I feel the sweat clinging to my palms. The neck of the instrument is slick in my hands, and I wipe my fingers down on the sides of my pants one at a time. My heart thunders expectantly in my ears.
A bass player turns around to peek into the alcove where I stand, hidden from the audience, and whispers, “You’re on.”
I nod. I take a deep breath, tighten my grip around the instrument, and walk out from the safety of backstage. The lights are hot on my face as I weave through the orchestra; a polite applause seems to roar in my ears. My heart is pounding. I’m surprised the conductor can’t hear it as we shake hands, but he only gives me a wide smile and a nod of appreciation. Then, I take a step away from the cluster of the orchestra and face the crowd. It’s a larger turnout than I expected; a wave of naseau sweeps through my gut, but I grit my teeth and force myself to bow. The applause dwindles as I rise up again and lift the instrument to my chin.
For a few, haunting moments, the only sound is the ringing of my open strings as I tune. I had checked and double checked them backstage. In the midst of my anxiety right now, I don’t think I can tell the difference between what is sharp or flat or natural. Everything that touches my ears enters through a distanced film. For the first few measures, I will be relying on muscle memory alone. After that, I might be able to conjure the bravery to put more of myself into this piece.
The conductor nods at me and raises his baton, plunging the orchestra into a polite introduction that lasts only a mere moments; then I draw my bow across the strings. It’s a hungry melody, the Mendelssohn. It’s leaping minor arpeggiation seems to be searching for something desperately, yet each note is stated in such confidence that the very action seems exaggerated. I breathe with the violin in my hands as I top off the introduction of the main melody, allowing the orchestra to carry it on for me.
I find myself panting in this brief moment of rest. And then I pick the story up again, dipping into new realms and exploring the delicacy of the piece as it wanders from its own drama and finds itself wondering, then flourishing and growing into the epitome of fragile happiness.
Casey is out there, I remind myself. Somewhere in that audience she is sitting, and listening, and dreaming right along with me. I place each finger strongly against the fingerboard, controlling every action of the bow. This is a performance for her. I hope she hears what I am saying. I hope it reaches her. It has to.
…………
“Hey, that was pretty cool what you did up there.”
I turn around, running a hand through my hair. After all the sweat I produced on stage, my hair is moldable and sticks up in a wild appearance. Casey stands before me, holding the program with both hands and grinning.
I smile. Did she get my message? Did she hear what I was saying with those notes? “Thanks.”
She laughs, then glances around at the other musicians already packing up to head home. “You know, I’ve never heard that piece before. I know it’s really famous and I know you’ve been practicing it, but I think you really got it when you were up there tonight. You found it, I think.”
I feel the heat rising to my cheeks, and I chuckle nervously. “Yeah, I think I might have.”
“Well, this requires some celebration!” She grabs my hand and pulls me towards the door. “I’m not supposed to tell you, but your family has a table reserved for you already at that diner you like so much. I’m coming with.”
I grin. “Let me get my instrument.”
…..
Casey pauses at the door to the diner. I can see my family sitting inside; my two brothers and my parents, already joking between each other even though they arrived just a few minutes earlier than we did. My hand that is holding the door to the diner released the handle. I turn to Casey with a confused frown.
“What is it?”
She stares at nothing for a moment, the traces of a smile clinging to her lips. Then, her golden eyes shift to meet mine. I smile. “You did a really good job tonight, Will. I mean it.”
She moves to open the door, but I rest a hand on the handle before she can reach it. Her fingers are cold when they brush against mine. I look into her glowing golden eyes and find myself lost inside of them.
“Casey, I…”
She looks away, pulling her hand out of mine. “Have a lot of celebrating to do. Let’s get inside.”
I blink, taking a shaky breath. “Um. Right.”

The teacher is saying something about the unit circle and how it relates to perfect right triangles, but I find that the page before me is empty of notes and my pencil refuses to put any there. I glance across the room at the Casey’s desk. It is empty. It has been empty for the past three days. She brushed me off when I tried to call her and ask if something was up. She didn’t even offer an explanation. Is she sick? Is her family alright?
