Meg Cabot - Abandon

No one is really sure how long I was gone. I was flatline for over an hour.

But I was also hypothermic. Which is why once they warmed me up the defibrillators, along with a massive dose of epinephrine, brought me back.

Thats what the doctors say, anyway. I have a different opinion about why Im still among the living.

But its one Ive learned not to share with people.

Did you see a light?

Thats the first thing everyone wants to know when they find out I died and came back. Its the first thing my seventeen-year-old cousin Alex asked me tonight at Moms party.

Did you see a light?

No sooner were the words out of Alexs mouth than his dad, my uncle Chris, slapped him on the back of the head.

Ow, Alex said, reaching up to rub his scalp. Whats wrong with asking if she saw a light?

Its rude, Uncle Chris said tersely. You dont ask people who died that.

I took a drink from the soda I was holding. Mom hadnt asked if I wanted a huge Welcome to Isla Huesos, Pierce party. But what was I going to say? She was so excited about it. Shed apparently invited everyone she knew back in the old days, including her entire family, none of whom had ever moved except Mom and her younger brother, Chris from the two-mile-by-four-mile island off the coast of South Florida on which theyd been born.

Except that Uncle Chris hadnt exactly left Isla Huesos to go to college, get married, and have a kid, the way Mom had.

But the accident was almost two years ago, Alex said. She cant still be sensitive about it. He looked at me. Pierce, he said, his voice sarcastic, are you still sensitive about the fact that you died and then came back to life nearly two years ago ?

I tried to smile. Im fine with it, I lied.

Told you, Alex said to his dad. To me, he said, So did you or did you not see a light?

I took a deep breath and quoted something Id read on the Internet. Virtually all NDEs will tell you that when they died, they saw something, often some kind of light.

Whats an NDE? Uncle Chris asked, scratching his head beneath his Isla Huesos Bait and Tackle baseball cap.

Someone whos had a near-death experience, I explained. I wished I could scratch beneath the white sundress Mom had bought me to wear for the evening. It was too tight in the chest. But I didnt think that would be polite, even if Uncle Chris and Alex were family.

Oh, Uncle Chris said. NDE. I get it.

NDEs, Id read, could suffer from profound personality changes and difficulties readjusting to life afterwell, death. Pentecostal preachers whod come back from the dead had ended up joining biker clubs. Leather-clad bikers had gotten up and gone straight to the nearest church to be born again.

I thought Id done pretty well for myself, all things considered.

Although when Id glanced through the files my old school had sent over after it was suggested that my parents find an alternative educational solution for me which was their polite way of saying Id been expelled after the incident last spring I saw that the Westport Academy for Girls may not necessarily have agreed:

Pierce has a tendency to disengage. Sometimes she just drifts off. And when she does choose to pay attention, she tends to hyperfocus, but not generally on the point of the lesson. Wechsler and TOVA testing suggested.

But that particular report had been written during the semester directly following the accident more than a year before the incident when Id had a few more important things to worry about than homework. Those jerks even kicked me out of the school play Snow White in which Id been cast as the lead.

How had my drama teacher put it? Oh, yeah: I seemed to be identifying a little too much with poor, undead Snow White.

I dont see how I could have helped it at the time, really. Because in addition to having died, Id also been born as rich as a princess, thanks to Dad hes CEO of one of the worlds largest providers of products and services to the oil, gas, and military industries (everyones heard of his company. Its been in the news a lot, especially lately) and I also happened to have been born looking like one, thanks to Mom. I inherited her delicate bone structure, thick dark hair, and wide dark eyes.

I also, unfortunately, inherited Moms princess-tender heart. Its what ended up killing me.

So was it at the end of a tunnel? Alex wanted to know. The light? Thats what you always hear people say.

Your cousin didnt go into the light, his father said, looking worried beneath his baseball cap. If she had, she wouldnt be here. Quit pestering her.

Its okay, I said, smiling at Uncle Chris. I dont mind answering his questions. I did, actually. But hanging around in the backyard with Uncle Chris and Alex was better than being inside with a bunch of people I didnt know. Turning to Alex, I said, Some people do say they saw a light at the end of a tunnel. None of them knows exactly what it was, but they all have theories.

Like what? Alex asked.

Thunder rumbled off in the distance. It wasnt loud. The people inside the house probably couldnt hear it, what with all the laughter and the splashing of the waterfall over in the pool and the music Mom had playing on the indoor/outdoor stereo speakers, not so cleverly designed to look like rocks.

But I heard it. It had followed a burst of lightningnot heat lightning, either, even though it was as hot at eight oclock at night in early September in South Florida as it ever got back in Connecticut in July at high noon. There was a storm out to sea, and it was heading in our direction.