||6x Featured|| Mirna Conlins has a confession: She likes being a runaway. And now, given the chance, Mirna wants to disappear. She just needs some cash before she goes. Watch how her plan unravels as the new boys in town get tangled in her web of l...
I'm drifting on a tiny Bic sailboat. The wind is completely dead, and in the stillness, I find myself going into a panic. I flail around, looking for land, but no matter which way I turn, all I see is the slightly curved blue of the ocean. I need the wind to get home. Without it, I'll be stuck out here drifting forever.
The setting sun turns the sky orange and purple, and still the wind doesn't come. Then slowly, like a song off in the distance, I start to hear something coming. At first it sounds like a whistle, and then it sounds like an annoying beep going off over and over.
My eyes crack open and take in the night sky on my ceiling. Then like going through it all again, I remember, and tears prick at my eyes. I roll and smack my alarm clock so hard it slides across my nightstand and hits the floor. My other arm throbs inside the cast, and my side twinges. The alarm doesn't stop, so I slip out of bed and use my good arm to chuck the alarm clock against the wall. The top snaps off and the room goes silent.
"Mirna?" Deb calls from down the hall.
I sigh and pull myself to my feet. "What?" I call out so she won't worry about me.
Deb appears at the door. She leans against the door jam and puts an earring on. She's wearing a black dress and dark tights, and no makeup. Her face is smudgy, and I can tell she's been crying. "We need to leave in forty-five minutes. Why don't you go shower? Do you need help?" She eyes the black cast on my arm.
I shake my head and watch her go before I get up to grab my towel from the hook by my door. But my towel isn't there, because I didn't shower yesterday. I barely got out of bed yesterday.
I drag my feet down the hallway to the bathroom, lock myself in, and undress. I take a towel from the drawer, drop it on the floor, and get in the shower. Somehow, I remember to slip the plastic bag over my cast before I turn the water on.
For a while, I just stand under the water, but then reality kicks in. I can't be late for Jimmy's funeral. So I do my best one-handed scrubbing as fast as possible, and then jump out of the shower.
Wrapped in a towel, I head back to my room. I get ready with my eyes fixed on the ceiling. Out of nowhere, I'm reminded of the day Jimmy and Deb gave this room to me. He walked me in and said, "This is it. We call it the Sky Room, but now it's Sapph's room." And just like that, for the first time in my life, I had something that I could really call my own.
I look down, surprised to find that I'm dressed in the outfit Deb laid out for me, a solid black sundress with frills at my knees and a thick strap around my neck. I wipe the tears off my face and shudder at where my mind had drifted off to. I study my reflection in the mirror. I look all lopsided, with one arm covered from wrist to bicep in the black cast that's healing my broken arm. Something's missing.
I dig through the jewelry box on my desk and pull out the bracelet that Jimmy ordered for me, all the way from London. For good luck, he said. The sterling silver Watch Over Me moon bracelet came through the accident without a scratch. I lay the bracelet over my wrist and try to do the clasp, but my cast makes it hard to bend my fingers.
After four tries with the bracelet, I end up yelling and throwing the stupid thing across my room. I sink onto my bed and stare at the wall.
Deb walks in, maybe five minutes later, but I barely notice. She takes two steps and stops to pick up the bracelet from the floor. Then she sits on the bed beside me, making us both drift together. Like a drowning victim who finally gives up, I fall into her warm arms and let her hold me up.
Without a word, Deb takes my wrist and clasps the bracelet on me. Then she kisses my fingers and cradles my hand in her lap. I look up to see tears brimming in her eyes, and though she tries to smile, I know she's thinking the same thing I am.
Whyis Jimmy the one who died?
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