was fear. Jet thought men weren’t scared of the night, but Billy was made different. And now she felt guilty, for some reason.

Jet’s head snapped to the side, finding Billy’s eyes. Now the alarm was there, where it belonged, a coating over that watery blue. Probably a matching look in hers.

I LOVE this description

She guessed she was really doing this. She had to—she was dead in five days and she had a murder to solve. And…well, she’d kind of always wanted to just smash shit up.

This, right here. The thing that took Jet’s life before she’d even lived it, stole her future, all of her laters and all of her tomorrows, leaving her with just a handful. Leftovers. Scraps. It wasn’t even very big.

That song everyone knew. The one about Vermont and sticks. Very popular around here, especially at this time of year, right on the cusp of the season of the sticks.

Turns out dying feels a lot like living.”

“If you asked my heart how long, it could only say it’s been a while,” he sang. “And I’d ask you instead: how could you not love that dangerous little smile? She laughs like an old man dying, and I gotta keep it together, I’m really trying. Loved her since the start, since day one, but day one won’t ever be one day ’cause…”

“It was my fault both my parents were out that afternoon, watching me at the competition. If I hadn’t reached the final, Mom and Dad would have been at home, and Emily wouldn’t have died.” Jet dropped her chin, hiding it behind Billy’s collar. “I overheard Mom saying it to Dad, right after the funeral. That it was my fault Emily died.”

Billy tipped back in his chair. “No one. It’s not about anybody, I made it up.” “Oh, come on,” Jet said. “You can tell me. I’ve known you forever. Who could be a better wingwoman? Let me help—it’s my dying wish. Does she work at the bar?”

C'mon Jet don't be so oblivious

“213024,”

Significant???

So…one of them wasn’t in the house, and both of them had lied about it.

And what were they going to do about it: arrest her for theft?

Its so fascinating how many things she suddenly doesn't care about anymore

“Yeah,” Jet sniffed. “Because we weren’t right for each other. That’s not enough of a reason for—” “—Men have hurt women for far less,” Ecker spoke over her.

She was supposed to find her killer, not the police. That was the whole point. She needed this, her final chance to actually do something, see it through to the end. And now they were sitting over there, telling her the end was already here? Offering her the easy way out. Jet had always taken the easy way out, quit when things got too hard. But it was supposed to be different this time—she wasn’t supposed to give up. And for some reason, accepting it was JJ felt like giving up, didn’t feel right. Her gut agreed, and so did her broken head.

I’m not half-assing this one, Billy. I’m not dying a half-asser, you know that,” she said.

She’d never write anything again, one small death already, a prelude to the main event. Jet swallowed, a slow sinking in her gut, a small blip of grief, tucked away with that other one: that she’d never drive her truck again either.

Jet wrinkled her nose. “Like a hit man? Do we even have hit men in Woodstock? Hit women. Hit people.”

“Fourth of July. My parents had a cookout in the yard that evening. I remember Sophia dropped off some cookies, little American flags. Would have been when we were out at the store, buying Woodstock out of burgers. Which was weird, because Luke and Sophia were coming to the cookout, so I remember thinking: why didn’t she just bring them then?”

Was she doing it then to make it seem normal later??? Was she thinking that far ahead?

The object too tiny, too pixelated, but she recognized that band of pale blue across the bottom, the illegible blurred black writing and orange numbers near the top. “Lotrel,” she said, her heart picking up, echoing the word back. “Five ten. Amlodipine besylate. One hundred capsules.”

Jet waved to the doorbell camera, waved to her laptop back at Billy’s apartment, waved to whoever might watch this footage after the end of this week, waved beyond the grave and even farther than that.

“Jet.” Billy softened his voice, already cloud-soft. And what was softer than a cloud? “You sure you’re OK to do this? You don’t look—” “—I’m not dead yet,” she sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “No,” Billy whispered. “Not quite.”

“022492,” she said aloud as she punched it in. “Emily’s birthday.”

Yes, she only had three days left to live. But those three days were hers, and she was not going to let hell take them from her. They were hers, and she was going to fucking live them, every small moment, stretch each minute into a lifetime.

All that fear she thought she’d lost, because the dying didn’t need fear but the living did, it all came rushing back, wearing her skin, roaring in her ears.

“No.” Jet shook her head, snatching her breath between, building up to it. Those words. “Billy,” she said, little more than a wet whisper. “I don’t want to die.” That did it, broke her all the way. Not just tears anymore, a howl in the back of her throat, breaking into sad little couplets as she tried to breathe through it. She couldn’t. The air couldn’t get past her heart. “I don’t want to die.” Billy closed the distance between them in two strides, wrapping his arms around a wet and shivering Jet.

Billy bent down, resting his chin against the top of her broken head. Then his nose. Then his lips, pressing one kiss into her hair, staying there, his hot breath down her cold neck. Jet cried. And Billy stood there and took them all, holding up her towel.

“Just. I never could get out of Emily’s shadow. And now, with this last thing I’ll ever do…here we are again. Always comes back to her.”

Jet thought about Billy downstairs, fought a smile, thinking of the panic in his eyes. Smiled just to think of him anyway, actually.

GET WITH THE PICTURE GIRL COME ON

He would have given it to her anyway, she knew; he was Billy after all. She gave some back. “Yes, Billy, I love you.” Billy tensed, tensed even more as Jet brushed against him, leaning forward, fingers on the trackpad.

Billy shrugged, not so easy lying down. “I don’t know, I think it might be simpler than that. I think life is about finding your person, your one person.” He paused. “And you better make sure that they really love you back, so they don’t just pack their bags one night and abandon you. They have to love you back. That’s it, I think.”

Billy shouldn’t have ever seen something like that; he was too good for it.

Hours now. Couldn’t even count it in days anymore. Billy noticed too, tried to move past it, not let it in.

“Jet.” Billy turned to her, the storm settling in his eyes, reaching out to take her hand, holding it in her lap. “It was never your fault.”