All This Time(18)

But the voice isn’t gone. “He was sad and alone,” it echoes behind me.

This time when I turn around, my head is clear enough that I see a girl in a sunshine-yellow pullover standing a few steps away, by the sea of pink flowers. She has long, wavy brown hair that seems to blow softly in time with the trees behind her.

She studies me with such uncertainty that I have to wonder if the voice came from someone else. But we’re the only two people here.

I rub my eyes and try to get them to focus. Something about her is… familiar. Did she go to Ambrose? I don’t think so. I knew just about everyone who went there, and I definitely think I would remember her.

“Hi,” I say, raising my hand in the world’s most awkward wave.

She turns to look over her shoulder, as if she’s searching for the person I’m actually waving to.

“Do I know you?” I ask when she turns back to look at me. I’m still trying to place her face, my brain running through sports camps and football games and hallways. She shakes her head no, and though I could swear I’ve seen her before, I don’t press the point. “Did you say something? Just now?”

The girl hesitates, her hazel eyes wide with curiosity. Or maybe surprise. Or maybe confusion that I just had to wrestle with a child-lock lid for a whole minute and a half. “I… didn’t think you’d hear me,” she says.

I take a step closer to her, noticing a smattering of freckles along the bridge of her nose. “I heard someone talking. That was you?”

She seems cautious, like she’s unsure whether or not to answer. Her eyes search mine.

I should turn back to Kim’s grave, the whole reason I’m here, but instead words come tumbling out of my mouth. “Once upon a time, right?”

Her eyes lock on mine, and the five words hang between us.

She pushes her hair behind her ear, face flushing. “I… tell stories,” she says as she lightly touches one of the pink flowers.

“Stories? Like… fairy tales?”

“Yes,” she replies, looking back up at me with a small, pleased smile. “Just like fairy tales.”

“That’s cool,” I say as I stop across from her, the pink flowers between us. The toe of one of her yellow Converse traces a small circle in the dirt. When she doesn’t say anything else, I start to talk again.

“What’s your name?” I ask, but her voice overlaps mine, asking, “Does your head hurt?”

My head? I reach for my scar. I thought my long hair was covering it.

I trace my fingers along it. The pain still lingers, but it’s more distant now. “How did you—”

“Marley,” she says, our words overlapping yet again. “My name is Marley.”

Marley. The name’s not familiar, but her face is.

“I’m Kyle,” I say, trying to keep us on one track of conversation instead of two. “Kyle Lafferty.”

She nods and studies my face for a long moment before saying, “Food helps. With headaches.” My gaze lingers unconsciously on her mouth, her lips delicate and pink, curved up at the corners like two rose petals. “Maybe you should eat? It’s lunchtime,” she continues.

A quick, sharp pain darts across my temple, gone before I can even reach up to touch it.

“Do you… want to get lunch?” she asks.

“Oh,” I say, finally catching on. My stomach sinks. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here for Kim. I shake my head and start to turn away from her. “No. Uh, I should go—”

“But you’re hungry,” she counters.

I open my mouth to object, and as if on cue, my stomach lets out a long, low growl. Perfect. Marley smothers a smile. I have to fight the urge to smile back as a laugh tries to make its way out. It’s such a foreign reaction to me right now, to laugh. But it feels… good.

And she’s right. I am hungry. But… going with her to get lunch would mean leaving before I finish talking to Kim. Even though I have no idea what to say, it doesn’t feel right to do anything else.

So if I can’t do that, I should probably just go home.

“Thanks, but I really can’t,” I say, limping past her down the path as I head toward the gates, defeated.

“Oh. You’re leaving,” she says. Something in her voice makes me turn back around.

I’m more than ready to start my long walk home, but she pushes her hair behind her ear, her hazel eyes expectant.

Keep walking.

I want to, but I feel rooted here, my feet completely disobeying my mind.

Marley takes a step closer to me, but when I don’t say anything, she stuffs her hands in her pockets and looks away.

Maybe she’s lonely? A graveyard isn’t exactly a cool place to hang at lunchtime.

I guess I can relate to that. My social life for the last three months has been hanging out with my mom. Sometimes Sam, more recently, but mostly my mom. Probably not the most normal thing an eighteen-year-old guy could be doing, but I don’t even know how to be normal anymore.

I glance at her again. I mean, it’s just lunch. I was going to go home and eat some cereal or something anyway.

She gives me a small smile, as if she knows what I’m thinking. “So…,” she prompts.

“Let’s get lunch?” I ask.