Chapter 29

AJ let out a mournful sigh.

Looking over at him, Lindy rolled her eyes. “Are we having a pity party?” she asked.

AJ glared at her. “Shut up,” he muttered softly.

“Oh, come on, don’t give up now. She’ll believe you sometime. She just needs time,” Lindy said.

The two of them had just come from Brian’s hotel room, where they had waited for Brian to come back from Barnes and Noble. He had and had given AJ the bad news – Bianca hadn’t believed it. Even worse, she had accused Brian of being the one behind AJ’s letters and stormed out of the store in a rage. AJ wasn’t sure where she had gone, but he knew it wasn’t home, for that’s where he and Lindy were now, and there was no sign of Bianca.

“I’ve given her time,” said AJ. “I’ve tried over and over. I really thought this would work. I really thought she’d believe it, coming from Brian. He wouldn’t joke about something like this. I thought she knew that.”

“She’ll come around.”

“Yeah, maybe,” AJ said dully.

“Well, it’s not going to do any good to sit here and mope about it,” said Lindy. “Let’s do something.”

AJ glared at her again. “Thanks for your sympathy and understanding,” he said sarcastically.

“Sorry,” Lindy said, unapologetically. “Honestly, I’ve never been much of the sympathy type. Life’s tough – deal with it. That’s my motto.”

“How sad.”

“Yeah, I know. You can blame my father for that one. And my mother, come to think of it. You can blame my whole fu-… erm… screwed up family.”

AJ studied her face, which had suddenly turned angry and bitter-looking. He had never heard Lindy talk about her family or any other part of her life. Interested, he asked, “Why? What did they do?”

“What didn’t they do?” Lindy scoffed. “They fu-… screwed me up, that’s what they did.”

“How?” AJ pressed.

“My dad started it. He was a crackhead. My mom thought he had stopped when she married him, but he hadn’t. He kept the drug habit going all the way through my childhood and finally got us so damn deep into debt that we had to give up our house and move to this crap-ass apartment. My dad left after that, ran out on my mom and me. She was pretty upset after that. She still loved him, ya know. I really can’t say why, but she loved him, even with the crack. She started drinking after he left. Made life even more of a hell for me. And that’s basically it. My shitty little life story.”

So much for “correcting her potty mouth”, as she had told him she was trying to do the first time he met her. Lindy hadn’t been exactly warm and friendly to him then, but in the month he had known her, she had become much nicer, and he had grown to think of her as a good friend of his – the only friend he had in this world, the angel world. But now the Lindy he had come to know had vanished and was replaced with a bitter, angry teenage girl.

“I’m sorry,” AJ whispered. “If it helps any, my dad left when I was really little, so my mom and I were alone too. Only she didn’t drink. But I used to, so I can relate to that too.”

“Yeah, you’re also a multi-millionaire famous celebrity,” Lindy said with resentment. “You’ve had it real rough.”

“Was,” AJ corrected. “I was a multi-millionaire famous celebrity. Now I’m dead.”

“Whatever,” Lindy said with a roll of her eyes.

“So, did you not have a very good relationship with your mom?” AJ asked.

“No. At the time of my death, I hated her,” said Lindy.

“Do you still hate her?”

Lindy shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Well, I’m sure she didn’t hate you.”

“She sure didn’t love me. She didn’t act like it anyway.”

“And I’m sure she’s sorry for that now,” said AJ.

Lindy snorted. “Sure.”

“Have you ever gone to visit your mom? Since your… you know.”

Lindy made a face. “No. Why would I want to do that?”

“I dunno,” AJ said with a shrug. “We should go now. It’d give us something to do. That’s what you wanted, right? Something to do?”

Lindy frowned at him for a moment, but then, slowly, her frown faded. “Well… okay…” she said finally. “Guess it would be interesting. I mean, I don’t even know if the woman’s still alive. Probably drank herself to death by now.”

“Alright then. Let’s go,” said AJ. “You lead the way.”

“Fine.” Lindy took his hand, and they both closed their eyes. As Lindy concentrated on the place that had once been her home, AJ felt them both fading away…

***

They reappeared in front of an old, rundown-looking apartment building.

“Ahh, home sweet home,” Lindy said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Come on, our apartment’s on the second floor.” She led him up the crumbling cement steps and into the building. They took a flight of rickety stairs to the second floor, then to the third, then the fourth, and finally reached the top floor, the fifth floor. They then walked down a short, narrow hallway, and stopped outside a dark wooden door.

“Here we are!” Lindy announced with mock happiness. Then she walked through the door. AJ followed.

On the other side of the door, he found himself in a tiny living room and kitchen in one. The kitchen sink imbedded in one short counter was heaped with dirty dishes. The tiled floor looked grimy with dirt and stains. In the corner of the living room section, a big old TV was blaring the Home Shopping Network. An old, sagging couch sat in front of the TV, a coffee table stacked with old magazines in between. Heavy drapes, once white, now gray with layers of dust, hung over the small windows, blocking all sunlight. There was a tiny hallway – if you could even call it that – that connected to the living room with the rooms behind three closed doors – the bathroom and a couple bedrooms, AJ assumed.

“Nice place, huh?” Lindy commented sarcastically, looking around the dilapidated apartment. “Looks even worse than when I died.”

AJ had come further into the room and sat down on the couch, making himself at home. He leaned forward to inspect the magazines on the coffee table. That’s when he saw the picture. Lying on the top of one of the piles of magazines was a framed photo of a grinning little girl, her hair in pigtails, her two front teeth missing. She looked no older than six or seven. Turning around, AJ studied Lindy a moment. Same gray eyes, same ash blonde hair as the little girl in the picture.

“You?” he asked, solidifying his right hand to hold up the picture for her to see. As he picked up the frame, several shards of broken glass came tumbling out, and he realized the glass piece covering the photograph was broken, as if it had been dropped… or thrown.

“Yeah,” said Lindy. “I think that was my first grade school pic. Cute, wasn’t I?” Her voice was flat and emotionless.

“Lindy?” AJ said, frowning slightly.

“Yeah?”

AJ took a deep breath, about to ask a question he had been wanted to ask her for some time now. “How did you die?”

There was a pause. Lindy pressed her lips together in thought for a moment, then walked up to AJ. Very slowly, she pushed up the sleeves of the sweatshirt she had been wearing ever since he had known her, the sweatshirt she must have died in. Then she turned her arms so that the undersides were facing up and held them out to AJ. For a moment, he was confused, but then he saw them. The scars. Thick, red scars going up her wrists, right where her veins would be.

He stared up at her in shock. “You… you slit your wrists? You killed yourself?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

Lindy nodded wordlessly.

AJ wanted to ask her why, but he did not. Looking around her mother’s apartment, he already knew why. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Where’s your mom?”

Lindy cocked her head at him, caught off by his sudden change of topic. Shrugging, she replied, “I dunno. Probably passed out drunk in her bedroom.”

“This early in the morning?”

Lindy shrugged again and left the living room, going down the tiny hall and slipping through the door to the left. AJ hung back, feeling suddenly like a trespasser, an intruder. But then he heard Lindy’s horrified scream.

“Momma!”

***

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