BROKEN BEGINNINGS

Chapter 3 - I'm dreaming, right?

I stare at Sarah, who looks back at me, cocking her head with a sweet and playful smile. I feel so ashamed to be standing in her presence again. My black nightdress is stained and dirty, while Sarah's robin blue sun dress and straw hat lined with sunflowers hardly show a bit of wear.

I want to shut the door so badly, to close out Sarah and the sun and go back to the shadows, right where I belong. I bite my bottom lip, scolding myself. Don't compare yourself to her, Tarese.

"Aye, hello miss. You must be the new one in town that everyone's talking about." Sarah chirps, acting like I hadn't just killed her last night. But wait, I did kill her last night. So how is she right here? I want to slap myself, and make a mental note to do so once Sarah's gone.

"S-Sarah," I sputter, trying to paste on a smile and act like I wasn't totally freaking out. Smiling has never been my strong suit. For me, it's either a smirk or a frown. Period.

"How do you know my name?" Sarah inquires, curious and annoyingly cheerful.

"I, uh, heard it around t-town," I quickly fib. At least Sarah is a regular topic of village conversation, so I wouldn't be lying then because I must have had heard it somewhere along the way.

"Oh, really? Is Margret bugging folks about that cherry-almond lotion that her husband brought back from Sudan that I refuse  to try because it'll give me rash? Honestly, don't listen to that girl. For all we know, it's cheap vanilla facial scrub in a fancy bottle." Sarah grumbled.

"Um, you lost me at 'Margret', but okay," I mumble, embarrassed by lack of knowledge on beauty products.

Sarah smiles sweetly at me. "Anyways, is it alright if I come for tea later? Brilliant, I'll see you at high noon. Toodloo!" She calls, already bouncing off without letting me answer her question.

I close the door with a sigh. Plopping down on the bottom stair on the foyer staircase, I mull over the conversation I just had with my somehow currently not-dead friend. The part about her being not-dead is confusing enough.

I let out a low laugh with no mirth.

Sarah's always been one to pop in and out, asking people questions and then answering for them. I have no money, tea, nor biscuits. But knowing Sarah, she'll bring her own. She's always claimed to have "fatal allergies" to gluten, red meats, dairy, sugar, and a hundred other things, making her extremely selective about what she eats.

But I finally have a second chance, a chance to make things right. But because of that chance, I have a bigger problem: how do I escape my fate of killing my dear friend?

I sigh, looking up at the foyer mirror, the mirror that was cracked the night I killed Sarah. I take hold of a knife stabbed into the faded wallpaper, and hurtle it into the dead center on the mirror, cracks flying across the silver surface.

I look at myself in the broken glass, making a choice.

I will do anything I can to keep Sarah alive. Anything.