To Save Her

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

After pestering Liz, I make my way towards the buses, irritated at myself. Once I get there, I scan the numbers for bus 216 to no avail. I must've missed it. Cursing under my breath, I head towards the parking lot, searching for Roy or Foster.

I spot them both near the entrance of the school and make my way towards them.

"Hey," I greet. They both look over at me, shocked.

"I thought you went home," Foster states. I shrug awkwardly.

"I may have missed my bus," I admit. "Can I get a ride home from one of you?"

"Of course," Roy replies. "In fact, you guys want to come over for dinner tonight? We haven't studied together in a while."

"Sounds good to me," I agree easily, pulling out my phone to send a text to both mom and Trent so they know where I'll be.

"I'm always down if there's food," Foster states with a grin. "I'll meet you guys there, though, gotta go see Patricia for a few."

"Later," Roy and I give him a quick wave before heading towards Roy's car.

"You never miss the bus," Roy states, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. "What happened?"

"I was talking to Liz. Just didn't realize what time it was," I reply, trying to brush it off like it was no big deal.

"How is she doing?" he asks as we climb into his station wagon.

"Um...good," I murmur, unsure, as we buckle ourselves in. She seems fine, but she's not much of a talker.

"You don't sound so sure of that."

"I don't know. It's hard to get her to open up. She tells me a little about herself, but nothing that really explains why I keep having these...dreams."

He pauses as he backs out of the parking spot and joins traffic. "Are you still having the dreams?"

I think for a moment. I actually haven't had one in a while, not since... "Not since she agreed to go on that date with me, actually," I smile, chuckling a little to myself. "Can you believe it? Maybe they're over."

Roy nods. "Don't get too excited, they could come back."

"Maybe," I admit. "I hope not. The only real way to know is to find out what caused them in the first place."

"Maybe it was an internal thing. A worry you didn't know you had."

"But how? And what could've prompted it? I mean, I've known little about Liz, really just who she was and that she's in my class. It's not enough to prompt something like that," I state, mulling over the possibilities. It still seems weird to me; seeing her die with no background to it. One day, I thought nothing about her other than she was a classmate, and the next day I'm having anxiety over her possibly killing herself.

"Did anyone say something about her to you? Did you even just overhear a conversation about her?" Roy asks, glancing at me before staring back at the truck in front of us as he attempts to exit the busy student parking lot.

"No, not that I remember. Trust me, if there was something like that, I would've told you before when we first talked about this."

He sighs. "I know...I just cannot fathom what else may have caused them. Maybe you just don't remember it. It could've been something so insignificant to you that you don't remember."

I roll my eyes, propping my elbow on the door and resting my chin atop my hand. "Maybe," I mutter, still disbelieving. If someone was talking about another student killing themselves or being depressed, I think I would've remembered it. Nothing about those things are insignificant. Hell, I don't think I recall anyone even talking about her. Of course people talk, but there was nothing recent that could've been serious enough to cause me to dream about her killing herself. Part of me is starting to believe there's some outside source...something not of this world. I know Roy would brush it off if I mentioned it to him, though, so I might as well keep quiet about that theory.