Someone’s hand roughly moved my shoulder. The smell of vodka burned my nose as their breath reached my face. “Wake up, come on wake up.” The voice was shaky and slurred. “Dammit wake up.” Sirens pierced my ear drums. The voice grumbled and the hand left my shoulder. I heard a door slam and tires squeal.
The siren’s wail faded and left my ears pounding. The burning feeling on my face dulled into nothing. The soreness in my back melted off my body and into the asphalt. The stabbing in my ribs ceased. My vision cleared and I was laying in the middle of the intersection. I sat up slowly ignoring the churning feeling in my stomach.

I pressed my forehead to my knees. “What happened?” My voice sounded higher than usual.

A loud banging sound came from behind me. I turned just as an awful metal on metal squeal cut the air. The driver’s door of my friend’s beat up Chevy flung open. It was resting on its side. It rocked as Jay climbed out of the driver’s window. He backed away from the car. He stumbled and tripped as he distanced himself from the vehicle. “Oh my God.” He mumbled. “Oh my God.”

“Jay.” I said evenly.

His face spun and he ran towards me. “Katie!” He knelt down next to me on the cool asphalt. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Katie. I’m sorry.”

“What are you talking about?” Don’t say it, don’t say it.

He glanced at the car. It was halfway turned in the intersection, pointed at my street. Gas was pouring from the tank into the asphalt. He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “I shouldn’t have gone. I should have checked. I thought we were the only ones at the intersection. I stopped but I didn’t look. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

I grabbed his shoulders. “What happened?”

“He came out of nowhere.” Jay whimpered. He looked at a patch of tar in the road. “It happened so fast.” He whispered.

I grabbed the side of his face and made him look at me. His skin was much paler than I remembered it being. The scar on the bridge of his nose from when he broke it in seventh grade gym class had vanished. The place underneath his eyes seemed darker than it should be. Almost like bruising. “What. Happened.”

He shook his head and his eyes were shiny and pink. “We’re dead.” He said the words so quietly I could hardly hear him. Like if he said them soft enough they wouldn’t be true anymore. “I think they were drunk. I remember someone was slurring their words and swearing. Then they left in a car. The medics came a couple minutes later. I heard someone say something about you. I didn’t hear what it was but I could see people looking at you from the front seat.”

“You watched me die?”

He spoke through his teeth. “I watched them put you in the body bag.” He put his hands to his face. “They kept telling me to stay awake but my head hurt. I just wanted to go to sleep. I thought maybe if I went to sleep I would wake up and it was just a dream. I shut my eyes and people were shouting but it turned to whispers and then I was here.”

“What is here?” I looked around for the first time. The intersection of Fir and Main. It was lighter than it had been when we were driving. I looked at the sky but there wasn’t anything blue or grey about it. It was an odd beige color that seemed to illuminate everything just enough that you could see. “This looks like my street but there isn’t anyone here.”

“Your neighbors are usually out on their porches talking for hours.” Jay looked down my street.

“My house!” I pointed to the yellow house in the middle of the block. The lights were on. “Do you think someone’s home?”

“I don’t know.” He stared at the glowing windows. “What would it be?”
It. The word that made it sink in. I was dead. Anything could be in my house right now. I couldn’t make myself afraid. “You need to go home.” I told him. The words felt right. “I think you need to go home.”
“What-why?” He looked flustered. His eyebrows knitted together and his nose crinkled. “I’m not letting you go in there alone.”
I smirked before I could stop myself. “I’m dead what else could happen to me?”
“Eternal damnation.” Jay answered.
I knew he believed what he was saying. “I’ll be safe there and you’ll be safe at your house. You have to go.”
I could feel some sort of warmth wafting down the street towards me. I wanted to go into my house. I could feel that something good was there. I needed to go into my house.
I turned back to Jay. He was staring at my house too. “Are we gonna see each other again?” He asked quietly.
I didn’t know. The feeling wasn’t telling me that. “I don’t know.” I reached over and hugged him. “You need to go. I promise everything will be okay.”
“Been a blast, Katie.” He stood up and pulled me along with him. “Pleasure to die with you.”
He shook my hand and we both laughed. It wasn’t like we used to. This was a laugh that I didn’t think I’d have to use until our high school reunion. That awkward we-haven’t-talked-in-years laugh. “See ya later, kid.”
I squeezed his hand and walked down my street. I left my friend standing at the crossroads we died at. I walked up the same street I learned to ride my bike on, to parallel park, to play hopscotch. Everything had happened on this street. Birth until death.
As I walked up the steps to my front door I took a deep breath. The light wasn’t just from lamps like I had thought. Sunlight seemed to be pouring out of every possible gap and window.
I touched the door knob and felt the warmth shoot up my arm and into my heart. I opened it and walked into paradise.