Chapter One

Once upon a time, I was a perfectly happy, reasonably normal human being. Then my parents got this horrible idea to move to my dad's hometown, this tiny little hell hole in the middle of the Appalachians, and I suddenly became your stereo-typical moody outsider. They tell me it's my attitude that makes this place so awful, but what else can they say? If they paid enough attention to notice that they were wrong, that this town really is that horrific, then they'd have to admit that moving me here constituted criminally bad parenting.

I trudge up the steps of Pine Ridge High in an absolutely foul mood. There are people in the hallways, not there waiting for the day to start but changing classes. Which means I'm so far beyond late that it's not even remotely funny. But I'm too tired from my unplanned jog along the Blue Ridge Parkway to really care.

With some glorious new blisters on my feet making each step agony, I stomp through the halls with my eyes open for my so-called best friend. He's easy to find, a punk rock needle in a haystack of hicks. He's lounging against the chipping paint on his forest green locker and leering at my younger sister. Or at her tight sweater, anyway. My hands tighten into fists as I bear down on him, my exhausted apathy suddenly replaced with a surge of anger. “Cris! What. The. Hell. Happened?”

He leans closer to Bobbi, whispering something to her. She tosses her hair with a haughty look. “Just tell my loser sister Dad says the car's mine this weekend.”

I grind to a halt next to them, shaking with emotion. Neither so much as glances at me.

“And stop looking at me like that, Crispin.” Bobbi wrinkles her nose up. “It's creepy.”

Cris watches her leave, his eyes locked onto the spot where her miniskirt slaps against her legs. She's right. His expression is creepy. Very slasher-film stalker. It's completely messed up. He turns to his locker without acknowledging me.

“What?” My stomach churns as I cross my arms and deliver my deadliest glare. “Why are you acting mad at me? I'm the one who should be pissed. I'm the one who woke up alone. On the ground. Miles from town. I'm just lucky this place is too boring to have mass murders or serial rapists lurking around.”

He rummages for a book, slides it in his bag, and slams the locker shut without comment.

“What did I do that was worth that? Seriously, Cris. I have no memory of last night.”

He yawns, stretches, and starts down the hallway. Then he curses and turns back, returning to his locker but still pretending I don't exist.

“This isn't funny.” Somehow, I manage to keep from punching him but my fists jerk at my sides with the temptation. “You abandoned me. Why are you acting like I'm the bad guy?”

He yanks out a notebook and mutters to himself, too quietly for me to catch the words, before turning a smile toward me. Where the leers he aimed at Bobbi were strictly predatory, this smile is relaxed, comfortable, and assured. He closes the locker door with a clink. “Hey, babe.”

“Hey, babe? Are you freaking kidding me?”

“Hey, yourself,” my voice responds.

Eyes narrowed, I turn around. And see myself smiling back. Beaming.

The girl's a perfect replica of me, from the narrow stripe of pale roots showing in her blackened hair right down to the boots gracing my feet. There's a flower on the ankle of the left boot, a thorny rose drawn in silver sharpie against black leather. Her gray eyes dance for Cris, their depths brought out by a smattering of black eyeliner. My favorite pair of jeans, black with metal laces streaming down the legs, cling perfectly to hips that are too thin but undeniably, if tragically, mine. “No sense in being pessimistic,” my girlie-fit shirt proclaims across her underdeveloped chest. “It wouldn't work anyway.”

At least she's not wearing the same outfit I am. Just my face, my body, and my boots.

While I'm wondering how she'd respond to being punched in the face, my look-a-like's smile turns to a sneer and her eyes fill with disdain for something a few yards down the hall. “What are you staring at, jock boy?”

Jock boy? That can only be Cooper Finnegan. I look over my shoulder to see the star athlete in question quickly moving his head toward his locker. Shoulders that are normally straightened cockily slump in mute shock. His mouth is slightly open, his skin pale. His head moves back slowly, his eyes drawn to me. This me, not the other one.

“Stop looking at her.” Cris shifts his stance closer to the replica of me.

Cooper Finnegan shakes his head and forces his attention back to his books. Beyond confused, I walk toward him. “What's going on?”

He whispers something in response, but I don't catch it.

“What?”

Swallowing hard, he looks me in the eye. There's something in his gaze I don't understand. It's a little bit like pity and a little bit, just a hair, like loss.

“What's happening?” It's an outright demand now and I may just pummel him if he doesn't answer. He's considerably larger than I am and pretty buff in a lean sort of way, but he's too much of a good-ole-boy to ever hit a girl.

The other me snarls. “I told you to stop looking at me.”

“Sorry.” Cooper Finnegan takes a long breath, turns and walks briskly away.

“Cooper Finnegan!” I scream after him. “What's going on?”

He stops long enough to glance over his shoulder and give me a tight smile. But he doesn't answer the question before launching himself into a group of other a-list celebrities.

“What's his problem?” The other me looks to Cris for an answer.

His arm slips around her shoulders. “You're just too hot for him to handle.”