I close my eyes, silently remembering the melody of the Mendelssohn in my head. My fingers tap the rhythms against my desk, marking downbeats or dancing along with the tune. I imagine that I am playing for her, again, one more time. All she has to do is listen.
Where is she?
……
“Hey. Um, I’m not feeling too well, so I’ve been missing the last few days of school. Sorry for not telling you earlier. Could you come over? I need the notes I’ve missed. I’ve gotten what I can, but a lot of the material isn’t posted on the school site. Just swing by whenever you can. Thanks.”
……
She answers the door. Her hair is a mess, unbrushed and hastily wrapped into a bun that barely stays together. She’s wearing her normal blouse and jeans, but her skin is pale, and the moment I meet her eyes I know that something is different.
“Hey,” she mumbles upon seeing me. “Close the door behind you.”
She moves aside, and I enter the house, careful to do as she says and close the door behind me. It’s always been a meticulously clean house, courtesy of her restless father who has little else to do since he was fired last year. I hear his footsteps upstairs, but Casey doesn’t seem eager to see him. She wanders up the stairs and to her room, expecting me to follow. I do.
Her room looks the same. A bed that’s more a pile of blankets than a neat mattress, books lining the walls, pictures of far-away places or abstract images framed on the pale blue paint. She plops down on the bed and groans.
“So… is it contagious? Should I pass the notes to you from behind the door or what?” I say, half-attempting to lighten her mood. She only snorts into the blankets.
“Nah, you’re safe.” She rolls herself up in one of the covers and hops onto the floor. “Hand it over.”
I sit down, opening up my backpack and removing my notebooks for her. As she takes them, I notice that her hands are shaking. She notices too, and grits her teeth, pulling the books towards her without meeting my eyes. She then proceeds to flip to a random blank page in her notes and starts to copy them down.
“Hey, don’t you at least want to organize it?”
She shakes her head. “Couldn’t say I cared that much.”
We sit in silence, save for the scratching of her pencil on paper. I hug my legs and glance around the room again. This time I notice the one difference, subtle enough to have been invisible before; the orange prescription bottle open at her nightstand. I glance back at Casey, who grips the pencil with white knuckles. That must be why her hands are shaky; a side effect.
“Um, I was just wondering. If there was anything I could do to make you feel better.”
“This is all I need,” she grumbles, snapping her lead against the page and quickly replenishing it by clicking at the mechanical pencil.
“What’s the prescription for?”
Casey pauses, looking up at the bottle. Her upper lip twitches in disgust. “Nothing. Antibiotics.”
I know she’s lying; she never was a good liar. I don’t want to press the matter further.
“Damn.” She sets the pencil down, and I notice that her hands are shaking violently. “I can’t write a thing like this.”
“That’s okay,” I offer, taking her pencil and notebook out of her lap without permission. She glares at me through hazed eyes, shaking her head. “Hey, it’s why I’m here. To get you your notes.”
I can see the protest forming in her mind already, but after a moment, she drops it entirely and gives up, burying herself deeper in her cocoon of blankets. I keep transcribing the notes she has missed. After a while, I realize that she has fallen asleep. I sigh, glancing up at the prescription. It would be easy to go and read it, but Casey didn’t want me to know. I’m not going to find out anyway.
Sighing, I work into the night, listening to the muffled rhythm of her breathing.

“Casey?”
She’s thinner and paler than before, but she still retains her aloofness as she sits down on the bench next to me. I pull my backpack out of the way and set it at my feet.
“You’re going to school today?”
She nods, though she looks visibly ill at the thought. “I’m just gonna see how long I can make it.”
“Okay.”
I fiddle with the hem of my shirt, not wanting to start a conversation if she doesn’t want to talk.
“Go away. I’ll be fine.”
“What?”
