Countercarnate

I remembered it all.

The blue-and-red lights flashing in our driveway. His mother’s tears. The feeling of my heart falling out of my chest and shattering into a million pieces I’d never find again, even if I spent my whole life searching.

And the endless, endless flowers.

Theo had always been popular. Colleagues, friends from college—even neighbors of his childhood home in Charleston came all the way up to Boston to pay respects to my late fiancé. I could only take so many condolences and regards before I left to keep from being sick all over the funeral home’s ugly shag carpet.

“It’ll pass, Josie.” My mom repeated the words while she rubbed my heaving shoulders. “Time heals all wounds.”

She was wrong.

All I could see ahead of me was everything I’d lost that cold, December night. Theo drove to get takeout from our favorite place off of 5th. I had dozed off waiting for him, only to be jolted awake by the police officer’s fist pounding on our door. A drunk driver had collided with him, killing them both. There wasn’t even anybody left to blame.

Nobody but me.

“If it weren’t for her, he’d still be alive,” his mother had sobbed quietly at the funeral.

His brother agreed. “Josie should’ve been the one to pick it up,” he’d said.

Neither knew I’d overheard them, but even if they had, everything they said had crossed my own mind a million times. So I said nothing. I didn’t have the strength to fake any more pleasantries when I could barely get up to take a shower or cook a decent meal.

I hadn’t even bothered to put on more than a thin cardigan when I drove to our spot at the top of Grandridge Peak on Theo’s one-year death anniversary. We’d had our first date here, sitting on the park bench at the top of the trail. From this high, the city lights glimmered in a rainbow of twinkling lights. It was the city we’d planned to build our lives together, our future.

But my future had died the same night Theo did.

Icy metal bit into my palms as I wrapped my hands around the iron-wrought railing guarding the edge of the peak. I brought my legs over it one at a time. I didn’t dare look down, hundreds of feet below where they would find my body. I kept my eyes locked onto the city glow over the skyline. I closed them, inhaling my last breath—

“Aren’t you cold?”

My eyes flew open as I whipped around to see where the small voice had come from, but there was no one. For a moment, I thought a child was speaking—perhaps my mind had fully unraveled. But when I turned to face the skyline again, a golden-haired girl in a pale-blue dress stood arm’s-length in front of me.

No, not stood—floated.

My breath hitched as my eyes fluttered in utter disbelief.

“What’s your plan?” She asked bluntly.

“Who…wh-what…”

I fumbled for words. My first instinct was to tell her to come down from whatever she was standing on. But the more I tried to make sense of it, the clearer it became that she really was just floating there.

“Are you gonna jump or something?” She asked again, unimpressed.

“Um…yes?” I spoke slowly, deciding to indulge the hallucination my grief-addled brain must have created in a last-ditch effort to stay alive.

“Oh. Because your boyfriend died?”

“He was my fiancé,” I snapped before sorrow found me again. “He…was my everything.”

The floating girl who looked no older than ten actually rolled her big green eyes. “Probably wish you could’ve saved him, huh?” 

“Yeah,” I sneered. “I do.”

“Perfect!” She folded her hands together and pressed them up to her cheek. “The others and I have been thinking—and we think you should try.”

Others? Try? “What are you talking about? Try what?”

“Try to save your fiancé.”  She drew out that last word mockingly. “If you jump from this ledge, we’ll countercarnate you back far enough to change things.”

A million questions raced through my mind, but all of them snagged on the one word I definitely didn’t know: “Countercarnate?”

“Imagine if reincarnation and time-travel had a baby,” she explained slowly. “You’ll go back, and live your life from that point on.”

“Back where?”

She threw her little arms up with an exasperated sigh. “Back in time, dummy. Golly, you really are going to need all the chances you can get. Every time you jump the ledge, you’ll be countercarnated. But you can’t tell anybody or else you’ll lose the ability.”

Countercarnation. Jump the ledge, which I was already planning to do, and essentially time-travel to save Theo. I must have truly been at my wit’s end for my brain to create this ridiculous scenario.

But the smallest, tiniest part of me—the part that believed in happy endings and wishing on birthday candles—was, despite myself, hopeful. If there was even a sliver of a chance I could save Theo…

I’d have to take it.

“Fine,” I agreed. “I’ll do it.”

A wide grin that somehow seemed centuries old split across the little girl’s face. 

“Wonderful. Best of luck, Josie.”

Hearing her call me by my name chilled my bones in a way I couldn’t explain. She snapped her little fingers, that ancient grin still carving her face. It was the last thing I saw before the ground beneath me disappeared.

...

“Josie…Josephine!” 

My eyes flew open to my mother’s shouts. But instead of my mother, I was met with the piercing blue gaze of 90’s era Justin Timberlake.

I rubbed my face, my whole body groggy. That poster hung on the ceiling of my childhood bedroom. Was I in my parent’s house?