“Who are you?” Forgetting about Cooper Finnegan, I hone in on the mystery girl, getting right up into her face. She has the same scar on her jawline as I have on mine, up near the left ear. My scar came from a skateboard trick gone horribly wrong. Where'd she get hers?

She snorts. “Spoken like a man who wants in my pants.”

Cris grins and casts a significant look toward the door to the gym, which is vacant this period. The look gets him smacked on the arm while the other me laughs. “Maybe later.”

“It's always maybe later.” He dips his head and looks up through his eyelashes in a teasing pout.

My body trembles in anger and frustration. “Hey! She's not me!”

They walk together down a quickly emptying hall and, biting my lip until it threatens to bleed, I follow.

No one pays any attention to there being two versions of Drew McKinney, no one except Cooper Finnegan. Thanks to the joys of assigned seating, he sits at a lab table directly across from mine in physics. Posture rigid and mouth in a mild frown, he keeps his eyes glued to the board even though there's nothing written on it.

I stand in front of the other me, where she sits in my seat. “You can't just have my life.”

My doppleganger doesn't react as she taps her jagged nails against the surface of her textbook. Is that what she really is? A doppleganger? A double created by and sent here by some practitioner of dark arts? Why would anyone make another me? Most people seem to think one of me in the world is too many.

I glare at the dirty thief who's stolen my face and my life. It isn't much of a life, but it's mine. And I want it back.

“Pay attention to me!” I reach down to pick up her book and throw it onto the floor but my hand passes straight through it, sending chill bumps rippling across every inch of my skin. No way that just happened. No. Freaking. Way.

Cooper Finnegan's eyes move. He gives me a soft, sympathetic, and vaguely sad smile.

“Seriously, dude.” The other me pierces him with a hard look. “What's your problem?”

He shakes his head and looks forward without saying anything.

I try to ignore my budding terror as I shift to stand between the jock and the blackboard. “What do you know?”

His lips press into a narrow line and I can almost hear the debate he's having on what, if anything, to tell me. He's got an explanation, though I have no idea why Cooper Finnegan – obnoxious, arrogant, annoying Cooper Finnegan! -- is the only person who seems to know what's happening.

Abruptly, he gets up and goes to the teacher's desk as the bell rings. “I need a hall pass.”

If I'd done it, I wouldn't have gotten one. Even assuming the teacher saw me and heard the statement, she'd have informed me class had just started and I should've done whatever I needed to do in the break. But Cooper Finnegan? The Golden Child of Pine Ridge, North Carolina? She doesn't even ask what he wants it for before handing over a signed slip.

His hand shakes as he takes it.

I follow him out the door and down the hall to the empty gym.

“Sit down.” He motions toward the bleachers. When I fold my arms and glare at him rather than following the command, he shrugs. “I'll sit then.”

He does, leaning over spread legs with his arms resting on his thighs and his hands folded at his knees in one of those classic 'guy' poses. His gaze is on the ground.

I resist the urge to tap my foot. “Can we hurry this up?”

“I'm trying to...” All the air rushes out of him and his body slumps. He takes a long breath in. His head shakes and his fingers flex. He opens his mouth a few times before finally coming out with, “I don't know what to say.”

My eyes roll. “I'll help. Here's a start. Drew, what's happening is...”

“You really can't figure it out?” The question is quiet and tired, not at all hostile or condescending, but I respond to it with a vicious glare anyway.

“If I had, you really think I'd be talking to you?”

He sighs and shakes his head. His lips press together, then relax. “Guess not.”

Impatient, I dig my nails into the fabric of my shirt and tap my foot as I wait on him to get to the damned point.

“I'm the kid from The Sixth Sense,” Cooper Finnegan informs the shiny wooden flooring.

I growl.

“I see dead people?”

“Really? Well, boyo for you.” I always knew he was crazy, I just never cared enough to bother proving it. “Do any of them know who the hell that girl is?”

He shakes his head. “You don't understand...”

“No, I get it. You see ghosties.” If he wants to hallucinate, that's his business. I couldn't care less.

His eyes move up and lock onto mine. “I'm seeing one now.”

My body feels like its encased in ice.

“What do you mean?” I ask, even though I know.

He swallows. His eyes shimmer. “You're dead, Drew.”

“Dead?”

Cooper Finnegan nods. “Sometimes the trauma that creates a ghost sends the ghost back in time a little. The other you, she's really you. The living you, before you died.”

The absolute worst thing about this moment? That I believe him.

There's a quivering in his posture when he stands and gives me a long look.

“Drew, I'm really sorry. I...” He draws an unsteady breath, shakes his head, and takes a step back. “I'm just really sorry.”

And he leaves me to think about what he said, almost running in his haste to get away.

“Yeah, right.” I glower at the empty bleachers. “Like Cooper Finnegan would care if I died. He's obviously making things up. Obviously.”

I sit. And drawing my knees up, I cry. I cry until the next period, then I cry some more as the freshman storm the room for gym class. And then I laugh, because the only thing I can think is, “But I don't believe in ghosts.”