We’re here to help. I’m going to take your picture if that’s okay.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Sylvia mutters. “Are you talking to ghosts?”
Veronica bounces on her toes. “Good job. Take some pictures around here, and I’m going to walk around the cemetery. There’s supposed to be a statue here that drag racers visit before they race down the hill. If you touch the statue’s hands and they’re cold, someone in your party is going to die.”
“I read about that, too,” says Miguel. “I’ll come with.”
“That’s stupid,” Sylvia says. “The statue’s hands are always going to be cold.”
Veronica doesn’t respond as she skips into the darkness, eager for the next discovery.
“Miguel,” I say. We stare at each other, a brief moment, and he nods his understanding. I care for Veronica and it will really piss me off if she falls down some deep, dark hole or is whisked away by some mountain man who has never seen a girl before. Miguel just promised to have her back.
I raise the camera and take a few shots of the tombstone with the flash on and then with the flash off. Then I start taking random shots throughout the cemetery.
“What are you doing?” Sylvia asks.
“Trying to capture spirit orbs.”
“Do you really believe in all of this?”
“No.” Click, click, click.
“Then why are you doing this project?”
“Because it’s what Veronica wanted to do.” I take a shot of Sylvia, and she’s not amused. I release a long breath and glance around to make sure Veronica’s nowhere near. “Why are you doing this project? You obviously aren’t happy here.”
Sylvia holds herself tight with her arms wrapped around her chest. “It’s scary.”
“What’s scary?”
She huffs like she’s annoyed. “Death, okay? Death is scary. Dead people are beneath our feet. Like, bones and decay, and those people were once alive and now they’re dead and I don’t know what happens to us when we die and I’m seriously uncomfortable with it all. Plus, it’s creepy that Veronica would want to do this project to begin with.”
I lower the camera, confused and unsettled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sylvia looks away from me, like she got caught, but I’m not letting it go. “What do you mean you think it’s creepy that Veronica is doing this project?”
“It’s a creepy idea is all.”
“And you think she’s weird regardless so that’s not what you mean.” Anger rolls through my veins. “Why are you part of my group, Sylvia? And don’t give me that bullcrap answer about you and Miguel not being able to pick a topic.”
Sylvia stares at the broken tombstone as if the sight breaks her heart. “Sarah deserves better than a broken tombstone.”
“She does, but that doesn’t answer my question. Did my mom tell you? Did she tell you what nobody else should know?”
Sylvia’s head whips to stare at me and the answer is plain on her face. I curse under my breath, and Sylvia touches my arm. “Don’t blame your mom, okay? She saw how upset I was about you choosing Veronica over me, and she told us to help me understand why you did choose Veronica. She told us to help me.”
My vision tunnels. “Us? She told multiple people?”
Sylvia flutters her hands in the air as if that will calm me. “Just me, Mom and their close friends. They won’t tell anyone. They promised. Your mom said Veronica’s dad was adamant about that.”
My hands shake, and I have to put the strap of the camera around my neck so I don’t smash it into the ground. “That wasn’t her business to tell.”
“Don’t you understand? She told me about Veronica to help me. I was so hurt and when I found out about Veronica’s tumor, I was relieved. You didn’t choose her as a friend over me. You’re just a really great guy who is helping someone who is going through something horrible. And to be honest, I don’t get why Veronica doesn’t tell everyone that she has a brain tumor and not just any brain tumor. The type of one her mom died from. I didn’t even know her mom died recently. Do you have any idea how life would be different for her if people knew?”
“Why?” I have to work to lower my voice so Veronica doesn’t hear. “So people can pity-like her? Is that what you’d want? For people to only like you because you have a tumor? Shouldn’t they try to like her for who she is and not something she can’t control?”
“I won’t tell anyone,