Dead River - By Cyn Balog Page 0,31
from the way his eyebrows are raised, it’s very likely he saw me talking, all right—to nobody. I want to grab him and ask him if he sees Jack across the river, but by then Jack is gone. I’m back in the land of the living. “I thought maybe I could grab a shower?” I ask, my voice cracking because I’m trying too hard to not sound insane.
He brightens. “Hey. Yeah. Sure. This way.”
I follow him, but now even the idea of a shower doesn’t sound so great. Because now, I really don’t want to be alone. Alone … with them.
Chapter Ten
I wipe away the steam on the mirror but don’t recognize the face there. I scrubbed and scrubbed the river grime from my body in the shower, but no amount of scrubbing could wash away the voices in my head. The visions didn’t attack me while I was washing, but I couldn’t help worrying that they would. If Jack and Trey and the others would rip back the shower curtain and say, “Surprise!”
The thought makes me quiver. My eyes are sunken, and maybe it’s the fluorescent light or the deep creases in my forehead, but I don’t look very pretty anymore. And I can’t help wondering what it was my mother heard, what my mother saw, that made her walk into the river that day. Maybe she didn’t go willingly. Maybe she …
No, that’s stupid. She killed herself. End of story.
As I spread my toiletries along the glass shelf, I wonder if things would have been different if I had insisted on going to the prom. Hell, of course they would have. If I’d had a backbone. If I’d told Justin what I wanted.
I think of what that boy said to me. I thought you were stronger than that. Then I shake it away. I don’t want to think about him, about what one of my stupid visions said. They’re from stories. They’re not real. What do they know?
I don’t have a hair dryer, so I towel-dry my hair and tie it up in a loop at the top of my head, then brush my teeth and throw on a bulky sweatshirt and jeans and my North Face jacket. I was hoping the shower would make me feel more comfortable, but I still feel … icky. Wrong.
When I step into the main room, Justin is waiting for me. “Feel good?”
He grabs me into a bear hug and gives me a peck on the nose. I smell peppermint and shaving cream. He must have showered, too. “Yeah. Better.”
Though not much.
We walk outside and immediately I smell chicken roasting. Smoke billows from a spot over the hill, near the river, and a bunch of people are congregating at picnic benches. We start to walk there, but I stop. I don’t want to be anywhere near the river. I don’t want to be where I can hear the whispering. Where I can look across the river and see him.
Justin senses something and hangs back. “Not hungry?”
I look down at my hands. They’re shaking. I’m pathetic.
Real or not, that guy was right. I am stronger than that. At least, I should be. And maybe if I can prove they don’t frighten me, the visions will leave me alone.
I take a step forward. “No, I am,” I say, picking up the pace. I can ignore the whispers. And if he’s there, I’ll just ignore him. Besides, it’s not like they’re real. They can’t do anything to me. They’ve never done anything to me before.
By the time we make it to the picnic benches, my mouth is watering. We grab a couple of Cokes and stand in line. There’s a Tupperware container of dill spears. As I’m sucking a pickle into my mouth, a camera clicks. Oh no. Hugo. I can just see the next issue of the school newspaper, with my face on the front page.
“Would you stop—” I whirl around, fully prepared to stab him with my plastic fork, when I’m faced with an older man I’ve never seen before. He has a way-more-professional-looking camera and a way-less-smarmy-looking expression than Hugo’s. I step back. “Oh.”
“You’re the one, right?” he says, his words coming out kind of garbled because he’s trying to uncap a pen with his mouth while juggling his equipment.
I just stare at him.
He finally manages to get his things under control and extends a hand. “Mark Evans, Portland Press Herald. Heard about your little swim.”
Oh. My. God. “No, I—” But I