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At seventeen, Lilly Kane knew everything. She knew boys worshipped her, especially her boyfriend Logan, even when she broke up with him. She knew her mother Celeste hated her, but that was fine, because she also knew Celeste was a raging bitch. She knew her brother Duncan would always try to take the blame when she got them in trouble. She knew her best friend Veronica would always have her back. She knew she was rich and fabulous and a shoo-in for Homecoming Queen and if everything wasn’t going her way, well, she could change that.
Lilly knew her life was damn close to perfect. She didn’t know how close it was to over.
She figured it out pretty quick, though. When you’re standing over your own body, watching blood from your shattered skull drip onto the concrete as your best friend sobs, it doesn’t take a genius to catch the snap.
Lilly hadn’t thought much about death before it happened. As far as she was concerned, being young and beautiful and rich in sunny California was as good as being immortal. If she ever thought about the afterlife, it was usually a hazy image of endless summer and lounging by a pool with Veronica as James Dean and Jude Law fetched them drinks and Duncan and Logan painted their toenails.
Lilly didn’t go to heaven. She didn’t go anywhere. She was stuck in Neptune like a deposed queen imprisoned in the castle she used to rule.
There’s a lot you don’t see when you’re the center of attention. There’s also a lot you miss when you’re a ghost, but there was still plenty for Lilly to learn. She learned that for most people, life went on without her and it didn’t really change. Meg Manning was Homecoming Queen. Madison Sinclair started throwing the pool parties Lilly had been famous for. Carrie Bishop found someone else to gossip about.
It changed for some people. Her brother, Duncan, begged her parents to sell the house where she died, get away, do something until they fed him enough anti-depressants to make him stop caring. Not just about her, but about everything. Her father buried himself in work while her mother reveled in her new role as Saint Celeste, the devastated mother who’d somehow found the strength to keep going. Logan drank until everything blurred and he could almost see her face on whichever random girl he was screwing that week. And Veronica, sweet, shy, innocent Veronica had been dumped by her boyfriend, abandoned by her best friend, blamed when her sheriff father started investigating Jake Kane as a suspect and cried alone when her mother left town without so much as a goodbye. Veronica crumbled and fell apart and Lilly couldn’t do a thing about it.
Then, one day, Veronica found the spine Lilly had always known she had. She chopped off her hair, went to work for her dad at his new P.I. agency and sat at lunch alone and defiant with her head up and her shoulders squared. She became consumed with investigating Lilly’s death, knowing just as surely as Lilly herself did that Abel Koontz, confession or not, had never touched her.
It was strangely comforting, seeing how much she’d really meant to Veronica. It was about the only comfort Lilly had these days. Sometimes she got to talk to Duncan or Logan or Veronica, in their dreams and drunken blackouts and drugged-up hazes, but not often. Mostly she just drifted from place to place and in and out of consciousness as she learned, for the first time, what it really felt like to be alone.
Lilly knew her life was damn close to perfect. She didn’t know how close it was to over.
She figured it out pretty quick, though. When you’re standing over your own body, watching blood from your shattered skull drip onto the concrete as your best friend sobs, it doesn’t take a genius to catch the snap.
Lilly hadn’t thought much about death before it happened. As far as she was concerned, being young and beautiful and rich in sunny California was as good as being immortal. If she ever thought about the afterlife, it was usually a hazy image of endless summer and lounging by a pool with Veronica as James Dean and Jude Law fetched them drinks and Duncan and Logan painted their toenails.
Lilly didn’t go to heaven. She didn’t go anywhere. She was stuck in Neptune like a deposed queen imprisoned in the castle she used to rule.
There’s a lot you don’t see when you’re the center of attention. There’s also a lot you miss when you’re a ghost, but there was still plenty for Lilly to learn. She learned that for most people, life went on without her and it didn’t really change. Meg Manning was Homecoming Queen. Madison Sinclair started throwing the pool parties Lilly had been famous for. Carrie Bishop found someone else to gossip about.
It changed for some people. Her brother, Duncan, begged her parents to sell the house where she died, get away, do something until they fed him enough anti-depressants to make him stop caring. Not just about her, but about everything. Her father buried himself in work while her mother reveled in her new role as Saint Celeste, the devastated mother who’d somehow found the strength to keep going. Logan drank until everything blurred and he could almost see her face on whichever random girl he was screwing that week. And Veronica, sweet, shy, innocent Veronica had been dumped by her boyfriend, abandoned by her best friend, blamed when her sheriff father started investigating Jake Kane as a suspect and cried alone when her mother left town without so much as a goodbye. Veronica crumbled and fell apart and Lilly couldn’t do a thing about it.
Then, one day, Veronica found the spine Lilly had always known she had. She chopped off her hair, went to work for her dad at his new P.I. agency and sat at lunch alone and defiant with her head up and her shoulders squared. She became consumed with investigating Lilly’s death, knowing just as surely as Lilly herself did that Abel Koontz, confession or not, had never touched her.
It was strangely comforting, seeing how much she’d really meant to Veronica. It was about the only comfort Lilly had these days. Sometimes she got to talk to Duncan or Logan or Veronica, in their dreams and drunken blackouts and drugged-up hazes, but not often. Mostly she just drifted from place to place and in and out of consciousness as she learned, for the first time, what it really felt like to be alone.
