Predestined (Existence Trilogy #2)(41)

“Come on, let’s go home,” I urged opening the door and leading her outside toward the car.

“Can we...” Miranda hiccuped, “can we just go visit his grave? I need to do that.”

I disagreed. She wasn’t ready for that just yet. I wasn’t ready for that. But I couldn’t tell her no either. I opened the passenger side door and Miranda slid inside.

Maybe, we could go. If that was what she wanted to do then I’d be tough and go with her. But first, we were going to stop by her house. She was going to need a little dose of courage and her mother had an entire cabinet with the liquid courage she would need.

Chapter Seventeen

Graveyards at night are by far creepier than graveyards during the day. I tried desperately to ignore the souls hovering over graves I assumed were theirs. But it was really hard not to jump every time we walked past a grave and a soul floated in front of us. I wanted to grab Miranda’s arm and stop her so the soul could wander past but that would only confuse her and alert the soul s that I could see them. So, instead I closed my eyes tightly and tried to pretend we weren’t walking through souls. Oh, how I hated Leif’s father for this stupid curse.

“It’s chilly out here,” Miranda said breaking the silence. I glanced over at her as she took another sip of the bottle of wine in her hands. I’d found a dessert wine that I knew she’d be able to handle. Coming to a graveyard at night was not my idea of a good time but I sure hadn’t wanted to get out here and have her completely break down on me or, God forbid, go running into the night the way she’d run at the mall. I wasn’t up for an evening jaunt down a soul-thick path.

“Yep,” I agreed, pulling my beige leather jacket together and buttoning it up.

“You want some? It’ll warm you up,” Miranda offered me the bottle of wine.

I glanced down at it in her hand. The pale color and fruity smell was tempting. I could use something to ease my discomfort. But I was driving so I shook my head, “No, I’m good.”

Miranda waited one more second before pulling the wine back to her chest, “Okay, if you’re sure. But it really does help.”

I wasn’t going to argue with her. I was sure it was helping her tons. Three weeks ago I couldn’t have paid her to walk through a graveyard at night. Heck, I couldn’t have paid her to pull in the parking lot of a graveyard at night. Having someone she loved buried here changed things.

“There it is,” she whispered, finally stopping.

My gaze followed hers. Wyatt’s grave was still fresh and covered in flowers. A few were starting to wilt but for the most part the flowers were all still as lovely as they had been at his funeral.

“Let’s go sit on the bench,” Miranda said almost reverently.

Wyatt’s parents had placed a bench at the foot of his grave. I’d wondered about that when I’d seen it the day of the funeral. I thought maybe it would just be there for the funeral but when we’d left I’d glanced back and it was still there.

“There’s the one I sent,” Miranda’s voice broke as we sat down and stared at the flower arrangements in front of us. The large round basketball that lay on the head of his grave was made of orange carnations and black angel’s breath. Miranda had been hysterically insistent that the florist make an arrangement that looked like a basketball. They’d come through for her. It was beautiful. Wyatt would have loved it.

“It turned out really good,” I assured her.

“Yeah, it did. I wish he could see it.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. I didn’t want her to start talking about his soul hanging around and seeing it before it passed on. Lying wasn’t my strong suit and I had a hard time agreeing with her when I knew better.

“Remember that time we brought Wyatt’s four-wheeler down here from that path in the woods behind his house?” Miranda’s voice had taken on an amused sound.

“Yes.” We’d been chased by the cops for jumping graves on his four-wheeler. Both Wyatt and I had taken the blame and left Miranda out of it. Wyatt had always been protective of her even back then and, in all honesty, she’d begged us not to do it. We’d listened to her the whole way over here about how wrong this was and how the ghost of the people’s graves we jumped would haunt us. I’d, of course, known she was wrong and it didn’t bother me at all.

“My mom still has no idea that happened. I didn’t even tell her about you two getting in trouble because I was afraid she’d refuse to let me hang out with delinquents.”

I laughed and a small smile touched Miranda’s mouth. It was so good to see those. They were very few and far between.

Miranda took another swig of the wine. Her sips had progressed to swigs. The glassy look in her eye told me it was having the desired effect. I felt a little guilty for getting the wine for her but she needed to be relaxed to face this. She was reminiscing. That was good. It was worth a bottle of wine and underage drinking.

“Whoa, not who I expected to see here,” Leif said as he walked up beside us. Miranda let out a small, then a giggle followed after she realized it was Leif and not a zombie who’d joined us.

“And drinking?” Leif’s eyes lifted from Miranda’s bottle of wine to meet my glare.

“She wanted to come here. I figured she needed some courage to face it.”