“Josie, how many times do I have to yell?”

“Coming,” I shouted back. But my voice sounded…different. I walked towards the door, my eyes snagging on an old picture of myself hanging where a mirror used to be—

My heart stopped in its tracks. It was…me. Teenage me. The bags beneath my eyes had disappeared, and my crow’s feet had swapped with acne.

If you jump from this ledge, we’ll countercarnate you back far enough to change things.

Disbelief and excitement mingled in my gut, making it hard to breathe. That floating little girl…everything she’d said was real. If she’d actually sent me back in time, that meant…

Theo was still alive!

I rushed down the stairs as fast as my legs could carry me—jeez, my joints were nimble—and ran to the landline before realizing I didn’t know his parents’ home number. And even if I did, what would I say? Hello, I’m your son’s future fiancée. I jumped back in time to save him from death before you can blame me for it. Can I talk to him?

“Just where do you think you’re going?” My mother’s arms were crossed behind the kitchen island.

I took her in. She was taller than I remembered, and her clothes looked like she’d taken them straight from a 1980’s time capsule. I couldn’t suppress my laughter.

“You think this is funny?” She held up a large sealed envelope. “I’ve waited long enough. If you don’t open your admissions letter, I’ll do it myself.”

I blinked. I remembered that envelope. Inside was my acceptance letter to Northeastern University. In August, I would meet Theo for the first time at our freshman orientation.

But if I was…countercarnated this far back, why wait until then?

“Mom,” I said, “if I get accepted into Northeastern, can I choose where we go for summer break?”

Mom quirked her brow. “Where were you thinking?”

“I want to go to the beach. Charleston, South Carolina.”

“Why Charleston? If we’re going there, we might as well go to Myrtle.”

“No!” I blurted, then reined myself in. “I just really want to go to Charleston.”

Mom considered my proposition for a long minute, then agreed. “You’d better hope you got in.”

I did my best to look shocked when we read my acceptance letter.

…

When we got to Charleston, I told my parents I’d check out the beach while they rested in the hotel. Theo had told me he’d spent the entirety of his senior summer working a part-time job at the beach. I scoured the vendors, my heart nearly stopping when I saw the familiar shade of sand-colored hair and tan skin.

Theo.

There he was, clad in a blue polo so bright it assaulted the eyes, wearing the dorkiest penguin-shaped hat I’d ever seen. He was taking the order of a family standing in line at a snowball stand. It was all I could do not to shove past them and throw myself into Theo’s arms.

But this was the past. We hadn’t met yet, and that would freak anybody out. Theo had told me it was “love-at-first-sight” when we’d met, but I had always called BS. I hadn’t started liking him until he offered to tutor me when my chemistry grades tanked in our second semester.

So I stood in line, frantically combing my hair through my fingers and making sure I didn’t smell like nervous teen-sweat. When it was my turn, he straightened. His exhausted expression even seemed to perk up a bit.

“Hi,” I said.

“H-hello,” he stammered, then cleared his throat. “What can I get you today, miss…?”

I giggled. He was obviously trying to make his voice sound deeper than it was. If only I could’ve told him he’d get there eventually.

“Josie,” I answered.

“Josie,” he echoed with a smile. “I like it.” He tapped his plastic penguin name tag. “I’m Theo. But I don’t always dress like this, trust me.” 

An impatient cough sounded from behind me. They could wait forever, for all I cared. You only meet your dead-future-fiancé twice.

“What do you recommend?” I asked, as if this was a selection of wines and not snow cones.

Theo bolstered his chest, as if this would somehow impress me. “If you like sweets, I’d recommend Sky Candy. But you can never go wrong with Rainbow.”

After he handed me my Sky Candy snowcone, he invited me to hang out with him and some of his friends he was meeting on the beach once his shift was over. At the beach, I pretended to be interested in all of the little things about him I already knew—that he’d grown up here, was a die-hard Panthers fan, and was a sucker for pineapples on pizza. When he found out we were going to the same university, we couldn’t stop talking. It was all going so well.

Until one of his friends suggested night-swimming.

When I came out of the bathroom, Theo’s friends stood at the edge of the shore, shouting his name. I pushed past them only to see him lying there, pale and unconscious.

I lost him. Again.

Rage and grief plundered through me. How did this happen? He wasn’t even supposed to die until…no, he wasn’t supposed to die, period. I thought back to that floating girl. What had she said?

Every time you jump the ledge, you’ll be countercarnated.

And so I did.

The next time around, I didn’t go to Charleston. I decided it was best to let things play out as naturally as I could. We met at freshman orientation. I giggled at the same old jokes. I even waited until the second semester to start showing my feelings.

But it was all for naught when I woke up in my dorm room to the news he’d died at an off-campus party from alcohol poisoning.

I countercarnated again, again, and again.

What the hell was I doing wrong?