She blinks, glancing at me with flushed cheeks. “I… Um. I’ll be fine. At school, I mean.”
I don’t want to question her fragile protest. “Okay.”
The bus grumbles in the distance, then screeches to a halt before us. Casey gets on first. She sits on the left, and I sit across from her on the right. She listens to her music. I listen to mine.

……
Her desk is empty again. She left early.

I walk up to her house after I get off the bus. It’s not far from my own, just a little further down the street, and even though she didn’t invite me I figure I might as well give her the work she’s missed. The trees loom over me as I walk down the sidewalk, turn into her driveway, and find myself standing on her front stoop. I ring the doorbell once.
A muffled stomping answers me from inside the house, followed by an aggravated shout. I look back down the driveway, not sure if I should be here if tensions are running so high, but the door opens before I can plan my exit any further. Casey’s dad stares at me behind crooked glasses and offers a nervous smile.
“Hi, Mr. Padfield. Is Casey here?”
He fidgets, then steps outside, closing the door behind him. “I know you mean well, Will, but it might be best if you didn’t see her for the next few days. She’s having some medical problems.”
My grip tightens on the strap of my backpack. “Sir, how bad is it? I don’t mean to intrude, but I’m her friend and I’m worried.”
He sighs. “It isn’t fatal or anything, but it is going to take some time to overcome.”
“I, um, I brought her notes, if she’s feeling well enough to look at them. I already copied them down for her and everything.”
His eyes soften. “That’s really nice of you. I’ll make sure she gets them.”
I smile, dropping a strap of my backpack so I can unzip it and get the notes out. Once they are in my hands, I  hold them out to him. He takes them without even glancing at their content.
“Thanks, Mr. Padfield. And if she does start feeling better, could you let me know?”
He nods. “Of course. Once she’s fixed up, I think she’ll be pretty behind on her studies. You’re being a great help. Anyway. Have a good day, now.”
“Yes, Sir. You too.”

“Hey. My dad gave me your notes. Thank for that. I… Um. I’m not sure how long it’ll be until I’m feeling better, and my parents don’t really want me to see anyone, but could you come over later tonight? I want you to know what’s going on. I’m not sure if I’ll have another chance to tell you. Don’t bring your phone or anything though. Okay. See you.”
……….
She is outside when I come up to her house, and waves me over to the backyard. I follow, light on my feet without anything to drag me down. Casey looks worse than when I last saw her; paler, thinner. Even her eyes seem to have taken a toll, now void of that intrigued shimmer they always get. Now they’re just dull. Drugged.
She leads me into the edge of the forest without a word. She’s wearing slippers rather than real shoes, and a thick wool sweater. It’s cold outside, but not that cold.
We forge our own path through the underbrush, avoiding deer trails or dirt paths already premade by humans and animals who wander here. Brambles cut at my shins and more often than not end up drawing blood, but I don’t bother to slow my pace and neither does she. We go in pretty far, far enough that I can’t see her house through the trees, and then we come upon a grassy clearing complete with a crumbling concrete building. Our sanctuary.
Casey mumbles something under her breath as she walks into the abandoned structure. Neither of us know what it was used for, but it’s small and was only a single story. Whoever owned it hasn’t been here in years.
“Okay. No phone?” She says, stopping on the inside of the building. It’s roof is collapsed in, but the walls still stand in jagged, precarious angles.
I nod. “Nothing except myself. Um, are you sure it’s a good idea to be out here if you’re sick? Casey?”
Her eyes had closed. I can’t tell if she heard me or not, but finally she replies. “I’m not… I’m not that kind of sick. It’s something else.”
I feel a sudden twist in my gut. My instincts know exactly the kind of sickness she has to be referring to, but I force myself to deny it. Not her, not Casey. She’s too collected and calm. She’s the one who saved me from my own anxiety; she couldn’t possibly to burdened with something of the same nature.
“It’s bad, William. It’s really bad.”
I set my jaw. “What happens?”
