Whispers that Scream

Chapter Nineteen

Jane

Jane was pacing back and forth in her living room on the morning of the coffee date with Sarah. It was only 9:00 am, and she was meeting Sarah at a local café in New Orleans at noon. She didn't know what to do with herself as she slightly adjusted a pillow on the couch for the 5th time. She was nervous and the abundant amount of energy that was overflowing from her had her bouncing around her house. She stared down at her outfit of a blouse and jeans and couldn't remember the last time she had even slightly dressed up for anything.

She didn't know how this meeting was going to go with her former best friend. How mad was Sarah? Would she even give Jane a chance to explain her absence of support during the most difficult time in Sarah's life? She had lost her unborn child, and she and her husband had been going through such difficulties, that they had even separated for a period of time. Jane had responded to that desperate plea by ghosting her. Images of Sarah reaching out to her best friend for some level of comfort and receiving no reply assaulted her mind.

Her stomach churned, and she ran to the bathroom, barely making it before throwing the contents of her stomach up. After emptying her stomach, Jane wiped her mouth with a shaky hand. She washed her mouth out and looked at herself in the mirror, noting that she had popped a blood vessel in one of her eyes.

Should I reschedule? 

She hadn't even left the house yet and her anxiety was wrecking her. No. She won't leave Sarah hanging again. She needed to keep her word and start to build back some of the trust she had broken. She was going even if it killed her.

She sat on her couch, staring at the wall and begging the minutes to go by faster. Her phone buzzed on her knee, and her heart dropped. She took a steadying breath while grabbing her phone with her eyes shut tight. "Please don't cancel. Please don't cancel," she whispered to herself.

She peeked quickly at the screen with one eye shut. It was a text from Adam.

Why the hell would he scare me like? She angrily glared at her wall as if she could make him feel her glare through their homes. She opened the text to see that it was another GIF with no message. He liked doing that for some reason, and for another reason she didn't quite understand, she liked getting them.

This time the gif was of a young child. The young child was running down the stairs with a cupcake, but she was moving down the stairs way faster than her short little legs were able to do so safely. The child got near the bottom and tripped on the last step, face-planting into the cupcake. The child looked up at the camera, face full of frosting, before breaking out into hysterical sobbing.

Jane froze as the video started to play again. She ground her teeth and hissed at the phone. What did you see??? Tell me the truth, and I'll make your death quick and painless.

A picture of a cartoon character whistling and trying to look inconspicuous was all she got back. "Dammit," she muttered, throwing her phone at the pillow on the couch. I could have sworn he was still inside when that happened. Without her realizing it, her annoyance at Adam's text had finally lowered her anxiety a bit. At 10:30, she finally couldn't wait anymore and headed out to her car.

She jerkily headed out to her car focused on moving one leg after the other toward her goal. Her feet shuffled across the driveway, her legs too stiff to be able to pick her feet up high enough with each step. She got into her Sonata and was about to put the car in reverse when she noticed a note on her windshield along with a small white box that she had overlooked. She got out of the car, wondering who had put these things on her car. She grabbed the note and the box and returned to the inside of her car.