Disclaimer: The Mediator is a book by Meg Cabot. I am ss10009, not Meg Cabot. I don't own the Mediator, nor do I attempt to make money off of this fanfiction.

Chapter 3 – You Are (Not) Alone

My mother's words were trapped within my mind and slamming into each side of my brain like one of those screensavers that comes on when you've paused a DVD for too long.

God, I get one day with Jesse after not seeing him for two weeks, and now I'm not going to see him for a month? Testing for the SAT took place in January, and it was early December now.

I immediately voiced this complaint.

"The SAT's don't happen until January twenty-something. December just started yesterday."

Mom looked thoughtful.

"I suppose you're right about that," she said.

"So you see my point?" I asked.

I hoped she would be sympathetic to my plight. I didn't like the idea of being separated from Jesse for that long. Most girls wouldn't want to be forcibly separated from thier boyfriends. But unlike most girls, their boyfriends weren't destined to be their eternal loves.

But I couldn't tell my mother this. For one thing, my mother was much too rational to give a psychic any sort of credibility. I was the same way until Madame Zara had hit the nail on the head about my ability to talk to ghosts. And I definitely did not plan on letting my mom know Madame Zara was legit by confessing to my adventures in the field of mediation.

Second of all, perhaps even more importantly, things like "one true love" and "eternity" are cheesier than Andy's quesadillas, and I had no intention of saying anything of the sort out loud.

Mom sighed, and her next words were slow. "I guess that is a bit harsh… But I am very worried about your school work. You've never really been an honor student, but testing this year is going to be very important. The SAT determines so much about your future, and… Susie, I just want you to do well."

She looked a little tearful now, and through all of the injustice of me being punished for doing my job as a mediator, I started to feel guilty.

"Since the SAT is still a little far off, you can see him before the test," she said.

I released an inaudible sigh of relief. For a second there, I was worried I'd have to sneak out of the house to do something other than mediator business. It would have been a first for me as, if you excuse all of my cavorting with the undead, I mostly had model behavior.

But my mom wasn't through talking yet.

To cap off our conversation she said, "However, I want you to at least be focused for semester exams. So, until then, I don't expect you and Jesse to be seeing each other."

And just like that, I was back in my own personal hell.

Aside from not being allowed to make physical contact with Jesse for the next two weeks, I was grounded until Thursday, when I was set to return to school, and ordered to stay away from any outlets that could've provided me with entertainment during my suspension. No phone calls. No television. No CD's.

If there's one thing I've learned in my sixteen years, it's that the life of a mediator is deeply unfair.

But I didn't complain to my mom. I never did. As much as it killed me, it was better that she thought her only daughter was a delinquent who may or may not be sexually active with her boyfriend than a freak who had to corral the undead to their next destination.

Once my mom had left my room, with my phone in tow, I gravitated from my bed to my window seat with Moby Dick in tow.

It felt weird to sit here, in front of the big bay window, without thinking that Jesse might materialize at any moment. I took a glance at the book, which was just as boring as it had been when I was sitting on my bed, and then I fixed my gaze on the distant ocean I could see from my window.

Had this been how it was for Jesse?

How many days had he spent here idly, looking out of this same window, reminded that there was nothing out there for him? The only thing he'd had (that I knew of) was Maria Diego's handkerchief. One hundred and fifty years of solitude and his only memento was a trinket from the woman who had him murdered, the woman who made his family think he'd run off to seek his fortune in San Francisco and shirk his filial duties.

Sometimes, like now for instance, I wished I could break Maria Diego's neck all over again.

I put my book down in frustration. There was no way I would be able to focus on anything when all I felt like doing now was punching something.

I changed out of the clothes I'd been wearing to school and slipped on a pair of gym shorts and an old t-shirt. As far as I could tell, my mom had not forbidden my kickboxing tape from me.

After an hour long workout that confirmed I was still in perfect shape for kicking ghost butt, I slipped into the kitchen to grab a can of Diet Coke. I caught a glimpse of the time as I released the pull tab on the can. There was only an hour left until school got out at the Mission. Which meant that there was only an hour left until today's student council meeting.

I was sure that my suspension had already come and gone so far as hot topics of conversation went, so I didn't think anyone would expect me at today's meeting. Kelly was probably happy that I wasn't there. She'd probably plan as many dances as she possibly could in my absence. Since the moment I'd been elected vice president, I'd been converting the dances she'd planned into beach cookouts, and Kelly was none too happy about it.

I stopped thinking about Kelly and cookouts when I saw a shimmer out of the corner of my eye. I knew that shimmer too well; it was a telltale sign that a ghost had just materialized.

Even when my job got my suspended from school, I still couldn't manage to quit it.

"What do you...want?" I asked.

