Transformed || l.h.

Chapter Four

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

“Ugh.”

Pulling herself out of bed, Georgia pulls on a pair of athletic shorts and a cut-out shirt, lacing up her trainers afterward. She looks at the clock, “Five forty-two.” She nods her head at herself, grabs a water bottle out of the fridge, and sets out on her weekend jog. Starting out on her road and then going to the high school, Georgia listens to the music flowing through her headphones – a mix of Blink 182, All Time Low, Sleeping with Sirens and the likes – focusing only on the path in front of her feet.

Her tennis shoes slap against the asphalt as she makes a turn past the coffee shop and book store, continuing past the Laundromat and farmer’s market. When she passes by the park, though, she sees a familiar figure on the other side, jogging on the sidewalk parallel to herself. “What…?” Georgia mumbles, squinting her eyes to make sure she’s seeing the correct thing.

Luke Hemmings in a pair of basketball shorts and a tee-shirt with his own music shoved into his ears, completely forgetting the world.

The thing that becomes even more strange is the path he takes – it’s the same one Georgia takes.

She sighs before continuing on as if nothing has happened and she isn’t being led by her least favorite male on the planet. Her feet take her as if they would if Luke weren’t here and her arms pump as if she isn’t racking with nerves. Georgia jogs down the sidewalk, trying to keep her head down but high enough that she can watch where Luke is going. He takes a right, just like she would, and then takes a left… Just like she would. Georgia’s eyebrows pull together and a frown paints her lips, wondering why Luke is headed to this place in particular. She watches as she sees him bend down in midst of his running and pluck one of the few little flowers that dot the roadside and he holds it gingerly to his chest, cradling it almost.

Georgia follows at a further distance as he opens the wrought iron gate and slips through; she slows to a stop behind a dense patch of bushes. When she sees Luke drop the flower to the ground and pause for a second at the slab of stone, she swears she sees tears prick at his eyes, but he’s turned the opposite way and continuing along the path back out of the cemetery before she can double check to be one hundred percent positive.

Once she can no longer hear the smacking of rubber soles against asphalt, Georgia approaches the headstone that Luke recently passed by. She sees his little wildflower on the ground and so she bends down, running her hand over the grime covering the engraving on the stone.

“Abigail Hemmings,” she says slowly, realizing the fullness of the situation. “And Levi Hemmings.”

Georgia takes in a gasp as she reads the caption underneath the two names, “Beloved mother and sister, and a child not yet able to be loved in the flesh, but loved nonetheless.” She feels a rock fall into the pit of her stomach and Georgia doesn’t realize it, but she’s dropped to her knees, the soil gritting into her exposed knee caps. She pushes her fingers into the dates at the bottom only for her fears to be made real. “They died on the same day,” she says quietly, feeling tears of her own appear behind her eyelids. She blinks a few times to ward them off, but the feelings are there nonetheless. To herself she wonders if Abigail is Luke’s mom; the thought makes her choke on her very breath.

Before she can feel any worse than she already does and just break down crying, she pushes herself up to her feet and begins jogging back home, the heady thoughts lingering in her mind no matter how much she wants to forget them.

~*~

“You’re home!” Georgia exclaims as she walks through the door to see her father sat on the couch, cartoons flashed up on the television.