Elizabeth Miles - Eternity

“But I want you to tell me,” he said.

She sat on the bed with a thud. “What do you mean?” She looked down at her hands.

“You’ve been keeping things from me. Big things.” He stood in front of her and took her face in his hands. They were bigger than she would have thought they’d be; his fingers spanned the length of her cheek. He smelled like something spicy. Like Christmas. She couldn’t take it. His kindness. His hands. How good it felt to sit in his room.

The tears rolled up her throat like a bowling ball coming full-force toward its pins. She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. Hot tears began to fall from her eyes. Yes. She nodded wordlessly. Yes. She leaned over against the pillows, cries smashing through her body. Her body curled in an effort to control the spasms that shook through her.

He sat down next to her. She felt his warmth. When he placed his hand on her shoulder, soothing her, stroking her, it was like her skin was melting beneath his touch.

What did he know? What big things was he referring to? Was he in trouble? How long would she be able to lie straight to his face?

She wanted to ask. But the tears—and the deception—were so exhausting, they were taking her into a cloudy zone of half-sleep. That empty feeling in her stomach, the one that came when she’d cried all the tears she had in her, was making her nauseous.

“Shhhh,” JD said. “I know. We’ll get through this. You’ll get through this.”

“I can’t—I can’t tell you. . . . ” she murmured, sniffling into the pillow.

“You’re going to have to,” he said, not letting up. “But you don’t have to right now. Just rest. I’ll stay until you fall asleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“It’s too late,” she said.

JD squeezed her arm and leaned down to whisper into her neck, so close that she could feel the movement of his lips against the soft hairs at her nape. “It’s never too late.” She felt his warmth.

And there was the growing crevice in her heart, threatening to crack the whole thing to pieces. Because he was wrong. She had two days left, two days as Emily Winters, the person she’d been for almost seventeen years. The person who loved mac ’n’ cheese, and her grandma’s murder-mystery paperbacks, and old musicals. Who couldn’t stay awake during long car rides—not even with caffeine—and didn’t like zucchini no matter how it was prepared. Who first met Gabby Dove in Girl Scouts when they were eight, and who won the All-Maine Spelling Bee when she was in sixth grade. Who loved JD Fount, loved his flannel shirts and his sensitivity and the fact that he knew how things worked, things like airplanes and DVD players.

These things were all she had left to hold on to. The things that made her Emily Marie Winters. Those last, swirling bits that made her wholly her .

Soon, even those intractable things would be lost, forever.

JD woke to someone screaming. He jerked upright, sweaty, tangled in the flannel sheet he’d thrown over the couch. For a second, he was totally disoriented. He reached for his glasses on the bedside table, before remembering that he wasn’t in his room but downstairs on the couch. They were somewhere on the coffee table just out of reach. He got up, fumbling in the dark, bumping his shin, cursing.

And upstairs, Melissa kept screaming—high-pitched, senseless.

Finally he found his glasses, and as he raced upstairs, he heard his parents’ bedroom door open. His father’s heavy footsteps slammed down the hall, with his mom’s flapping slippers not far behind. Melissa’s screams continued, growing more hysterical.

He thought he heard the word “help.” He thought he heard the word “no.”

Fear was like a drill, beating out all logic, all sense. They were after him. They’d found out what he knew.  Ty and Ali and Meg. They were here.

By the time he reached the top of the landing, the door to his room was open too, and Em had stepped into the hall. He caught a brief glimpse of her bare legs, so thin beneath the enormous T-shirt she was wearing. It made him shiver.

“What is it?” He stopped in Melissa’s doorway; his father was hovering over his sister’s bed, shushing her, while his mother sat at the foot of the bed, rubbing Melissa’s feet through the blanket. She wasn’t screaming anymore, just whimpering, sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees and her chin buried between her forearms. The clock on her nightstand read 4:34.

“There’s no one out there, honey,” Mr. Fount said, leaning over Melissa’s bed to look out her window, where a purplish dawn was just starting to break. “I promise.”

“You’re just overexcited because of the fire,” JD’s mom added, stroking her daughter’s sleep-mussed hair. “Nightmare,” she mouthed to JD.

Melissa shook herself free. “It wasn’t a dream,” she said. “I saw someone. I’m sure of it. Right there.” She pointed to her window frame, staring at the glass with wide, tear-glassed eyes.

JD’s stomach knotted up. He thought of Mr. Feiffer’s face, frozen in death. But he tried to stay calm. “That’s impossible, Mel,” he said, trying to shake any doubt from his voice. “How would someone get all the way up to your window?”

“Someone was there,” Melissa insisted. “I know someone was watching me. I could feel it.” Her parents exchanged a hopeless look over Melissa’s head.

“I have an idea, Melly.” Suddenly Em was in the room behind him. She’d pulled on her sweatpants. Her long dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy ponytail. JD thought she had never looked so beautiful. How could someone be here, so close, and yet so untouchable? “Why don’t you keep watch from up here, and I’ll go downstairs and make sure no one is out there?”

Mrs. Fount gave a nervous laugh, making You don’t have to do this eyes at Em. “I don’t think that’s necessary, sweetheart. . . . ”

But Melissa nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said. “Just to make sure.” She squeezed her knees tighter, and said defensively, “I didn’t imagine it.”

“Let’s make sure they’re gone, then,” Em assured her. “I get it. It’s no big deal,” she said, more to the Founts than to Melissa.  And then she was gone, headed downstairs and for the front door.

“I’ll go with her,” JD said hurriedly. What was she thinking, going out there alone?

He followed Em into the front yard, shivering as his bare feet hit the dewy grass. Em had passed into the front yard already, making a great show of looking up, down, and all around. The sky was charcoal, lit by hazy stars.

“You’re a great actress,” he called out to her as she turned to give a thumbs-up to Melissa’s bedroom window. They watched as Melissa waved to them, hugged her parents, and turned off her light.

“I’m not acting,” she said quietly. She’d been beaming at the window. Now her smile faded. “I was worried.”

As the words left her mouth, a gust of wind blew through the yard, rustling the branches, the new leaves. He tried to ignore the prickling feeling on the back of his neck—like there really was someone, or something, out there with them.

“Did you feel that?” Em asked.

“Yeah. Just a breeze.” He tried to keep his voice light. But he felt urgently that they had to get inside—away from the dark, and the night, away from all the places someone could hide. “Let’s go back in.”

Em was standing rigid, her face suddenly contorted with fear. He wanted to put his arm around her, but the six inches between them felt like an abyss of awkwardness, unable to be spanned. He wished he could tell her that he knew the truth—about Crow, about the Furies. But would it help? Would it change anything? He wasn’t sure.