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My fingers clench and unclench, but today I’m more successful at sweeping away the bad thoughts. It helps that I’m tired after helping my parents with the last of their fairground setup. It helps even more that I’ve been working through things like my therapist had taught me.
Slow breaths. Grounding thoughts. Think through the problems and the anxiety rationally, instead of letting them control me.
The three-three-three rule has always been my friend. Especially today, and I find myself almost unconsciously looking around for ways to keep it going.
Three things I can see.
Three things I can hear.
Three parts of my body.
But the effort dies out as I walk. I’m not as bad as I was this morning, and I’m more looking forward to meeting up with Nic and Nolan at the park, where we used to hang out as high schoolers.
The walk takes me a grand total of fourteen minutes and seven seconds, and I applaud myself on being faster than last time, when I’d had a time of fourteen minutes and eighteen seconds instead. Clearly I’m improving, though I’m not sure what the prize is for walking my ass to a park and home. The sun is setting in earnest now, not that it matters, and I glance up at the looming, iron gates that look like they belong in front of a cemetery, instead of our local park.
They, too, have fallen victim to Hollow Bridge’s Halloween traditions. Fake spiderwebs hang and sway from the black iron, and lights are wrapped around the solid columns holding the gates together.
The gates are always open; in fact, I’m not even sure theydoclose. As I stride through them, along the walking path that leads toward the trees and the river’s edge, my hands go into the pockets of my hoodie instead of curling in the sleeves.
It’s breezier than it has been. Part of me wishes I’d put my hair up before coming out, because soon I’m going to look like a witch out of a kid’s movie with her hair sticking up and windblown. It’s also getting colder, though that’s not uncommon. The weatherman expects snow by next weekend, and even that is something most of us just shrug off.
After all, the perks of living in Upstate New York in the winter include superior road crews that make it very hard for inclement weather to do more than slightly inconvenience the people that live here, no matter how much snow or ice we have.
For a few minutes I don’t see any sign of my friends, but that isn’t surprising. I scuff my feet along the sidewalk that winds around two playsets, benches dotted at the sides of it, and squint in the light cast by the decorated light posts that stand every few yards along the path.
Near the trees, two figures on a bench catch my eye, though I can’t see more of them than their silhouettes outlined by the light nearest them. Still, judging by their figures, I have a pretty good idea it’s Nic and Nolan.
My steps pick up and I give a soft whistle, drawing their attention to me as I raise a hand to wave at them. “Sorry I took so long!” I call, breaking into almost a jog. I enter the light from one glowing lamp above me, then step into darkness once more. “I had to…”
It isn’t until I’m under the streetlight nearest them that I realize I’mnotlooking at my two best friends.
Phoenix sits on the back of the bench, his hands in the pockets of his black hoodie that’s unzipped over a dark red tee. He stares at me, his eyes so dark in the artificial light that they could be pitch black.
On the seat in front of him, leaning against one of Phoenix’s legs, is the auburn-haired guy from the fairgrounds and the carnival. Unlike Phoenix, he doesn’t study me with no trace of humor on his face. Hegrins, one hand coming up in a small half wave.
“Don’t worry,” he chuckles. “We weren’t waiting long. I hope the trip wasn’t too bad…” He glances up at Phoenix, who barely slides his gaze to meet the other man’s.
“Bailey,” my dead best friend’s brother says helpfully. “Her name is Bailey. She grew up with my kid sister.”
Ouch.
His words are cold. Frigid even, in the darkness, and I’m surprised I can’t see frost emanating from his mouth when he speaks.
“I’m sorry,” I say, glancing down at my shoes, though I don’t know what I’m sorry for, other than still breathing. “I’m meeting Nic and Nolan here.” While his friend won’t know who that is, Phoenix sure as hell will. “I thought…I thought you guys were them. It’sdark.”
“Bailey.” The auburn-haired man repeats my name, rolling it around his mouth like he needs to taste it. He goes to move, only for Phoenix’s leg to slide forward, blocking him from going anywhere. Not that it’s a problem for him, or so it seems. He just leans on Phoenix’s outstretched leg, gaze on me. “I’m Rory,” he introduces, when the silence becomes thick enough to be uncomfortable. “Since he’s apparently not going to introduce us.”
“You have a mouth and a heartbeat,” Phoenix murmurs in his clipped, usual tone. He’s always been like this. Always been to the point and easy to annoy.
But to thirteen-year-old me, that had been hot.
The smile that catches my lips dies immediately under Phoenix’s glare, and when he opens his mouth, I’m sure that he’s going to say something scathing or, at the very least, condescending.
“They’re further up the trail,” he states instead, and I swear his voice softens as he does. “Looking at the lights by the meetinghouse.”
I glance up toward the small hill that crests a good forty feet away. Sure enough, I see two figures by the lit up meetinghouse, though the purple and orange lights do nothing except create the semblance of strangely colored stars beside them, instead of actually illuminating the pair.
“Thank you,” I say, not looking at Phoenix’s face. “I’m sorry for bothering you guys.”
