Till Death do us Part

All in Parts and Pieces

I stared hard at my reflection, unmoving, the same way I’d been doing it for the last thirty minutes. I couldn’t walk away, didn’t want to move. We’d only jetted out of my apartment yesterday, and the encounter was still bright in my mind.

“I am you.”

I didn’t want to be that thing.

I didn’t want to be anything besides Evangeline Walker. I didn’t want any trace of that foul being inside of me, or a part of me.

“Evie.”

I peered at Kevin through the mirror. Luna had moved us into the home of her psychic buddy, who was out of town for a few months but graciously letting us shack up in her place. Luna had ordered me not to leave the premises, and Kevin to keep a sharp eye on me. Kevin and I were forced to share a room, as Luna claimed she needed her own space for various reasons I didn’t care to question. She was an odd woman.

So I’d pretty much enclosed myself in the room, staring into the mirror, hard, intensely, searching for a sign. Any sign, to offer some explanation behind what that eerie skeletal thing had said. I had yet to find anything, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

Kevin set down a bowl of soup and crackers. I cast an uninterested look at it, pushing the bowl away.

“Evie, you have to eat,” he urged.

“Not hungry,” I muttered in a monotone.

And I hadn’t been. I just couldn’t eat, at all. Everything tasted like cardboard, and it churned my stomach with nausea when I did try and choke something down.

All I could do was stare at my reflection, try to suppress the fear corrupting me from the inside out.

“Come on, Evie,” he persisted. “I will feed you if I have to.”

I smirked, opened my mouth. He blinked.

“Are you serious?”

“Yep,” I said, popping the ‘p’.

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, dipping the spoon in the soup and lifting it to my face. I closed my lips around the spoon, gulping down the chicken broth.

“Delicious,” I said. “There. I ate something.”

The spoon clattered back into the bowl. “You are impossible.”

I turned away from the mirror and moved toward the bed, lying on my side across the bedspread. “Where’s Luna?”

“Out. I was given strict orders not to let you leave.”

“So you’re baby-sitting me.”

“Yes.”

“Fantastic.”

“Hey, if you could just do what you’re told, you wouldn’t need one.” He perched on the bed my head, thrusting the soup toward me. “Now eat. I’m already dead, and I don’t need you joining me.”

I rolled on my stomach, mashing my face into my arms. “I’m not hungry.”

“Well, that’s just too bad.”

“Wow. Try not to care too much, there.”

“Evie.” He ran his fingers through my hair, down the length of my back. “Eat your damn soup.”

I turned my head, staring up at him. “When you put it like that, how could I possibly say no?”

Kevin rolled his eyes, standing from the bed. I sat up myself, cradling the bowl in my hands and forcing spoonfuls of soup into my mouth.