Page 109 of The One
The statement, “Lainey, baby, come back,” went ignored.
I didn’t try to walk, I couldn’t. Crawling would get me there just as fast.
My destination was only a couple of feet away, and when I reached it, I took in the wood. Even that felt cold. Hard and unforgiving. Shiny and difficult to grasp with all the grass and mud stuck to me.
I held on as if the surface were squeezing me back.
As if I could wrap my arms around it like it was a set of shoulders.
As if I could press my cheek against it as though it were another cheek.
My hands balled into fists, and I pounded the wood. “No!” I hit it again. “No! No!”
I know you’re in there.
I can feel you.
I hit the back of my hands against the box. “No!”
You’re so cold.
I wish you weren’t so cold.
I wanted someone to wake me up.
I wanted someone to pull me out of this nightmare.
“Pen!” My voice startled me. I could hear it for the first time in a while, and I hadn’t realized I’d spoken out loud. “Pen!” Something was on my lips. Rain? Spit? Tears? “Come back to me, Pen!”
I wanted her to hold me. I wanted her to clench my fingers. I wanted her to tell me how much she loved me.
My sister.
I wanted to look at my beautiful twin, an almost-mirror image of myself, and say one last thing to her.
Just one more moment.
One more minute.
“Pen!”
Arms wrapped around me and hugged me from behind. “Baby, it’s okay! It’s going to be okay!”
But they couldn’t drag me away.
Because I wouldn’t leave Penelope.
I couldn’t let her be all by herself in this cold.
Alone in a box that would now be her home.
Lowered into a hole that had been dug just for her.
A spot within the hills of a cemetery on Murphy Drive, where she’d spend the rest of eternity.
Far away from me.
“Pen,” I whispered. I glanced up at the sky, and another raindrop hit my face. I tasted it. A small explosion of salt on my tongue, telling me it was a tear as I pleaded with the dark sky. “Please, Pen. Please don’t leave me.”
