Ellen hadn't wanted to stay long after that.
She'd seemed jumpy, hurried even, constantly glancing around and refusing to touch the glass of water Alysia brought over to drink. She physically avoided it, floating as far away as she could while still remaining at the table.
(Alysia told herself it was the water because if it wasn't, if it was like those picnics where people would scoot away from her discreetly, like she didn't notice, like it didn't hurt her-)
Alysia hadn't managed to finish the second ice cream - Ellen kept saying things like "Let's go" and "I don't like people, Aly, I don't like being here-", and it really put a damper on the mood.
Nonetheless, Alysia had stretched her cheeks into a bright smile and said, "Of course.", striding away to dump the remaining ice cream into a trash can by the register.
After all, she didn't meet Ellen for nothing, and dream or not, she wasn't going to lose her new friend to something as petty as forcing her to stay when obviously, she wanted to do anything but.
She was better than that.
So she and Ellen left, and she told herself that it didn't hurt when Ellen immediately drifted for the river, ignoring Alysia, ignoring her stuttered, "Goodbye", but it did.
(It did)
_
That night at dinner, Alysia's mother asked where she went.
"The river." Alysia told her.
"Oh! That's wonderful - did you meet one of your friends?"
Alysia was hurt and abandoned and lost, but she still replied yes, because what was Ellen if not a friend?
_
That night, Alysia lowered herself into the soft embrace of her sheets and comforter and stared at the ceiling.
(She stared at the ceiling and saw Ellen there, waving, and it made her so happy she could overlook the water and the lack of a goodbye)
(She could)
YOU ARE READING
Water's Edge ✔️
Paranormal"Don't go near the water." Thirty years ago, teenager Ellen Harper fell prey to the roiling rapids of her town's only river. And yet still she roams the sight of her passing, neither dead nor alive. "Don't listen to the whispers." Played off as a t...