She sits down on a slab of concrete, head in her hands. “I see things, or hear them. I… They’re all different people and different times, sometimes just voices, sometimes music that no one else hears… Damnit. I’m going crazy, Will.”
I sit down next to her. “But the pills. They have to help a little.”
She shakes her head. “They do, but not for long. I mean, it’s not like I’m constantly being tormented anyway. But it’s not something I can predict, either. I’ll be doing my homework when all of a sudden I’m hearing my mom enter the house, or a scream in the distance, or I’ll see someone that isn’t there. They’ll just… show up. I don’t know when to take a pill and it takes too long for them to kick in for it to be of any use when it all starts acting up.” She takes a shaky breath; there are tears in her eyes, though I can tell she would never allow them to fall. “I’m scared, Will.”
I look into her eyes, those once shimmering brilliant golden eyes, now able to see only through a drugged haze because of a mind that likes to play tricks on itself. “It’s okay. You can figure this out. We can. I’ll be here for you the whole time, alright? Keep taking your meds, don’t give up. Remember? Remember what you told me to do?”
A nervous smile lights on her lips. “Right. Take a deep breath and keep going.”
“You helped me beat my anxiety. I’ll be right here to help you beat this.”
She nods, leaning against me and closing her eyes. After a moment, she whispers, “I can’t do this on my own.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Will?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m scared that my parents are going to send me away somewhere.”
“I won’t let them.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”

I visit her everyday after school. We meet at our castle of concrete, myself with my notes and schoolwork for her to borrow, Casey always with her pills. We talk and swap stories. She tells me about the specters that visit her. Only one has been recurring. It’s like her alternate ego, she told me. Like a version of her that could exist at some point, or did exist at some point, though she can’t remember when. She calls the specter Cassandra. She told me she didn’t want to give it a name but it gave the name to itself; it wasn’t really something she had control over. She just knew, that was its name. Cassandra.
She also told me that this wasn’t the first time she had met Cassandra. That when she was a kid, she would see her face in crowds, or hear her voice when she was alone. Cassandra follows her places and whispers things to her, always telling her what to do and what not to do. Casey wouldn’t tell me how much of Cassandra’s advice she followed. I didn’t want to ask.
I asked her once, if Cassandra followed her here to the concrete castle. She said that it doesn’t, usually. But sometimes, like right at that moment, its standing just a few paces away. Waiting for something, telling Casey things she doesn’t want to hear.
I wish Cassandra would go away.

“At first it was just my mom,” she says, voice a trailing whisper in the cold air. Her breath steams. I lean against her, warming her mittened hand in mine. “I would see her out of the corner of my eye, or in a crowd. Just passing by. She looked so real. I thought I was, well, seeing things, you know? Making something out of nothing.
“But then she came up to me one time, in my room. Just opened the door to check on me like she did when she was alive. She sat down on the carpet and told me to hang in there, be strong. I was so happy to have her there, I didn’t want to push it away so fast. I let her stay and we talked. It was nice.
“After a while I knew something was wrong with me, but I couldn’t say anything. Mom was always there when I needed her, or when you needed me. I wasn’t going to do anything about it because I figured it was harmless.
“But then… She started telling me to do other things. Bad thing. Not horrible, just not the sort of actions I would have chosen otherwise. Don’t listen to Dad, she kept telling me. Don’t listen to him. I knew I had to tell someone but I didn’t know who or where to turn to, how to get her out of my head. It was just so nice to have her there, you know? But she had to go, and a part of me must have understood that, because a few days later Cassandra showed up.”
I squeeze her hand softly. “You don’t see your mom anymore?”
Casey takes a withering sigh, eyes closed, body frail beneath her coat. “No. Cassandra made her go away somehow. I see my mom sometimes, like a mistaken face in a crowd, like the very first times I ever saw her spectre. But she doesn’t come close. Cassandra keeps her away.”
“Casey?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you told someone about it.”
