Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63282 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63282 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Sarah’s baby blues are normally so expressive, her emotions are completely bared for me to see. But now, they give me no clues.
“I know,” I say. “Peter used to come here, too, when he wanted to mope around.”
“Did he come here a lot toward the end?” she asks, a glint of intelligent curiosity flashing in her eyes.
I nod.
Peter was a pretty disturbed individual when his illness was at its worst. The diagnosis killed the Peter I used to know, long before the actual illness did.
But Sarah doesn’t need to know that. It’s better for her to remember Peter the way he’d been before the cancer.
She takes a long breath, holds on to it with sadness, then lets it go.
The sight breaks my heart. I’ve been hating the fact that my best friend is now gone, but I’ve never wanted to bring him back from the dead more than I do now.
If a suspicious-looking, wart-covered witch were to give me a spell book and instructions to dig up Peter’s grave, I’d go right now, no questions asked, just for a chance to put a smile on Sarah’s face.
So what if zombies always end up eating the brain of anyone who tries to help them? I’d risk that for Sarah. Besides, if it’s my destiny to have my brain eaten by a zombie, I’d rather it be Peter than any other living corpse out there.
I take another step and put my arm around Sarah, but she shrugs me off.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
When she lifts up her gaze, her eyes are filled to the brim with water. The glassy surface reflects the lights in the distance. “Everything.”
Without saying anything, she starts to walk away toward her brother’s car, her feet dragging over the loose soil and rocks on the ground.
“Sarah, you haven’t had dinner, have you?” I ask as I trail behind her. “Why don’t you go on home, and I’ll grab something on the way? We’ll meet at home, okay”
I pause.
She still doesn’t say anything. Only our footsteps and rustling leaves fill the night air.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” I ask. “Let me drive you home. I’ll find some way to bring your car back tomorrow. Or we can take your car back home, and I’ll come back tomorrow to get mine.”
Sarah stays quiet, which only makes me more anxious. Has she been drinking? Is she sober? Is she going to endanger herself if she drives?
“Sarah.” I catch up to her and deliberately stand in her way. “Let me drive you home.”
“Leave me alone, Luca,” Sarah says as she steps off to the side and keeps walking.
“Sarah, what’s going on? Let me help.”
“You can stop pretending like you care, okay?” Sarah says distractedly as she continues on her way.
I know I’m not the warmest person out there, but what makes her think I’ve been faking anything?
“Sarah, what’s going on?”
She doesn’t say a word, but her wry, bitter laughter squeezes my heart with an invisible pain.
“Sarah, please. Can you stop walking and please talk to me?” I take her wrist, but she shakes me off. I grab her again, and she pulls back even harder.
“What part of ‘leave me alone’ don’t you understand?” Sarah yells out, her high-pitched voice piercing through the darkness, interrupting the sounds of nature.
“I don’t understand anything at this point, Sarah. You were fine just a few hours ago. I understand you’re grieving and your emotions may be unpredictable, so—”
Sarah interrupts me with that strange, bitter laughter again. The sound cuts through my hearing like shards of glass. “Luca, I told you, you can stop pretending, okay? I know.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, my heart beating as loudly as Peter’s African drum.
“Just go, okay?”
“No, I’m not going anywhere.”
“You being here only makes me feel worse,” she says with venom.
“Look, I know you’re grieving and things don’t make sense right now, but—”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with grieving. This is about you,” Sarah says, spitting out her words with unmistakeable fury. “About you lying to me. Treating me like an idiot. Going behind my back.”
Taken aback by her harsh words, I fall silent.
“I’m not going home with you. I can drive just fine. And it’s none of your business whether I’ve had dinner or not,” Sarah says as she opens her car door. “I hope that answers all your questions.”
As Sarah takes a seat in the car, her hair floats in the wind, spreading her scent of wild flowers. This reminds me too much of the time she drove away from me after Peter’s funeral.
She’s determined to leave, and there’s nothing I can do to stop her. If I were to stand in her way, she’d raze me down. That car is shit, but it could still kill me.
Why is she so upset? And why does she act like I should know what I’ve done wrong?