Page 81 of Living with Death

She wipes at a tear on her cheek, and her eyes move out toward the graves on the hill. She looks right at me.

I swallow.

She’s mourning the loss of Cook, but I’m mourning the loss of her.

I need her back.

I’ll do anything to make her mine.

I told her there was no going back after our time at the manor. I’ll need to remind her.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Are you going to keep ignoring me, or do you think we might talk?” I ask Sam when I walk into the break room. She’s sitting at the table, the glow of the drink machine painting her in a soft blue, reflecting off the glittery silver eyeshadow, her lips a hot pink. After Cook’s funeral, I went home and ripped all the curtains down in my house, and then I went outside and tossed them into the fire pit, setting them ablaze. The black smoke trailed into the night air, and I claimed a chair and put my feet up, holding a bottle of wine between my legs.

I drank until I passed out and the smoke disappeared.

“I haven’t been ignoring you.”

I give her a pointed look. “You have, but it’s okay. I understand.” I put a dollar in the machine and press the button for a bottle of water. It drops down to the bottom, and I grab it.

“Can I sit with you?”

She shrugs.

I twist the top off my water bottle and take a sip as I sit. Silence wraps around us as I think of what to say to Sam. How do I tell her everything about my life?

What’s too much, and what’s not enough?

“You look like shit.”

I lift my brow, swallowing the water. “Thanks. My friend died.”

She narrows her eyes. “You don’t get to do that.”

I put the bottle down. “What?”

“Act like I don’t have a reason to be upset with you.”

I sigh. “Sam, you have every right to be angry with me. I’ve been an awful friend, and I’m sorry. I’m not good at getting close to people, or better yet, I’m not good at letting people get too close to me.”

“Why?”

“I’m just not.”

“No. You tell me something insightful about you, or I’m done with this friendship. Life is too short for fake friends, Mabel. You know all about me, every fucked-up thing. I’ve given you space. I’ve given you time.” She tosses her napkin into her bag of chips and crosses her arms. “Maybe one day, I thought, she’d know I was her friend. She’ll understand that no matter what she tells me, I’ll still be here. I won’t judge her because I’ve given her every reason to judge me, and she’s chosen not to.”

Sam has told me she grew up in a trailer park with a mom who worked at a strip club outside of town. Her father came by to visit when she was a kid, but one Christmas, he didn’t show up, and they’d discovered he’d remarried and decided he no longer wanted anything to do with her.

Sam still lives in that same trailer park.

I pick at the label on my bottle. “I’m sorry I wasn’t truthful with you.” I wipe a crumb away from the table. “I’d like to make this better.”

Sam inclines her head. “Okay, so talk. Make this better.”

I wince. “Can we go out tonight and do that?”

Sam’s lip lifts skeptically. “You’re going to go out?”

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