I let myself through the back gate, dumped my bike by the hose reel attached to the house, smoothed my hair and hoped that I didn't look quite so frazzled as I felt. Nothing felt real as I walked back through the gate and to the front door I went, and not long after knocking, Mum opened it. Warmth bloomed dully in my chest as I saw the grin that lit her face when she saw it was me.

"Oh, hello darling. I'm glad you made it back before the storm," she said, holding the door open as I stepped inside. "It looks like it's about to pour any minute. Did you have a nice ride?"

I rubbed my neck, looking about the house and peering down the hall to see that her party was still in full swing. "Yeah," I answered, distractedly. My voice sounded far away.

"Are you alright, Pierce?"

I turned to look at my mum, with her rosy cheeks and bright, worried eyes searching my face, her smile still present but now softer; caring. The warmth in my chest had a sharp edge now that made my breath hitch. My heart thudded unevenly, and I felt light-headed.

"I'm fine," I nodded, lying to us both. "Having a good time?" I nodded my head toward the sound of music and guests.

"I'm having a great time," she grinned. "It's so good to see everyone again. I think even your Uncle Chris enjoyed himself."

"I'm glad," I told her and then stepped forward to give her a big hug. "I'm really tired. I'm gonna head to bed."

Mum held me tight for a long moment, and then pulled back, holding my arms gently. "Oh," she said, looking disappointed. "Don't you want to say goodnight to everyone? Your grandma, Uncle Chris and Alex have been waiting back to see you before they go home."

My entire body rejected the idea – I couldn't face people right now. I just wanted to curl up in bed, pull the covers over my head and never come out.

"Mum, I'm really tired, I think I just need to go to bed. Could you just tell them that I'm sorry, and thank you for coming. And that I'll see Alex tomorrow morning, if he's still picking me up for school?" I couldn't remember what I had said the moment it came out of my mouth – what were we talking about?

"He is," Mum nodded, "He was telling me earlier. They'll be upset, but I'm sure they'll understand. Go get some rest, darling."

I hugged her again. "'Night Mum."

Hurrying up the stairs, I went to my room, changed into my pyjamas and proceeded to lie awake, staring at the roof. I heard the guests leave, and Mum go to bed. The storm had arrived in full force, and – as it often seemed to happen here – the power went out. Rain streamed down my window pane in sheets. Our little kidney-shaped pool in the backyard was threatening to overflow, and the wind tossed the palm fronds like pieces of newspaper.

Had all that really just happened? I wondered numbly. Had I really just seen him, spoken to him, touched and been touched by him? He had destroyed the cemetery gates with one sharp kick. How? Who was he, where was he from and why was he here? He had taken my necklace – my neck felt uncomfortably bare – and thrown it away; lost forever. And I mourned it and the idea that one day a tourist might come across it and it might end up for sale online or in a pawnshop somewhere.

John hated me. He had followed me. He had saved me. Then he had all but told me to fuck off. I had promised him I would, and this time my promise would be kept. But in my mind's eye, I couldn't stop seeing his sad silver eyes. I stared at the roof. And then at the wall. And then at the back of my eyelids. I felt heavy and still, like a discarded doll. My body sank into the soft mattress, my head on the pillow, but I didn't feel comfort. I didn't feel much of anything. I just laid there and breathed.

The sun came up and with its light came the feeling of reality – I was me again, and not just an empty, heavy thing. Dissociation was a hell of a bitch. I crawled out of bed and into a scalding hot shower. I inspected my arms as I washed, expecting to see marks on my skin where he had held me, but there were none, though I could have sworn they'd singed me to the bone. I shook my head – it didn't matter anymore that I had no necklace, had no bruises, had no proof of what I had seen, what I had felt. I didn't need a rock to prove it all. Not to myself or to anyone.

I tried it shake it all off. I had given my apology as well as a piece of my mind. He had told me to stay away, and I promised him I would. It almost felt like there should be some feeling of closure after all this, but after seeing, speaking and touching him, closure felt a distant dream. All I felt, as I pulled my shirt over my head and tied my laces and packed my bag for the first day at my new school, was dread.

