Now that you're dead, what are you gonna do with your life?
I remembered the last words I had said to Veronica before I blew myself up. Did it hurt to get blown up? Well, getting blown up was rather messy. The order in which damage was inflicted to the body and more specifically the brain and the time it took for the brain to receive enough damage as to stop working from the moment damage was first inflicted on the body determined whether it hurt but it was a quick death. And I had died during the explosion. My brain did not remain intact from the event, so it wasn't too painful.
It was either the students or myself, and of course, Veronica said that her "Bonnie and Clyde" days were over.
After I died, I found myself crawling through Veronica's window again. I was a ghost and my spirit remained in Ohio, so at least I wasn't going to be moving from place to place anymore, because my dad thought I was dead. Well, I was dead. And that must've been pretty rough for him, because my mother had jumped off a building and killed herself and then so had I. Except I killed myself in a different way.
Veronica was rather shocked when she was in her room and saw me crawling through her window. I decided to appear to her since she was still living.
"J.D.?" She said out loud. "I must be dreaming..."
"You're not." I said once I had climbed into her room and jumped onto her bed. "I'm a ghost and I'm here to haunt you."
That was a terrible line.
"So, the afterlife was boring, huh?" She asked. "Yeah, Heather told me it was in a dream. How come I can see you but I can't see my friends?"
"I don't know." I said. "But you can."
"Great." She said sarcastically. "I was right. No one can stop J.D."
"You don't have to talk about me in third person, you know." I said. "I'm right here."
"Well, just because you're a ghost and I can see you, doesn't mean I'm going to help you write anymore suicide notes." She said.
"There's one more Heather left." I said.
Because we killed them, but there was one more Heather. I could do it with or without Veronica. I was a vengeful ghost, one who returned from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel death. The last Heather.
"Is this because I broke up with you?" She asked.
Was it? Maybe. I loved Veronica when I was alive.
"I wasn't even given a proper funeral." I said. "Besides, everyone will be happy school is cancelled again."
"No they won't." Veronica argued back. "This is exactly why I broke up with you! Just because they were my friends and I didn't like them, doesn't mean I wanted them dead! And you can't understand that because you're fucking psychotic!"
"So, you'd love me if I weren't psychotic?" I asked.
"Yes!" She said angrily.
"But you do realize why I killed them, right? Veronica, Kurt and Ram had nothing to offer the school!"
"I don't want to rehash this, J.D." She said. "Just because there are assholes at our school, doesn't mean we have to kill them. And if you don't understand that, that's why I can't be with you because we're not the same. Yes, I'm angry sometimes, but I do not want to kill anybody anymore. So you can haunt me for the rest of my life, I don't care. But I'm not going to let you kill the last Heather I have left as a friend. I don't want my teen angst bullshit to have anymore body counts."
"Okay. So I will haunt you for the rest of my life." I promised. "But look at the bright side, you don't care about being popular anymore! You're even hanging out with...Martha."
"Yes, I am. There's nothing wrong with that either. You may not think you're an asshole, but you're actually a bigger asshole than the assholes you thought were assholes! I don't need anymore tragedy in my life." She said.
"I get it. No more tragedy." I said. "Why don't we make up with it with love?"
She may have thought I was joking at first, but I was serious. If I wanted to talk to Veronica again, then I had to stop killing people. Even if there was one more Heather left in the school, I couldn't make her go away with another suicide note, because it seemed Veronica really didn't want any of her friends dead.
"Okay, sure." She scoffed. "If you want to begin this new happiness with me, then I'm down."
"Cool. So can I be your boyfriend again?" I asked.
"The whole school and your dad thinks you're dead." She said.
"I am dead, but that doesn't mean I can't be your boyfriend, Veronica. Haven't you seen Casper the Friendly ghost?" I asked.
"Yeah." She rolled her eyes. "Okay, J.D. I will be your girlfriend again, but one condition: no killing the last Heather I have left or even Martha. Okay? Can you do it?" She asked.
Heather Duke was the last Heather who was alive.
"Yes. And I'm sorry for being a jerk." I apologized. "But I'm going to be sticking around for quite a while now. It'll be like I was never dead. To you."
"Great." She said.
"So our way wasn't better?" I asked.
"No." She said. "Our way wasn't better. We are not scaring people anymore. And we are not talking about that stuff ever again. I've got a therapist. Well, my mom got me a therapist."
I laughed.
"Don't laugh at me." She said but was playing.
Then she threw a pillow at me but it missed because I was a ghost.
"I actually hung out with your father." She said next.
"Really?" I asked, amused.
"Yeah." She said. "He's a lot better than you. I like him a lot better than you."
"Yeah, cause he just blows up buildings. Not people." I said.
"Yeah. Well, you're my boyfriend again, so..."
I went to kiss her and...wait, could ghosts even kiss the living? I tried anyway. I didn't do it as harshly as I had in the boiler room. And while I had underlined meaningful passages in books that were meant for Heather, she had to stay alive, or that was what Veronica wanted. She kissed a ghost.