“Yeah, me too. My dad wouldn’t believe me at first, but I can’t really blame him.”
“Do you know what kind of treatment there is?”
Casey crinkles up her nose, as though disgusted by the thought. Then, she nods. Her body is trembling. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Let’s go ice skating.”
Casey stares at me in confusion. Her hair is stiff in the icy air; snow lays over the concrete slabs of the building, now white with winter. “Don’t be stupid, you know I can’t.”
I shrug, holding her mittened hands in mine. “Why not? No one else will know. Take your meds beforehand. If Cassandra shows up, just ignore her.”
She shakes her head. “Will, I don’t think it’s a good idea. I really don’t.”
“You told me that I had to push my limits in order to get better, and you were right.” I squeeze her fingers, staring into her crisp golden eyes. Her breath escapes in a warm cloud of condensation. Her lips are pink. “Come on, we don’t have to be gone for long.”
She looks away. Closes her eyes. For a moment I think she will pull away and head back to the house without another word, escaping like she always does when I try to show myself to her. But this time, I can see a timid smile resting on the edges of her lips and climbing up to the corners of her eyes. I grin.
“Okay. Just this once.”
To my surprise, she pulls me into a hug. I’m not sure what to do, at first. But she holds me tight, and I let myself melt into her.
“Thank you, Will.”
………
The ice skates feel heavy on my feet, big and bulky and unnatural. It’s been a long time since I went ice skating - not since my parents took me when I was just a kid. Casey seems undisturbed by the skates. She always liked to go to the rink in the winter. I went with her sometimes, but I was usually too afraid to go out on the ice myself. But not this time. This time she’s the one who is afraid, an alien in this environment that was once so natural to her. I can see it in her eyes; she keeps glancing around at things, the ordinary things like a candy dispenser or a family walking by or the food vendors across the street, and keeping her head down.
I finish lacing up my skates. Casey stands up next to me, glancing around again.
“I’m just going to warn you now that there is a very high probability that this will end in disaster for me,” I say as I rise to my feet, struggling at first to maintain my balance. Casey holds my hand to steady me, and I offer a grateful smile.
“You’ll be fine. When was the last time you were on skates?”
She starts leading me towards the rink. I stagger awkwardly in the skates.
“Um… Not since that time my parents took me on vacation in Seattle.”
“Whoa! That long?” Casey laughs, making silent note of my inability to hobble towards the rink without her help. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me. Come on.”
She steps onto the rink first, pulling me after with her hand. I follow. The ice is slippery under my toes. Casey takes a deep breath of the chilled air and smiles, and for a moment I think I can see the haze lifting from her eyes. For a moment I think she forgot it all.
Still holding my hand, she starts to skate, pulling me after like a broken piece of an engine. She moves gracefully and easily across the ice; it’s like the water was speaking to her through the blades of her skates, telling her where to step and how to move and where to go in this frozen world so that she can create artwork with her very movements. I smile. This is why we came here. So she could be herself again. So she could be art.

I notice instantly that something is wrong. Her foot got caught; a wave of distraction in her eyes; the slight, confused parting of her lips as some sound no one else can hear echoes in her ears. I skid forwards to steady her, catching her before she can hit the ice.
“Hey, you okay?”
She shakes her head. Her skin is pale; too pale.
“Did you take your meds?”
She nods.
I take a shaky breath. “Okay. One sec. Keep standing, I’ll get us to the benches.”
It’s a harder task for me than it would have been for her if I was the limp one. I have a hard time keeping my own balance, even though she manages to hold up most of her weight. Once we exit the ice I find myself nearly tripping on my own skates, but Casey keeps me steady, and together we hobble to the benches. She collapses onto one with a groan, squeezing her eyes closed. I sit down next to her.
“What’s up?”
“It’s her again.”
“Cassandra?”
She nods.
I look at my hands in my lap, then back at Casey. “Can I do anything?”
She shakes her head, then leans against me. She forces her eyes open and peers at mine with a brave smile. “Tell me a story.”
