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Hannah also looked relaxed, her eyes almost heavy as we headed for the pools. First, we soaked in the warm pool, for whatever reason Hannah gave me that I couldn’t remember, and then we headed into the sauna. I had been in a sauna once before in my life, when I worked in a hotel and was allowed to make use of its perks. The place had been too damn hot though, and I hadn’t understood how anyone could enjoy it. I stayed in this one though, determined to stick it out for the recommended time if it killed me. Once I lay down and started getting used to the heat though, it actually started to feel nice, and I felt myself drifting off in the warmth. I fell fully asleep, and my mind slipped past reality.
As soon as I fell into my dreams, Garth was there. He was lying on the bed in the hotel room, in the same limp position I had maintained for hours, except his eyes were wide and glassy. His dirty blonde hair was greasy and fell across his face. I screamed at the sight of the body and ran to leave the room, but there was no escape. At first, the door was locked, but then I blinked and the door was gone. The room got smaller and smaller, forcing me onto the bed next to Garth, until he tilted his head to look at me, and smiled evilly.
“I never guessed that dying would be the best punishment of all!” he cackled, and his lifeless eyes and purple mouth kept cackling until I looked away, crying and screaming for him to stop it. It suddenly stopped, and I looked back, only for the figure on the bed to be Julian, the spot where his heart lay bleeding as he gasped for breath. I was frozen this time though, a figure dead on the bed that had to watch him bleed out. I heard crying somewhere —Hannah. She was crying, but when I was finally able to make myself move, it was a little girl in pigtails, a red shirt and blue overalls.
“I just wanted to see the orangutans!” she sobbed.
“Come with me,” a voice tempted her, and she looked up as I did.
Garth stood over us, larger than he ever was in life, and took her pudgy hand in his bony one. I tried to yell but I was voiceless, and they walked into the void together while I screamed my throat raw in silent terror. I tried to wake up the body on the bed, but Julian was gone, and so was Hannah. I was left in the darkness, alone, trying to figure it all out.
“Evvie! Ev!”
I shot straight up and almost hit my head on the ceiling of the sauna. Hannah was stood next to me, and her eyes were concerned.
“Oh, Jesus,” I said, slipping off my perch to walk out of the sauna, “I think I had a nightmare.”
“I think you did too,” my friend said, “You were kind of moaning and saying that name, Garth, again, but it was weirder than that, you were also saying my name, and my dad’s.”
I would have blushed if my whole body wasn’t already flushed from the sauna. I didn’t want to talk about my dream, so I took a prompt jump into the plunge pool. The cold water seared over my body, freezing my skin and locking the heat from the sauna within me.
“Huh, weird,” I answered when I breached the surface, but Hannah was already onto the next thing.
“What arethose?!” she exclaimed. Hannah dove in next to me and resurfaced only to roughly tilt my chin backward. “Are thosehickeys? Holy crap, Ev, what haven’t you been telling me?”
Crap.
“They’re… nothing. Just bruises.”
I got out of the pool but Hannah followed, still pestering me.
“Yeah, right,” she snorted, “I know hickeys when I see them. Look, you’ve got three! C’mon, who is it?”
I couldn’t think of a good answer. She knew I only went to college and home, so I couldn’t exactly lie, but thankfully, her own problem-solving skills saved me.
“Oh shit, I know who it is,” she exclaimed, shoving me.
“You do?” I asked, and she nodded enthusiastically.
“Mike! Right?”
Of course, she’d think it was Mike. His crush on me wasn’t exactly a secret, and she knew we’d kissed the night of my party.
“Um, yeah,” I laughed nervously.
I could handle her thinking it was Mike. What I couldn’t handle right now, with Julian being away, was her finding out the truth. I’d just have to ask Mike to cover for me, which was a shitty thing to do, but I didn’t have many choices.
“Why didn’t you tell me?!” She shoved me, and walked away, laughing.
I followed her out to the pools, and we got in the warmest one again. Great. Nothing to do but sit and talk.
“We’re… keeping it on the down-low? Not really telling anyone?”
This was all true, but it wasn’t Mike I was talking about.
“Okay, okay,” she said seriously, “I got it, my mouth is zipped, butdamn, now I’m really glad you didn’t go back to Portland! You and poor Mike would have to do long distance.”
She made an ‘ick’ face before floating lazily in the pool. It took me several minutes to let my heartbeat calm down, to let it be sure that I wasn’t in any danger of her finding out at this moment. I let myself enjoy the rest of the day, but a sense of foreboding was building in my chest. When we finally walked out into the cold New York afternoon, I was totally relaxed. There was nothing to worry about.