I went to the ledge late at night and waited for the little angel-girl to appear. I called for her, for the strange others she had vaguely mentioned when we first met, but nothing happened. I couldn’t have dreamt it all up, but she didn’t show. 

So I kept countercarnating.

Around the twentieth or thirtieth jump—I lost count some-ten jumps ago—I came to the conclusion the problem was me. Somehow I was the one steering him toward this grisly fate just by getting involved with him. Maybe that was what the universe had been trying to tell me. What his family had wanted to tell me.

So this time, I didn’t go to freshman orientation. I made other friends so our paths would never cross. After graduation, I didn’t look Theo up to see what he’d done with his life. I only let myself check on the friends of his friends—just deep enough to know he was still alive.

My life felt empty. But at least Theo was alive, I told myself. My happiness was a small price to pay.

Still, I took a bottle of red and went up to what would’ve been our spot at the top of Grandridge Peak on the day of what would’ve been his first death anniversary. The night I met the floating girl. Perhaps she hadn’t been an angel after all—just some cruel god playing cruel tricks.

“Aren’t you cold?”

I whipped around expecting to see that pale-blue dress, but instead was met with a bright-orange running jacket. The sandy-locs of his head bounced as he jogged in place.

Theo.

“Wait a second, you’re…Josie, right? You went to Northeastern.”

I panicked. I stood up, not even wanting to risk his fate by talking to him, and started down the trail.

“Wait!” He grabbed my hand, his touch warm. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.” He looked down at our hands, suddenly aware he was holding mine, and let go. His face turned even redder. “Sorry. I just said I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

My nose stung. I hadn’t realized how much missed just being near him. I’d done my best to avoid him and he still remembered me. I burst into tears before I could stop myself.

“Oh—oh my God,” Theo fretted. “I’m sorry. Let’s get you…um…why don’t we just sit here on the bench?”

And we did. He sat there silently while I cried it all out—over all of the Theos I lost, over all the times I couldn’t save him.

“Want to talk about it?” He asked after a long while. My chest ached. I’ve wanted to talk to him for years, to tell him everything. We met in college. We got engaged. We fell in love, but I lost you. I always, always lose you.

But then I remembered the little angel-demon’s warning. If I tell anybody about countercarnation, I won’t be able to save him anymore.

“I—lost—someone,” I blubbered, gasping for breath between words.

“Oh,” he said, his expression falling. “I’m so sorry.” I almost laughed, despite myself. He was apologizing for his own death. “Was it recent?” He asked.

I shook my head. “Today is the anniversary of his death.” The first one, anyways.

“I see,” he said solemnly. “Well, crying in the cold all by yourself out here isn’t the answer. I know I wouldn’t want anyone crying over me.”

This time I did laugh. Loud. I must have sounded crazy.

“I could have saved him. I tried to, but I failed. He died, and it’s all my fault.”

He was quiet for a while. Considering. Then, he said softly, “No it’s not.”

“What?”

“I mean, unless I’ve been comforting a murderer this entire time, I don’t think it’s your fault just because you couldn’t prevent it from happening. Sometimes bad things just happen.”

I scoffed. “What do you know?” I pulled my knees into my chest atop the bench, pressing my forehead into them.

“I know you clearly cared deeply for this person, and they must have cared for you too.” He inched closer. Closer than anyone’s gotten to me in years. Lifetimes. 

“Sometimes, no matter how much we want to, we can’t control what happens. Blaming yourself isn’t going to get you anywhere, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer like this.”

I turned to look at him then, my snot and tear-streaked face inches from his. This was why I fell in love with Theo in the first place. I loved him for his heart, for the kindness that made him sit in the cold to help a stranger. His optimism gave him the ability to get through anything. To get me through anything.

And as impossible as it seemed—I’d get through this, I finally realized. I would get through losing him and letting him go.

I wiped my tears from my cheeks and sniffled. “Would you…want to go get a coffee?” I asked, my voice rasping from all the crying.

“A little late for a coffee,” he answered. “But I would love to get something warm.”

…

We made it another twenty years before his next and final death. It was the longest he’d ever lived out of all of the times I countercarnated. We got engaged again. Married. We even had a mischievous child with beautiful blonde hair.

The cancer was something nobody could’ve prevented. He told me he had no regrets but one: he’d be leaving me behind.

“Are you going to be okay?” He asked me, his concern for me glistening in his old eyes.

I smiled at him from beside his hospital bed, taking his withered hand in mine.

“I’ll live.”

And I did. It was hard at times, unbearable at others. I would be lying to myself if I said the thought of jumping the ledge never crossed my mind. But the memories of this life with Theo—with our daughter—were too precious. Whenever the sorrow threatened to take me from my life again, I thought of all of the memories we’d made across every lifetime. Every first meeting. Every first kiss. Every first date.

I remembered it all.