Knowing that my siblings are all together like that makes my heart ache, just a little. I don’t get homesick often. I mean, I’d been dreaming about leaving that town for most of my life. But every now and then it hits me for a moment, usually passing quickly. Tonight is one of those nights.
In fact, I’ve had this weird feeling in my chest for most of the evening, a sense of unease. I’m prone to worry about things like money and school and my lack of love life but this is something different, something I can’t put my finger on. I consider myself to be quite intuitive so I probably should pay attention, but I just don’t know how.
“Are you okay?” Sam asks me, staring at me inquisitively. “Why don’t I buy you a drink?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Just vibed out for no real reason.”
“It’s not the company, is it?”
I grin at her. “No, not tonight.”
“Then you look like you could use a drink. I’ll be right back.”
Normally I would protest a bit but Sam comes from money and is quite generous with it. It makes me feel small sometimes that she often has to pay for me to do the things she wants to do, but that’s just my own pride. And tonight, I do think I could use a drink to settle my nerves.
I watch her as she goes to the bar, her lithe, barre-class sculpted body capturing the eyes of every guy in the room. You wouldn’t even think she’d need Tinder and all those dating apps, but most guys are too intimated to talk to her.
Then there’s me. Guys will sometimes approach me once I smile at them (I have a pretty severe case of resting bitch face otherwise), but then, once I open my mouth, I usually say something awkward or off-putting. My sense of humor can be odd and I’m not always on everyone’s frequency.
I lean back into the couch, doing that thing where I’m scoping the crowd but trying not to make eye contact with the wrong guys. And by wrong guys, I mean the ones you have no interest in, ones who take a mere meeting of the eyes to mean something a whole lot more. I don’t know why simply looking at someone means you want to have sex with them but anyway.
My phone vibrates in my purse and I fish it out.
It’s a call from April which is weirder than weird. Maybe she could sense I was talking about her?
But even as I’m about to answer it, the unease in my chest builds and twists and I know this isn’t a matter of her checking in with me and seeing how I’m doing. That’s not like her. Something is wrong.
And usually when something is wrong, Pike or my parents would call me, not her.
My heart races as I press the talk button.
“April?” I ask, plugging my other ear and turning away from the noise of the bar.
Crying. I hear crying on the other end, sobbing, a kind of crying that isn’t born of a teenager getting dumped or bullied, but of something unfathomably worse.
“April? Is this you? What’s wrong?” I ask, trying not to sound panicked.
“Maggie,” she sobs. “Oh my god, oh my god. Maggie, they’re dead!”
Time seems to fold in on itself in slow motion.
The terror flowing through me is spreading, slow sticky fingers that take over every muscle.
“Who is dead?” I cry out softly.
Oh god.
Who?