The Eighth Day

Chapter 19

Ryan Marshall woke with a scream trapped in his throat and sat up in bed. "Don't—"

But the dream flittered on the periphery of his consciousness before dissipating like a mist beneath the rising sun.

"Don't." He repeated his plea in a soft, desperate whisper, hoping to jar something loose, but only the rapid beat of his heart remained. He wiped at his eyes with the heels of his hands and glanced at the rumpled sheets and pillow next to his own. A faint perfume lingered in the air, and his hands fell into his lap as he stared at her side of the bed—which was unsettling, because he lived alone.

He'd met Victoria two months after his parents' funeral. He'd been back at Ohio State, on his way to or from some class or other, backpack slung over one shoulder, battered Chuck Taylors scuffing along the pavement. She sat on a black iron bench at the edge of Mirror Lake beneath a cloudless sky, elbows on her knees, face buried in her palms. Ryan had almost passed her by, but as he approached his crossroads of destiny, he instead chose the path where he unslung his backpack and dropped it between his knees as he sat beside her and offered a handkerchief. She wiped at her eyes and tucked her raven-black hair behind one ear. In spite of her sorrow, she was beautiful.

"Thanks," she said, sniffling.

"You want to talk about it?" he asked.

"Not really."

So they sat, listening to distant conversations carried on the wind as the reflection of the trees danced across the surface of Mirror Lake, their leaves shimmering. The closeness of her thigh to his carried an electric charge that was impossible to ignore.

"My parents are dead," she said. "Both of them."

"Mine, too," he said.

Victoria turned toward him, eyebrows drawn into a crease. She thought he was putting her on.

"Drunk driver." He shrugged. "Happened a couple months ago. Still hoping it's a bad dream, and I'll wake up."

Out of the corner of his eye, she studied him in profile. He twined his hands together while he waited for her to make up her mind about him. The sun warmed his cheeks.

At last she asked, "Watch the news lately? Hear about the suicide bomber in that mall in Cleveland last week?"

"Oh my God."

"Yeah." She spit the word out. "Son of a bitch had enough ONC strapped to his chest to—well, to level a mall." She choked on something that came out half laugh and half sob. "And you wanna know the worst part? I asked my mom to pick me up some shampoo. Had to have this certain brand from this certain store. They were at the mall because I wanted some goddamn shampoo."

Ryan studied the lines on his knuckles and the jagged ends of his fingernails bitten to the quick. "For me, the funeral was the worst part," he said. "There was no family. No aunts or uncles or anything like that, just some people who knew my parents from work or were neighbors or whatever. I didn't know them from Adam. We stood around the caskets while this preacher who must've been a hundred years old gave us the old 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' Everyone kept telling me how sorry they were and what great people my parents had been. Some guy actually told me to 'hang in there.' I wanted to slug him. Afterward, he and everyone else went back to their regularly scheduled lives. I went home to an empty house. In the fridge, there was this carton of milk, and I pictured my mom in the grocery store, comparing the expiration dates like always, not knowing she'd expire before it did."

She stared at him and blinked. "Well then. Don't we make quite the pair?" A corner of her mouth twitched upward.

Ryan laughed, not because it was funny, but because it wasn't. Victoria caught his laughter as if it were contagious, and they devolved into hysterical fits that left them gasping for breath and wiping at their eyes.