But nevertheless, I was determined. I would stay away. I would never see him again. I was going to throw myself all in to Mum's 'make a new start' programme. I had died and come back and now I was the closest I had been to okay in a long while, and it was time to take the life I had fought and suffered for and make it my own.

Mum had already left for work by the time I finally left my room – I had waited until I heard her car pull out and disappear down the road. She had packed a lunchbox and left a note wishing me good luck on my first day and had signed it with a smiley face and a love heart. It made me smile as I downed the medication she had laid out on the counter beside it. I was half-way through my coffee when my phone lit up with a message from Alex telling me he was outside. I sculled the remainder of the hot drink, wincing as I felt it scald my oesophagus, grabbed my bag and headed out.

It was warm out and the air, though still wet from the storm last night, was not heavy. Alex waited in his battered but persevering rust bucket of a car, with all four windows down to accommodate for the broken aircon. I hurried over and climbed inside.

"Morning," I sung, putting my bag by my feet and strapping myself in. The car smelled musty, and there was a strong undertone

"Hullo," he greeted. "How you doing? Your mum said you went to bed early cause you felt sick. Didn't even come say goodbye."

"Sorry about that. I wasn't feeling great."

"Yeah, well you also ran off and left me alone with Grandma," he huffed, shaking his head. He scowled and honked at a group of tourists who had wandered into the middle of the road to photograph a large banyan tree in the park nearby. "What the hell – what do these people think, they're on Main Street at Disneyland? Just standing in the road – some of us actually live here, you know." He held his hand on the horn hard and it wailed long and loud until the tourists took proper notice and hurried out of the way, waving in apology. The moment they were out of the way, Alex lurched forward, speeding down the road toward the school.

"I'm sorry," I apologised again, feeling guilty. He side-eyed me for a moment, and then nodded.

"Anyway," he said, turning up the radio, "I almost crashed on the way to yours."

"Really?" I gasped, "What happened?"

"Turned into the bottom of your street and drove through a pile of dead flowers that exploded all over my windshield. Look, you can see some still stuck in the wipers." He pointed and I leaned forward to see the crisp and dead curls of red flowers fluttering in the wind. "I couldn't see through it, and I almost had a head-on with someone going the other way."

"Holy crap, are you okay?"

"Yeah," he laughed shortly, shifting in his seat. "I'm fine. They look like they're from the tree down by the cemetery. Can't remember what it's called—"

"Poinciana," I said, feeling suddenly tense. There was no way it was in any way related to all else that happened last night, but all I could think of was the thick layer of poinciana flowers which crunched beneath our feet and swirled around us as we spoke beneath the growing storm. "It's a poinciana tree."

"Poinciana," he nodded. "Wouldn't have guessed that. The storm must have knocked them all off and swept them all the way up your street. Pretty weird."

"Yeah," I muttered, frowning out the window. "Weird."

"Ah, well. So, how you feeling – you ready for today?" he asked, with a curious, playful look.

Anxiety pooled in my gut. With a nervous chuckle, I nodded, "Yeah. Fake it til you make it, right?"

Alex laughed, but gave a supportive smile. Then he turned up the radio and I stared thoughtfully out the window as we cruised through town toward Isla Huesos High School.

/

I hadn't been back at my old school, Westport Academy for Girls, for even a full week before my 'best friend', Hannah Chang, dumped me after my bluntly telling her that doing things like hanging out at the mall after school and hoping to catch glimpses of her older brother's friends, or holding our breath when passing by the graveyard else lest evil spirits possess our souls, was stupid and that I was done with such things.

She told me I had changed, that I was a 'such a downer' and was no fun anymore. And then she called me crazy, and it got around school, and it stuck. I was the girl who had almost died and had come back crazy. Whatever other friends I had, had followed Hannah's lead and abandoned me. Our drama teacher told me that it would be unfair for me to put any more stress on myself considering my circumstance, and had given the part of Snow White to Hannah, and made me script girl.

Hannah had apologised and I could tell that she meant it, but it was too little too late and I told her so. I told her a lot of things that day – that she was a terrible friend and an awful person who had abandoned me when I needed her most, turned the entire school against me and as a cherry on top, stolen my spot in the school play. Whatever friendship we had shared was gone – I burnt the bridge between us with my hurt and rage, and I left her crying by the school gate.

