I sat there staring at the impression of her legs in the couch, waiting for her to fill them again. Time was starting to feel normal again, long. I didn’t want to be alone there with Bryn’s things and my half stitched memory and that bitter thing on my tongue that tasted like tears and guilt and fear. Thick and pungent like they’d been rotting there for a long time, except I’d only just begun to realize it.
I walked along the tree line, searching the shadows for something new. The sun started to sink and it was just about to blink out when I saw a light flickering up ahead. There were cracked fences slumped onto a concrete sidewalk, flies buzzing over an open dumpster that smelled like sour laundry and grease. It started to narrow, the dark silhouettes of houses and power lines rising over the fences but when I peered over one there was nothing there.
I was standing in the middle of that decrepit alleyway, one lone streetlight spilling over my shoes and then I felt my pocket swell. I reached down, fingers grazing something slick. I pulled out a plastic bag, small white pills lining the bottom. I swallowed and I could remember it resting on my tongue, tumbling down the back of my throat.
Is that why I was there? I’d been on some fucking synthetic trip the whole time? I tossed the bag in the open dumpster and kept walking. The concrete unfurled into a small parking lot, white lines freshly painted. There was a nice car parked near the back of the lot out of the glow of the streetlight. I watched my reflection wind across the glossy surface, warped there in the dark windows, and then I pressed my face to the glass.
There was a flash and I stumbled backwards. I stared at the car and I felt nauseous. I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin. I felt angry. I slammed my fists against the hood, igniting the sharp alarm. I kept walking and it wailed after me, ricocheting off the trees until I felt tangled in it. I passed road signs I didn’t recognize and came to a four-way stop, red traffic light suspended over railroad tracks. I kept walking. Albuquerque City Limits. Ten miles to Bernalillo.
The road curled under my feet. I was standing at the top of a hill and as I looked back, something rumbled to life behind me. I heard the engine, tires screaming across the pavement. The headlights swelled against my skin until they were all I could see, that same light tearing across my vision again. I smelled the gasoline, I tasted it. But it didn’t hurt this time, because this time I wasn’t in the car, this time I was just watching. I blinked against the light, eyes settling over the windshield, another pair of eyes staring back at me.
Me.
I was looking right at me and then I wasn’t.
The car raced past me, screaming all the way down. There was a rip in the atmosphere; a sonic tear that brought me to my knees and then all I could see was smoke. I waded out into the fog, losing pieces of myself as I tried to make out the sharp angles of the car. It wasn’t until the fog lifted that I saw it twisted and severed by a large tree. The roof was gone, interior exposed. I saw the airbag deflated over the empty driver’s seat. I saw my blood pooling in the floorboard, glinting off shards of glass.
I saw my blood.
The Girl In Between (The Girl In Between Series Book 1) Page 43
