Chapter 19

Cammie's pov:

"Cameron Ann Morgan, get your ass in this car now!" She snapped.

"It's Goode, Abby. My last name is Goode," I breathed.

"Do you really think I give a damn right now?" Abby hissed. She helped me up and pulled Zach to his feet and throwing us into the back of the car. I leaned against Zach in the back of the car and heard his faint breathing against my ear and felt the touch of his fingertips against my wrist and the trace of gis lips against my neck and I tightened my grip on his hand and buried my face in his shoulder and I pressed my fingers into his chest.

"Cammie..."

My head pounded and I felt like all that energy I'd had a moment ago was gone, sucked away by the terror and fear of losing Zach and my baby again.

Then the lights seemed to go out for me.

Zach's pov:

Abby came into the room, "How is she?" she asked even though I'm sure that she already knew.

I just shook my head, "Her pulse is strong, she's a healthy girl but she doesn't seem so good. The baby is... fine. Alive still but they're feedine Cammie through tubes now to keep the baby alive and..." I looked at her. "I don't know what to do Abby."

None of us had seen the blow to the back of her head, none of us had noticed that Cammie wasn't doing well, nobody had seen it coming.

"Zach... Cammie probably isn't going to..." She didn't need to finish, I already knew what was happening.

I'd already gone through this with her and I didn't know what to think. What to feel...

Cammie's pov:

I opened my eyes and saw Zach and Abby sitting together beside my bed, "Her pulse is strong, she's a healthy girl but she doesn't seem so good. The baby is... fine. Alive still but they're feedine Cammie through tubes now to keep the baby alive and..." He looked at her. "I don't know what to think Abby."

"Zach... Cammie probably isn't going to..." She didn't finish.

"Abby!" I cried. "Zach!" Niether of them looked at me, it was as if I didn't exist. I was... gone. A ghost in the world. "Zach!" I tried to grab his hand but he shivered when I touched him, my touch cold... like a ghost. Was I dead.

I looked behind me and saw a young woman with a swollen belly and porcelain skin lying on a bed... she looked like she was sleeping and her long auburn hair lay splayed out on her pillow like sleeping beauty and then I realized... That's me.

The image changed and sudenly I in a church with people I knew. Macey's head was on Nick's shoulder and my friends were walking up onto a stage, crying. There was a picture of Zach and I and then I knew: A funeral.

"No. No. I'm not dead," I cried. But nobody seemed to hear me or care. "No!" I sobbed. "No..."

My friends came up on the stage all crying but Macey didn't and for a moment I wondered if I had failed her. Had I not been a good friend? Had I... Was she happy I'm gone.

I sat down on the bench beside her and whispered, "Be strong, Macey." I touched her hand and she shivered, looking at her hand and up at me and for a moment I was sure she could see me, but then she went to stand at the pew and looked down at everyone. I followed her.

She seemed to look at me for a moment, as if she could feel my very presents there.

Then she spoke the words that only she could ever say, words that really came from the heart."I'm Macey McHenry and I can't say the same as all of you. You all say that you wish they make it to heaven and me? No. I don't wish she make it to heaven." People gasped. "Because to me, they aren't gone. I see Cammie and Zach everywhere. I see Cammie in the hallways, whereever I go and in the crowds I see the girl who loved to disappear and wonder if she is there, being a chameleon. I see Zach when I see a boy who looks at a girl and you know he loves her. I see their love for each other in the way couples look at each other and the way a baby cries and loves her mother and father unconditionally, because a child's love is stronger than any other. I wonder if her baby could be the child I see held in another's arms. I see them everywhere." She took a deep breath. "I see my best friend and I am sorry I cannot grieve with you all, all I can think is that my best friend is just playing the game she plays best and I don't cry. I smile when I see a newborn child and think: maybe that's Cam's kid. So I won't cry, I'll smile and know." She reached out her hand for a moment, touching my hand as if she too, knew that I was there. She looked at me, I no longer saw that degree of sadness looming over her, I saw somthing else. Hope.

And I knew better than anyone that hope is one of the most powerful things in the world. It's a dangerous, yet beautiful thing.

I came close and grabbed her hand going down the stairs and she gave a small shiver, a chill from my touch and I smiled as she pulled away and went to her friends, her family. People cried but for a moment I felt like they could feel my presence. I could feel Bex and Liz's eyes lingering on me for a moment and then they shook their heads as if they were imagining things.

Then the moment changed and I saw a small girl. She was skinny and her hair was long and auburn colored like mine and she had freckles on her nose and dark brown eyes like... Zach. She almost looked like me when I was young. Was my mind playing tricks on me?

"You need to come with me now," she told me. Her voice was soft, yet deliberate.

"Who are you?" I asked, shaken by her.

"I'm Emily," she smiled at me and I wanted to curl into a ball and cry.

"Mom, you don't need to be so sad," She told me.

"Mom..." I said, breathing in the words I had once hoped would be her first words. I said them as if trying them out for size.

"You need to make a choice now," she told me.

"Emily," I kneeled down beside her. "How old are you?"

"One moment, mom. I will always be one moment old," she whispered. And then she was a little baby again and she was in my arms. I held her and cried.

Then in a poof she was standing there again, "Mommy, don't cry."

"Oh, Emily. You don't belong here. You were too young," I sobbed.

She shook her head, "No." I sobbed. "I was never meant to live like you Cammie. I was always meant to be here, so that this day would come, don't I look just like you?" She smiled. I nodded. "Today would be my sixth birthday you know, and it is. It's my sixth year of being here, to watch you grow and be the great Cameron Morgan."

"But that was my job Emily, I was supposed to watch you grow and learn and have your birthday and see you break every boy's damned heart," I cried.

But Emily was so calm as she smiled and said, "No. You were never meant to be there. Because I'm not growing up Mom. I'm just the image of the girl that once could have been."

"Could have?" I sputtered. "You should have been!" I was crying now.

"No," she shook her head. "Do you remember when you chose to live? Some of us look into the light and never leave."

"Emily..."

"Now it's time for you to choose again," she smiled and stepped closer to a door that had light shining from it. " Most choose not to go back. Because here, it's so... calm and beautiful. Because back where it truly matters, it does hurt."

"But I want to be here with you," I grabbed her hand.

She smiled a kind smile.

"Look through this door, what do you see?" She asked me."I see..." My shoulders tightened. "I see my dad and my grandparents and people I used to know," I cried. "I want to go see them!" I was just about to step over the threshold when I realized, "If I go inside I can never go home."

"This is home Cammie," she smiled sadly. "Just not your home. Think of what you will leave behind, who you will leave when you step inside. "

"No, I need to be with you, I need to take care of you," I began.

"No, Cammie. You can't take care of someone who is already gone," she told me.

"But..."

"What about my sister, Mom? What about the baby? If you leave who will be her mother, she might not survive. Would you do that to Dad? To another child?" Emily held my hand. "Now look through this door. What do you see?"

"I..." My heart broke all in one second as I saw my husband and my friends.

"Zach! You let her die!" Macey screamed. "You let her die you scum! You..."

"Have you chosen yet?" I turned and looked at Emily and nodded.

"You know what to do, now," Emily smiled. "I'll see you again one day."

Then she disappeared and I turned away from the door with the people I missed and left.