Sometimes giving people a piece of your mind can be therapeutic, but walking away from Hannah felt like a piece of my heart had shrivelled and died. In the end, dissociation became a constant friend and for the rest of my time at that school, I drifted by like a ghost, feeling present and yet not. Conversations were had and immediately forgotten, teachers would find me staring blankly down at the work in front of me, or staring absently out of windows, and I found my own little corner of the school to eat, read, and play on my phone, all alone. I even can't say how many classes I missed. My parents apparently found it hard to believe the reports they received from my teachers which told their precious daughter wasn't performing at even an average educational level. But I was way too deeply dug within my metaphorical glass-coffin to care anymore – about Hannah, about school, about my life, my concerned teachers and parents, or even the heavy stone around my neck and where I had gotten it.

In time, with the help of psychotherapists, psychiatrists and medication, I started to feel real again, and I started to care again. And I still cared about Hannah, I knew I did, and memory of what I had said to her roiled in my head. I missed her, and I wanted to talk to her, to see after all those months if there were absolutely anything that could be salvaged. Of course, by that time it was too late.

/

By the end of that semester following my accident, Westport had sent a letter to my parents advising they find 'alternative educational solution' for me – a polite way of saying that I had been expelled, and attached was a note from the school counsellor. By the time the letter had arrived, Mum had already begun planning our move to Isla Huesos, and Dad was already on her case about it. And apparently, I wasn't the only thing my mum loved that she felt Dad had allowed to die by neglect.

"Isla Huesos, Deb? Really?"

I had heard this particular argument as I was hiding around the corner just beyond the front door where they stood, snarling quietly at one another. Dad and I had just returned from one of the last of our court-mandated lunches; none of which I minded.

"You think that's what the counsellor meant when she said a place 'better suited to her needs'?"

"It can't be any worse for her than Connecticut has turned out to be," Mum snapped.

"You can't peg the teacher on me, Deb," Dad huffed, defensively. "That one was all you. I heard you pushing her to take him up on his tutoring offer—"

"Just drop it," Mum snapped, now defensive as well. "I'm taking her home. End of story."

"Of course she's the reason you want to go back there. It couldn't possibly be because you want to go save the birds," Dad rolled his eyes.

"Someone has to," she said tightly.

"It's not going to make any difference, Deb," Dad assured her. "It's going to be a drop in the bucket. You know, now I think about it it's more likely you're running back because you heard that he's available again."

Now Mum just sounded mad. "I'd think you'd have better things to do right now than look up the marital status of my ex-boyfriends."

"I like to keep track of their mating habits," Dad said. "The same way you track your roseate spoonbills."

"The spoonbills," Mum snapped, "aren't mating anymore. Most of them are dying. Thanks to you."

Dad is the CEO of one of the world's largest suppliers of products and services to the oil, gas and military industry. It was near impossible for one to have not at least heard of it, especially in the last few years, what with all the media attention it had gathered. His company was at least partly to blame for the decimation of the local economies of hundreds of communities on or around the Gulf, including Isla Huesos', following the careless use of dispersant resulting in oil in the ocean, tar on the beaches, and a great number of sea life being deemed inedible. It was all around a shit situation for everyone involved.

"Oh, for godssake, Deborah. You think I did that on purpose, too?"

"It wouldn't be the first time a tragedy could have been avoided if you'd been paying attention."

Dad recoiled as if she had slapped him – it would have been kinder if she had.

There were more arguments had about the subject, but in the end Mum won him over by signing me up for a nationally recognised programme at Isla Huesos High called 'New Pathways', which was designed to give assistance to 'troubled' students like Alex and myself. Alex, the boy with a parolee dad and a MIA mother; and me, the girl who had died and come back crazy.

"It comes highly recommended," Mum had told Dad and I. "You'll still go to regular mainstream classes, like everyone else. You'll just have some extra supervision and support from some very well trained social workers. Trust me, honey, I wouldn't enrol you into something like this if I didn't think they could help."

I wasn't exactly enthused about Mum's idea, but the only other option was to go with Dad's idea, which was to send me to a boarding school for rich kids with social issues, in Switzerland. So, New Pathways it is.