I laugh. “Okay, alright. What kind of story do you want me to tell?”
“The most real kind.”
“Okay.” I take a moment, putting on a show of searching for the right words as I squint into the distance then part my lips to express my ‘eureka!’ moment. “Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved to ice skate. She would spend her winters out on the rink without a care in the world, and never seemed bothered by the cold. And then, one day, a stranger moved into the house down the road. He was short and about her age, and he had only ever skated once in his entire life. The girl thought this was crazy. How could someone not enjoy the sensation of flight as you glide across the ice? But then she heard him play his violin outside one summer, practicing a random piece she didn’t recognize. She heard it and thought it was beautiful-”
“And she thought the boy conceited as f***-”
“And she thought it was beautiful,” I repeat, nudging her. “But when she went to talk to him at school, he couldn’t even say a single word. It was like his only voice was through the instrument. So she came up with a mission.”
“Did she now?”
“Yes, she did. She would save the boy from himself.” I look down at my hands, feeling the cold seeping into my fingers. “And she would succeed.”
“And what happened to her after that?”
“After that, she learned that she needed saving, too. That everyone did. And, since she gave the boy a voice, he came up with a mission. He would save her.”
Casey gets quiet. “And?”
“And he succeeds.”
She closes her eyes. “How can you know?”
“Because I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because I…” The words die on my lips. I take a shaky breath. “Because the boy cares too much.”
Casey pulls away from me, holding herself up with her arms. She looks directly into my eyes. Hers aren’t hazed anymore; they’re sharp and inquisitive and dangerously curious. “William,” she says softly. “Do you love me?”
I feel the heat rising to my cheeks; I want to look away, but I can’t, not from that gaze. After a stricken silence, I find myself grinning sheepishly, holding a hand to the back of my neck. “Looks like I’ve been found out!”
She laughs, then sits up straight, glancing down at her hands in her lap. When she speaks again, her tone isn’t as lighthearted. It’s soft and serious yet satisfied. “It’s okay. I kind of figured. For a while.”
“Okay.”
I look up at her, at her curling black hair and the red snow hat over her head, and the delicate flush in her too-pale cheeks and the recent gauntness of her features, at her thin-lipped smile and her glowing golden eyes. She’s beautiful. “I’m glad you know.”
She smiles. “Me too.”
“Is Cassandra still bothering you?”
“No.” She closes her eyes and leans against me again. “No, she went away.”

I’m walking home from school. I didn’t feel like taking the bus; I wanted to breathe in the winter air and taste the chill on my lips. I wanted to explore a bit. Casey called me earlier. She wants me to come over again tonight and I want to go over too. It’s why I decide to run when I’m already halfway home, my backpack bouncing on my back, shoes crunching in the snow. It’s a gray morning, cold and quiet.
The street was empty when I looked. I didn’t hear anything. So I ran; all I wanted was to see Casey again.
The car came out of nowhere. I looked over to see what the sound was - that sudden screech of tire, that smell of burning rubber filling the air. I saw it coming straight for me. I didn’t have time to think.
It didn’t stop in time.
………
“Hey, Casey. I’m on my way right now. You’re going to think I’m stupid but I didn’t want to take the bus, so I might be late. Um, if you ever want to go ice skating again, sometime soon… Or whenever you’re feeling better. That would be, um, nice. I guess I’ll talk to you later? Hang in--”

The graveyard is quiet. Pristine arrays of cement stones create a city for the dead. A girl kneels, crumpled, before the shadow of a polished grave. Her shoulders rise and lower unsteadily. She thought she had run out of tears before the funeral, and yet in the silence that followed as the living departed to leave the dead in rest, her eyes burned and her heart cracked.
“Damn you,” she mutters, head resting against the soil, fingers clutching at blades of grass as if to tear it from the ground. “Damnit, you weren’t supposed to die!”
I stand behind her, uncertain. There is a name on the stone before her, and dates, and an inscription. I don’t bother to read any of it. I can’t look away from her.