My voice trailed off as I saw exactly who had materialized behind me. With tanned skin, honey blond hair, blue eyes, and a conceited look on her face, it couldn't have been anyone other than the student council president herself, Kelly Prescott.

I stared at her blankly, and she stared back at me in just as much confusion.

"Suze?" Kelly said.

I must have looked like an idiot because I couldn't help but stand there in shock for a few more seconds. Kelly Prescott was dead? I'd always thought Kelly Prescott would stick around and annoy me until the end of time, or at least until graduation.

But one of the things I've learned as a mediator is that no one is immortal. We've all got to kick the bucket sometime—even if it's earlier than we might have thought.

"Kelly," I began. "How did you…"

I was about to say "die," but the word wouldn't emerge from my lips properly. I cleared my throat to start, but Kelly beat me to it.

"How did I get here?" she asked as she looked around the kitchen. "I don't know how I got here. What's going on, Suze?"

"I wasn't going to ask how you got here," I said, and I waived my hand around to indicate that I meant the Simon-Ackerman kitchen. "What I meant was how did you die?"

"Dye?" Kelly asked. "What are you talking about? I'm a natural blond, Suze. Debbie's the one who—."

Kelly looked at me with an intensity I had never seen from her before.

"Are you spelling that D-I-E?" she asked.

"Yes, Kelly," I said. "I'm asking you how died. As in, left your body behind but retained your soul on this plane of existence."

Kelly's face went pale, or as pale as she could get considering her native Californian tan. Her blue eyes were opened wide in disbelief.

"I'm… I'm dead?" Kelly asked. "How is that… How can I be…? What do you mean, dead?"

I sighed. I had a repertoire of synonyms for the word dead, and, like a shot, I began to name them off. But before I could get past "pushing up daisies," she interrupted me.

"I know what dead is, Suze," Kelly said sharply. "But I also know that I'm not it. Dead, I mean."

"And I beg to differ," I replied. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"The last thing I remember? It… It was really black," she said.

"Really black?" I repeated.

"Yeah. Really black," she said, but her tone was full of uncertainty.

"Do you remember anything before that? What happened today?"

Kelly bit her lip before she said, "I was out late last night, and I didn't hear my alarm clock this morning, so I ended up being late to school today. Like, really late. When I woke up, school had been in session for a couple of hours already."

Assembly started at eight in the morning. If she'd woken up at ten or so, and then had to undergo her usual makeup regimen and coordinate an outfit, there was no way she could've been ready for school before eleven thirty.

"I left my house a little before noon."

See?

"And I got in my car, started to drive, and…"

"And?" I asked.

Kelly's eyes were narrowed in a deep concentration. I could see that she was actually trying to go back to the scene in her mind.

She sighed, apparently in defeat, and said, "And that's the last thing I remember. Before it all went black, that is."

Kelly might not have known what happened next, but I did. It sounded like a car accident. The last thing the person remembered was being in a car and then nothing. The real question now was why she was still hanging around.

"Kelly, before you died," I said as Kelly winced at the word dead, "did you have any unfinished business?"

"Unfinished business?"

"Like… Did you have an argument or a fight with someone and never reconcile with them? Or is there something you want someone important to you to know?"

Kelly's face was completely blank. "I don't get it," she said.

"Was there anything you did while you were alive that you need to correct now?" I asked.

"I… I don't think so," she said.

The life of a mediator is not just unfair; it's also unlucky. If I had any luck at all, Kelly would have said something like, "Unfinished business! I know exactly what you mean. Would you mind telling my parents I loved them?"

But one of the things that could make my mediator job loathsome, apart from its negative impact on my social life, was ghosts who didn't know what they wanted. They were pretty time consuming. I'd rather deal with a clueless ghost than a violent one, but, in the end neither ranked highly on my Ghosts I Wouldn't Mind Mediating list.

"Well, figuring that out is the first step to me helping you to move on" I said in my most professional mediator voice.

"Move on?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "'Move on.' You're not supposed to be in this world forever, Kelly. You go to Heaven or Hell or your next life or—."

"Oh," Kelly said quietly.

"Yeah," I said, and I couldn't help but fidget awkwardly.

A few moments passed between us in silence before Kelly spoke again.

"Do you do this often?" she asked.

"Do what often?"

"Communicate with… with…"

"With the dead?" I said.

It was a harsh clarification, but the sooner Kelly got used to being dead, the easier she'd be to mediate.

Kelly nodded reluctantly.

"All the time," I said with a shrug.

It felt really weird telling Kelly this, even if she was already dead. The only people at school who knew I was a mediator were Father Dom, CeeCee, and Paul. Not even my only family knew, but now Kely was hip to my biggest secret.

"I'm dead," Kelly said, and she shook her head as her voice began to trail off. "I can't be dead…"

She dematerialized a second later in a sparkle of blue light.

I'd see her again before too long. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I knew it was only a matter of time.

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