Page 26 of Secondhand Soul

“There are a thousand rational fixes, Laz, and this is the one you suggest? Something about this girl rubbed you the right way.”

I think of her hands in mine. The way she smiled at me, and the way she doesn’t look away. “Maybe.”

“MANNY AND RHEA WOULD love your help.” I word it that way. Because I know how it feels to keep taking handouts, know how it eats at you. “The mom that they’re working with could go into early labor at any time.”

“Right. Oh. I don’t know if I can—” Victoria tries to walk from the bathroom, and her body betrays her. I catch her and scoot her back into the chair. “I don’t think I’m much good for working right now.”

“We have the long weekend off, Manny says. But if you feel up to it, they hope we can meet for dinner. In the meantime, you’re their guest. And mine. Just stay in the apartment for a few days. I’ll get it in livable shape. Uh. Make the bed. Get toothpaste. You know. Basics.”

“I have a bag in my car.” Victoria’s voice is hollow. Cautious.

“Just one bag? And you drove all the way from California?” I asked, eyebrows shooting high.

Her expression is so instantly guilty that I feel like I hit a puppy. “I’ve tried to leave before. I always go back. Some... Some mobsters still contact me for my ‘services,’ and the money helps me survive. And I’m just numb when I do what they ask. Sometimes I blank out, thinking about how my life would have been different if I had her—and when I snap back out of it... It’s over. What I did. Is over.” Her voice shrinks by the second, and a deeply puzzled frown appears on her face, like she’s confused by how she got here. Like she’s wondering, “Why me?”

That’s something we have in common.

I nod, but my mind is actually closing up tight, folding in like a little black coffin as I imagine Victoria lying under some sweating thug, him rutting in her. Finishing in her. Walking away while she slowly comes back to reality and takes the money he leaves for her, a dazed brunette beauty that has a lean, long, strong frame on the outside, and has shown me a whole bunch of delicate layers underneath.

I wonder if I’m like that, too. How did they put so many bits of death together, with tiny veins, and capillaries, and muscles—and make me alive?

If they could do that... Is it possible there’s an invisible layer, too, one that’s somehow included? A soul, buried in there somewhere?

She’s got me wondering in ways that others haven’t. If I can feel this much anger and sadness and hope all at once, that’s gotta be more than just a brain thing. Right?

We’re both silent together, spaced out. Somehow, my hand is still stretched out to her, and I finally realize she’s reaching for it, slowly, like she’s not sure if she’s supposed to take my hand or not.

“Uh. If you want to give me your keys and tell me where you’re parked, I’ll go get your bag. Bring your car over?”

Victoria hesitates, and then a panicked look crosses her face. “My keys. They’re in my pants.”

“Okay, that’s fine. I still have all of your muddy clothes at Manny and Rhea’s. I’ll get them, find the keys, and find the car. Where are you parked?

“Right off the road by the cemetery. Kind of by the trees.” Her head tilts. “Why were you there?”

It feels weird to tell her that I live there, but since when have I cared what people think? I don’t like people.

And it’d be stupid and dangerous to like her. She might leave. She might find someone else, right under my nose, and I’d have to watch her be happy and try not to feel anything.

That sounds terrible.

Ugh. No. I can’t have a soul. People with souls have to be less confused and feel more sure about stuff, right? Have some kind of peace instead of all these fragmented feelings?

“Yeah, I live there. In a crypt. I have a recliner and a little television. I have a hot plate. I’m fine.” My voice is harsh, although not as harsh as I had planned.

“Isn’t it cold?” she asks softly.

I shrug. “I don’t have to stay warm.”

“Couldn’t you live here? Am I taking your apartment?” she asks, chin tilting up, eyes wide with sudden alarm.

“No. I mean, yes, I could live here, but no, I don’t live here, and I don’t want to. Not right now.”

“Manny pays you, though? You’re not like... You could work and earn enough to live in a room somewhere?”

I nod jerkily. I like the way her worry feels when it’s wrapping around me. “You probably don’t understand this, being human and all, but I’m just... human-shaped. I’m not a human, not anymore. It’s weird, because sometimes I feel like one, but in reality, I’m dead flesh, all sewn together, and that’s really... nothing. The people who made me didn’t let the dead rest. They forced bits and pieces together in some sick mockery of life.” I snarl, and my sharp teeth sink into my inner lip. It’s sturdier than a human’s. My skin is more leathery, something about the preservation and reanimation process, I think. “Do you know what it’s like to feel like you’re alive when you shouldn’t be?”

“Didn’t I just explain that?” she laughs, and her voice is as dark and bitter as mine. “It should have been me who got hurt, who died, not some innocent little girl. I didn’t protect her.”