Tricking Death

Chapter 11 - Palm Readings

I figured that Death wouldn't be coming back that night, and dragged myself up to my room. I barely had the energy to change into my pajamas, and I was grateful when I didn't dream. 

I didn't want to have another dream like the one from last night. 

I knew I was going to have to write off school again, especially since I was covered in bruises that I wouldn't be able to explain. The last thing I needed was an overly concerned social worker called in to start poking around in my messed up life. I was glad that I wouldn't have to come up with some stupid excuse to get out of work, because I know that Alison would have flipped out and threatened Ryan with bloody murder without even pausing to hear the whole story first. I also knew that she was going to be texting me at some point during the day to demand details of the date but I had no idea what I was going to say to her. My head was completely focused on what had happened with Death; not the only pleasant part of the evening. 

When I limped out of bed in the morning, I heard the radio playing down in the shop and decided to go see what was going on. My aunts and my mom were attacking the mess that had been left behind from last night with dusters, vacuums, mops, brooms and all manner of other tools, and I instantly felt guilty. 

"Hey, sweetie," my mom sounded so overly cheerful that it made me cringe. "How'd you sleep?" 

"Fine," I mumbled down at my feet, not wanting to meet their eyes. I grabbed a broom and started sweeping up the remains of a figurine that had been broken before it was snatched right out of my hands by Jean. 

"Wha-?" 

"Go get some food in you and get showered and dressed. We're cleaning this up." 

"No, I helped make this mess, so-" 

"Listen to your aunt, Emily," my mom warned, still working at reattaching the door to the back room with a screwdriver. 

"No, that's not fair-" 

"What's not fair is what we did last night," Joan said sadly. "Now, go do what Jean told you to do." 

Knowing that there was no way I was going to win this argument, I trudged back upstairs to do as I was told. 

I was moping and just generally feeling sorry for myself on the couch when I heard the bell that we had installed go off, meaning that someone had just walked in through the front door downstairs. We'd been forced to put it in after a couple weeks, after leaving a few customers in the awkward situation of trying to decide whether they should call out, go up the stairs, or just leave. One unfortunate customer did decide to climb the stairs to the apartment once, but that's a story for another time. Only really important thing is that there was a lot of screaming and the decision that a bell would be a good idea. 

I wasn't sure if anyone was going to be in a state to answer the door, or if they had decided to leave earlier to get some more cleaning supplies or whatnot, so I headed down the stairs. 

Then, I looked up and saw Ryan standing around, looking kind of confused. Jean, Joan and my mom had done a pretty good job of cleaning up so far, but the place still obviously looked very different than what he had seen last night, even without all of the mops and brooms everywhere. 

"Ryan! What are you doing here?" 

The confused look didn't leave his face as he turned to look at me. "What happened last night after I left?" 

"Uh," I couldn't think of a single thing to say to him that wasn't the truth, even though that's exactly what he didn't need to hear. 

Luckily, I was saved by the sudden appearance of my aunt Joan.