Page 6

“Sadie,” he says with more emphasis, not allowing me to deflect. I keep staring at the ceiling, knowing if I look him in the eye, I have to confront what I’m purposely not facing.

Collin sighs. Stands. Then walks around my bed without tripping over a single thing. I’ve finally learned how to contain my organized chaos. He offers me his hand. “What are you doing?” I stare at his hand like I don’t know what he means by the gesture.

“Dancing with you. Get over here.” He yanks me up and into his arms. I give in. We begin to sway and step in time with each other.

“There’s no mus—”

“Ssshh. Listen to my heartbeat. It’s the bass.”

I lift my head off his shoulder and give him a puzzled look. He sets a hand on the back of my head and forces me to rest on his shoulder again.

“We’re just two people, dancing in a teenager’s bedroom, to music kept by our hearts, missing our best friend.”

The first tear drips onto his shoulder.

My phone vibrates just as I’m walking back to my apartment in the pre-dawn hours. She didn’t ask me to stay. And I didn’t linger. It was an empty exchange for us both.

I open up the message, preparing for another of Sadie’s four in the morning texts. I don’t recognize the number. When I open it, there’s a link to a video of cats singing Jingle Bells.

“What the—” I chuckle lightly.

Rachel: This is the video I played at the meeting that made everyone laugh. Accident. I swear!

I laugh. It sounds strange to my ears. This is the second time today she made me laugh. I vaguely recall giving her my number. Or did I? I can’t remember.

I contemplate whether I should text her back, but considering the time, it’s not a good idea. I don’t want to be that person for her. The one she texts back and forth with when she can’t sleep or after getting home from the bars, even if she does make me laugh. I don’t want her depending on me to be there for her. I can’t be that for anyone. Not again.

As if on cue, my phone vibrates.

Sadie: I’m still here. You’re still here.

I stuff the phone in my pocket and suck on my teeth before the emotion has time to choke me up.

“I shouldn’t be,” I tell the hint of light on the horizon. My words form a cloud of proof. I’m still here. I’m still alive.

I’d hoped I’d be able to sleep through ‘til mid-morning, considering the sun was cutting through the ocean when I hit my bed. But the nightmare doesn’t give a shit if I go to bed at 9 pm or 5 am. It’s going to find me, no matter how tired I am. And now I’m so tired, I can’t function. I’d be a danger to myself and everyone else if I tried to leave this apartment. I stare at my ceiling—the wall that’s been protecting me for the past year has crumbled to dust. I’m too tired to fight back the pain in my chest. Blinking doesn’t keep the tears from my eyes. The screams from my ears.

I click on the wall-mounted television and flip through the channels until I find a black-and-white movie I know will bore me back to sleep. But weirdly, it’s good, and I’m so into it that sleep evades me.

Whatever. I don’t have anywhere to be. No last-minute gifts to purchase. Or pies to bake. Where did that thought come from? I’ve never baked—yes, I have. Can’t get away from it. From her. From that fricken town.

“Is it supposed to stick to everything like this?” I ask, scraping the dough from my fingers.

“I don’t know, I’ve never made pie before either,” Sadie says, smiling at me like I’m the best entertainment she’s had in a while.

“More flour,” Magda calls to us from across the kitchen. “Sprinkle more flour on the dough.”

I nod. Sadie giggles at me. Magda swore she wouldn’t interfere when Sadie told her we wanted to make an apple pie for my mother and brother, who are stopping by later today. But she keeps hollering over instructions. Telling Sadie to slice the apples thinner or warning me not to work the dough too much. I feel more nervous about disappointing Magda than I do about how it’s going to taste when everyone eats it. I hope Sadie remembered to buy the ice cream to cover it up if necessary.

It took a couple years to return to Hollis. Considering this is my last year at Penn State, I’ve been spending more time at the Prescotts’, so I can visit with Ryan before we go wherever we’re headed next. I wish we could take him with us.

I shake my head to delete the train of thought before it fully forms. Neither of my parents would allow it. It wouldn’t just be my father I’d have to contend with.

“What’s wrong?” Sadie asks. Something she asks a lot lately, in various ways. She’s a bad-thought detector, always aware when my mind drifts too far into the darkness. I can’t seem to escape it, no matter how many times she distracts me with a kiss or by doing something ridiculous to make me laugh. My mind always returns to that house of stone and steel across town.

Before I can dismiss her question with some lame brush-off, she rolls up a little ball of dough, tosses it in the air, and bats it across the kitchen with a wooden spoon.

I’m so shocked by her hand-eye coordination that it takes me a minute to realize what she’s just done. Until she does it again and yells, “Catch, Magda!” Who, without batting a lash, snags it mid-air. Sadie raises her arms in the air and hollers, “Out!”