“What am I supposed to do without you? Everyone is telling me to grieve and move on, but I… I don’t think I can. I’m so lost without you.”
Should I leave? It feels to intimate a moment to interrupt. I take a step backwards, glancing around at the rest of the graveyard, at its solitary trees and pockets of shade and the silent breeze that runs its fingers through the grass. The girl takes a shuddering breath, pounding the ground with a fist.
“Come back to me! You can’t leave me here alone!”
I pause. The girl is wearing a black dress and black shoes, the kind that are only worn on certain occasions. Her skin is pale where it is visible between the folds of black cloth. I step towards her. Then, cautiously, I rest a hand on her shoulder.
She freezes, startled, and turns around slowly. Her eyes widen as they land upon me.
“Oh, God. Will? William?”
I blink, realizing that I recognize the name, and then recognizing it as my own. “Yes, that’s me, that’s my name.”
The girl stares, face wet with tears. She reaches for her purse but doesn’t seem to have the energy to commit to her action; her eyes are hinged on my every move, and she forgets her purse entirely.
“Um, hello.” I offer a meek smile. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. For your friend.”
She shakes her head. “What are you talking about? Don’t you… Remember?”
I force a smile. Curls of rich black hair tumble down her shoulders; her golden eyes glisten like stars in the night; a thin-lipped frown balances below a pointed nose. She’s beautiful.
“How could I remember you if we’ve never met?”
She blinks. “But I know you…”
I shake my head.
Her eyes narrow, and she digs into her purse. She pulls out an orange pill bottle and pours out the contents into her hands. Selecting two of the pills and replacing the rest in the container, she tips them into her mouth and swallows without water or anything. I stare at her.
“This might be a strange question but… Um, do you know how I got here? I just remember wandering up here and finding you.” I scratch the back of my head and offer a sheepish grin.
The girl wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, then takes a deep breath. Her fingers clutch the grass. She keeps her eyes squeezed closed.
I take a tentative step forwards. “Is something the matter?”
She shakes her head quickly without opening her eyes.
“Um… Do you want me to leave? I guess I can go. I’m not sure where, but if you want me to go, I can go.” She doesn’t respond. I pat my pockets and look around the empty graveyard. “Um. Okay.”
Not sure where I plan to be going, I start walking away from the woman. Trees dotting the scape of graves create dark pockets of shade from the afternoon sun. I can see a stone wall and an iron gate in the distance, marking the exit of the graveyard. A silent road and a few houses continue on the other side of the wall. Something tugs at the back of my mind, something sharp and urgent; I pause, uncertain as to what that something is.
“Maybe it’s a blessing.”
I turn around. The girl stands shakily behind me, arms wrapped around her torso and muttering to herself.
“Maybe it’s so I don’t have to be alone anymore. I… I can’t stand being alone. I need you.”
She looks up at me, eyes brimming with tears. I stop walking, mouth open but wordless as she runs up to me and takes my hands in hers. Dirt is rubbed into her cheeks; even so, I can see that they are flushed.
“Stay with me for a little bit, would you? Come to my place for dinner. We got all this food from the funeral, you know, and I don’t have anyone to share it with.” She squeezes my hands.
I have trouble finding the words; all I can feel is the heat of her touch. “Sure. Okay.”
She smiles, eyes crinkling in the corners. “Good. Mashed potatoes and gravy is your favorite, right?”
I blink, then find myself grinning. “Yes, that’s my favorite. I’d forgotten that, but it’s my favorite.”
“I thought it would be.” The girl takes a shaky breath, rubbing her thumb over my wrist. She starts walking out of the graveyard, pulling me behind her. “This way. My house is just down the hill. I’m Casey, by the way.”
“I think my name’s William,” I say to the back of her head, “Like you said before. Yes, that’s my name, that’s what it is.”
Casey glances over at me with a smile, though this one is heavier for some reason. “I know.”