Read Beyond for Free Online Page A

decompose. There’s a fast-forward feeding frenzy of hungry bugs, picking him clean. This image is edited together with close-up shots of things breaking: bottles, icicles and lightbulbs. Finally we freeze on the skeletonized toad. The screen fades to black, and it says NOT THE END . Because now the bony toad reappears, and the whole thing goes in reverse. He gets uneaten. In rewind, it’s like the bugs are fixing him up and stitching his skin back together. While this is happening,the bottles, bulbs and icicles unshatter. When everything is back in one piece again, the screen goes black and says THE BEGINNING .
    “So, what do you think?” Lexi asks.
    I reach for my can of Coke and take a sip, to stall for time. Lexi says you can’t always explain these mood pieces. They’re like video poems, you have to feel them. Right now I’m feeling slightly nauseous.
    “I think it’s … hopeful,” I say. “In a weird way.”
    “Hopeful how?”
    “Well, everything gets fixed up, right? Like new again. It’s the closest you’ve ever come to a happy ending.”
    “So you get it, then?” she asks.
    I take another long sip. “Um. I think I do. Just so I’m clear on this—are you like the dead toad? Metaphorically, I mean. After your breakup with Max?”
    Lexi nods. “You’re the only one in the world who gets me.”
    “I guess one is better than none.”
    I notice a photo on the wall showing her monstrously swollen foot after her spider bite. Next to it is another shot with the leeches stuck on her toes to heal them.
    I used to think it was because of me that Lexi got into all this dark and morbid stuff. But really, she was like that before we even met. It’s what pulled her to me from the start, after hearing about my electrocution.
    Her dad’s the one who got her started on moviemaking. He was always shooting home videos. Those oldmovies, hours and hours of them, are all she has left of him. He took off when she was ten.
    “But seriously,” I tell her now. “You’re a sick little monkey. You should be in therapy, not me.”
    “Well, we can share bunk beds over at the asylum.” She smiles. “Speaking of crazy crap, has your shadow been behaving?”
    “It hasn’t tried anything since I got nailed.” I hold my hand under the desk lamp, wiggling my fingers. Their shadows wiggle back, perfectly synchronized. “Maybe it’s gone, whatever it was. Maybe it’s over.”
    Wishful thinking, but sometimes that’s all you’ve got.
    These days my shadow only turns against me in my nightmares.
    “Maybe,” Lexi says, resting her hand on my shoulder. “Hey, get up. I want to play you something. Max emailed me the music he did for my rain project.” She sees me shaking my head. “I know. I was going to hit Delete. And I’m not going to reply to him, or anything. But it can’t hurt to hear it. I don’t have to use it.”
    “I just don’t want you relapsing after you’ve finally kicked your Max habit.”
    I remember the months of boyfriend rehab I went through with her.
    “I’m cured. Really.” Lexi sounds like she’s trying to convince herself.
    “What’s your ‘rain project’ again?”
    “It’s called A Thousand Words for Rain . You know how we have so many names for it here on the coast, for all itsmoods. I’ve been shooting around town, on the beaches and trails.”
    As she brings up a new file on the computer I wander around her room. The walls are covered with photos she took before she came to Edgewood. Lots of sunny beach shots, palm trees and endless blue skies.
    Lexi grew up in San Diego—the opposite of here. Going from hot, bright Southern California to the cool gray Raincoast was a serious shock for her.
    When her dad hit the road, Lexi and her mom had to move here to live with her gran.
    “Give this a listen.” She turns up the volume.
    Max’s music fills the room. Soft acoustic-guitar stuff, kind of dreamy. That guy can play. The strumming builds to a boom of drums.
    “Thunder,”