“Just a minute, please,” I call out, wiping tears from my cheeks with trembling hands. “I need a little more—”
The footsteps stop directly behind me, and something feels…
Wrong.
So wrong.
The silence, the stillness of the air. So, so silent. Even the wind freezes.
I very slowly turn around, still on my knees and as I look up… the words die in my throat.
The world tilts violently beneath me, and my vision tunnels. Darkness creeps at the edges. Fear and confusion leave me certain I’m hallucinating.
I can't move.
Can't speak.
My lungs drown themselves in dried cement, choking every possible rational explanation. Tilting every little box I’ve ever crafted in my mind to a chaotic summoning gone wrong.
My fingers still gripping the grass in front of his — his own grave.
“Boo!” Joe stands there, his lips curling into a mocking smile that freezes my blood, making me question whether I've somehow slipped from the world of the living or into his realm of the dead.
Thirty-Seven
Sara
Joe’s voice is exactly as I remember it. “What's wrong, Sara? You look like you've seen a ghost.”
What’s wrong Sara?
Too many things are wrong.
“You’re not real…You can’t be…” I whisper, more to myself to convince me I don’t need to check into a mental institute as I stand up carefully.
Help,I see dead people.
He laughs…he actually laughs. The sound gripping my organs and ripping them apart as the clouds darken above us.
I can’t move, barely breathe. I’m waiting for my breath to turn into an eerie cold mist as the cold air brushes through my hair, like in Sixth Sense, but nothing happens.
Joe appears before me, made of flesh and bone. His blond hair loosely combed back, his tall frame. He’s still impossibly handsome, as he holds his leather jacket in one hand. He’s lost little weight, but it only accentuates his jawline and bone structure, and each of his defined muscles under his white T-shirt making him look carved by the angels like he’s stepping back from heaven to a GQ magazine photoshoot.
He points to the bouquet of flowers I’m still clutching onto, my grip desperate and trembling.
“Are these an apology for fucking my brother?” he asks, voice low and dangerous.
My mouth falls open, no sound coming out.
The tears I thought had finally dried start flowing again, hot and shameful down my already raw cheeks. Some of them drip off my chin, landing on the petals below.
My blood drains and my legs threaten to give out, but I lock my knees, refusing to crumble in front of him.
“How?” I manage to choke out, my voice a broken whisper. “Why? What is this, Joe?” I ask through gritted teeth, each word laced with pain, sorrow, absolute annihilation.
My fingers crush the delicate stems of the flowers, petals falling like tears to the ground, levitating around us as the weather promises a thunderstorm.
I knew I always hated flowers for the dead.
