The Haunted - Jessica Verday [10]
“Ben, that’s great!” I said. “I’m so happy for you.” And I was surprised to realize that I actually was happy for him. “I’m sorry I had to miss out too. But you know… mono and all that.” I gave a weak cough. Did people who had mono cough? I had no clue.
“Paul Jamison and Ronald Howers took first place. They built a conversion kit that turned compost into an energy source. They actually managed to power a lightbulb with it.”
“I bet it was rigged,” I offered up.
He laughed. “Or they’re just geeks with way too much time on their hands.” I laughed with him, and it was nice. It reminded me of the afternoons we’d spent together at school working on stuff for the science fair. Ben always could make me laugh.
“I called before,” he suddenly admitted. “And your cell phone, too. I wanted to, you know, stop by and show you the trophy we won. But your mom told me you were sleeping a lot.”
“Yeah… sorry about that. The… mono sure did a number on me. But at least I got to catch up on all my beauty sleep. Which I needed,” I joked.
But the remark seemed to fall flat, and another moment of uncomfortable silence stretched out between us. I tried to think up something else to talk about.
Ben came to the rescue on that one. “Are you going to be at that bridge thing?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be saying something about Kristen.”
More silence.
“You know, I really miss her,” he said quietly.
“Me too.” I sighed. “I’m kind of nervous about the whole thing. Like, what if I mess up? Or say something stupid? Or…” I didn’t want to say break down, so instead I said, “Forget her name, or something completely idiotic like that. Plus, I hate crowds.”
“I’ll be there to cheer you on,” he said. “And you can always do the whole picturing-them-in-their-underwear trick. Except me. Don’t picture me in my underwear, or that will just be awkward.”
I laughed again, glad he couldn’t see my reddening face. “You won’t let me forget her name, will you?” I asked.
“Nope. I’ll bring a cue card and hold it up for you in the back.” A couple of minutes later I was hanging up the phone with a smile on my face. At least some things hadn’t changed.
Returning to my desk, I sat down and tried to get back into what I was doing before the phone call had interrupted me. But I wasn’t in the mood to be on the computer anymore. Deleting Spam e-mails and catching up on celebrity gossip could wait.
I wandered over to my new cabinet and briefly thought about transferring over all of my perfume stuff, but I didn’t feel like doing that, either. Cataloging and labeling bottle after bottle of essential oils was a task better left for a day when I wasn’t so distracted. I halfheartedly hung up a couple of shirts from my still-packed suitcase and then put away a pair of shoes.
Ben had brought up Kristen.…
I hadn’t gone to see her yet since I’d been home. What kind of best friend was I?
I left my room and went downstairs to tell Mom that I was going for a walk. She made me promise to keep my cell phone on me and wouldn’t let me leave until I told her that I’d “stay safe.”
Enduring another one of her smothering hugs, I tried not to squirm out of her embrace.
This won’t last long, I told myself. This is all because you’ve just come back home. It’ll die down eventually. Hopefully.
Finally, I headed outside. Even though I hadn’t walked these streets for months, my feet knew where they were going. When I came to the big iron gates that marked the main entrance to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, I didn’t allow myself to hesitate. If I stopped now, I might not go in. This was the place where I’d played with Kristen, met Nikolas and Katy, spent time with Caspian…
Walking slowly, I followed the pathways as they bled into one another. There were a lot of people in the cemetery today. More than I’d ever seen before, and it made me uncomfortable.
Were they watching me? Were any of them going to start whispering about the weird pale girl wandering among the tombstones? What if one of them tried to talk to me?
The cemetery was different. It didn