Come to Me Quietly(128)

Aly glanced at her pad. “Sorry, Mom… I just… ”



Softly, her mother smiled. “I know, sweetheart.” Karen came the rest of the way in. Sitting at the edge of her bed, she ran a gentle hand through Aly’s hair. “Are you doing okay?”



“I think so.” Gazing up at her mom, she asked, “Are you?”



Aly’s mother pursed her lips, then offered a small, reassuring nod. “Some days. It’s getting better.” Then she placed a kiss on Aly’s forehead. “Get some rest. It’s late.”



“Okay.”



Karen crossed to the door and looked back at her daughter. “I love you, Aly.”



“Love you, too, Mom.”



The next day, Aly rushed out into the bright morning sun with her backpack slung over her shoulder. If she missed her bus, she’d have to walk to school, and that was about the last thing she felt like doing since she’d spent half the night awake. Even when her mom told her to get some rest, none would come. She felt agitated, like she could feel something building – something bad. It wasn’t a premonition. It was just plain obvious.

Aly came to a stop when she saw the boy she couldn’t get off her mind walking ahead of her on the opposite sidewalk toward the main street. Spring had come, the morning air crisp but warm, but still Jared wore a heavy black leather jacket, his attention focused entirely on his boots as they ate up the ground in his long stride.

She rushed across the street, closing the space between them. “Jared, wait.”



He didn’t even acknowledge her.

She called out to him again, “Hey, Jared, wait up.”



He finally hesitated before he turned around, rushing a nervous hand through his hair. He bounced anxiously as he looked at her. Through her, really. “Aly… ,” he managed to say.

Aly frowned, unable to look away from his pupils, which had all but disappeared, his light blue eyes too wide, frozen ice.

He glanced away, and he raked his hand through his hair again. “Hey,” he mumbled into the distance.

Aly fidgeted. “How are you?” She cringed. What the hell was she thinking, asking something so dumb? How did she think he was?

Jared turned back to her, just blinked, looking everywhere but at her face.

“So, uh, we miss you at the house,” Aly ventured, feeling more like an idiot, completely out of her element. But weren’t they all? None of this was their element. Everything was wrecked, and all of them had been left on foreign ground. “Why don’t you come around anymore? I know Christopher would like to see you.”



She would like to see him.

She needed to see him.

Jared twitched. “I’ve just been busy,” he said at the same moment he looked behind him, back toward the busy street. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you around.”



Aly’s heart sank. She stood watching the boy who consumed her walk away from her, his head hanging toward the ground as he gripped the hair at the back of his head.

Aly closed her eyes, wishing for a way to make things better, even though she knew there was absolutely nothing she could do.

When she opened them, he was gone.

Aly frowned when she saw her dad’s car parked in the driveway after she got off from school that day. He never made it home before five.

Aly cracked open the door. The second she did, she knew something was off, could feel the tension in the air. Their house had been so much like that lately – off – emotions rising, then waning, heartbreak, then glimpses of joy, slipping back into overwhelming sadness. They’d diagnosed her mom with grief-related depression, had written her some prescriptions to help her get through the time they said would pass. There’d been some days when she never got out of bed, but like her mom had said last night, she was getting better.