Page 85 of Just Like the Brontë Sisters

Chapter 54: Mitch

I wasn’t planning on kissing Skylar. Talk about lack of self-control.

“What were you thinking?!” Jo Beth demanded. She appeared almost as soon as Skylar had retreated to her room.

“I don’t know. At first I think I was just trying to distract her from my list journal…”

“You and that stupid list journal!” Jo Beth’s face was bright red, which surprised me, because up until now death had made her sort of pasty. “That’s no excuse.”

“I know!” I hung my head in misery. “But the closer I get to her, the more normal I feel and it’s not just that. When I’m with Skylar, the world makes sense.” Jo Beth gave me a skeptical, raised-eyebrow look and I knew she didn’t understand. “I guess we’ve gotten too close, living here and taking care of Bijou together. She’s so much like you, sometimes I forget that she isn’t you.”

“That’s bullshit, Mitch. Don’t give me that line, oh, she reminded me of you! Please!”

“What do you want from me?”

Jo Beth sat at the window sill and the light from outside blended into her, making it hard to distinguish her form. “You have to go. You can’t stay here.”

“You’re right. I’ll leave with Bijou in the morning.”

“Where will you go?”

“To Florida.”

“To be with Magda?” Jo Beth laughed ghoulishly. “Hell, no.”

“Don’t I get any say at all?” I was aware of how whiny I sounded, but I couldn’t help it. My life had spun out of control.

“Why should you get a say? I didn’t get any say about being poisoned, now did I?”

There was a plunging sensation in the back of my head. Black dots floated in front of my eyes and behind them were sparks like fireflies. I reached for something, anything, to ground me so I wouldn’t pass out. “You weren’t poisoned, Jo Beth. You died from an embolism caused by amniotic fluid.”

“Sure, Mitch. Keep telling yourself that.” She floated in front of me and I blinked several times, trying to focus on her eyes as she gazed deeply into mine. “You remember what happened, right?”

I rubbed my face, desperately grasping for reality. “I didn’t kill you,” I muttered, urgently wishing it was true.