Ticking Clocks

Chapter 14

"Any luck?" Eli asked, walking into the room.

We had been in Italy for four days now. During the day, we toured the city of Rome and places near by and during the night, I would search for the earliest plane tickets back to America that were within our budget. So far, I had no luck. It seemed that all the flights were either booked, too far away, extremely expensive, or would take us to New York.

"Not yet," I replied, sighing and leaning back against the wall.

"I can't believe there's not one flight that will take us back to California within the week," Eli said, sitting on the bed next to me.

"You can't?" I asked. He shook his head. "I can," I said.

"How come?" he asked.

"Well, for one thing, we're trying to get tickets this week. People usually book flights months in advance to get cheap tickets. We're more than half way done with our trip, which means we have less than half our original budget. The tickets we bought to go back to California from Moscow have gone to waste; we can't return them. If we want to find a flight within the week, we'll have to pay triple the amount most people pay for a normal flight. And we don't have that kind of money right now," I said.

"I guess you're right. And everything's booked?" he asked. I nodded.

"There might be one or two seats available, but not 5. And definitely not 5 economy class seats," I replied.

"Have you checked the other countries yet?" he asked.

"Not yet. I'm about to," I said.

He sighed and leaned back against the wall.

"Have you guys gotten a hold of Brooke yet?" I asked. He shook his head.

"We've tried calling like a million times. I think her dad turned her phone off," he replied.

"And she hasn't turned it back on?" I asked, looking at him worriedly.

"It doesn't seem like it," he replied.

"Maybe she's in surgery?" I suggested.

"For that long, though? Surgeries don't last two days," he said. I frowned.

"I guess you're right," I muttered. "God, I hope nothing bad happened," I said.

I felt the feeling of dread creep up my neck as I thought of the worst possible scenarios that could have happened to Brooke. Maybe her liver had truly failed her. Maybe they couldn't find a match in time. Maybe they had discovered a cancer. Maybe it was worse than all of those things. Maybe she was d--

I felt a drumming begin in my ears and my vision go slightly blurry. I was going to cry.

I put Eli's laptop on the bed and got up.

"Where are you going?" Eli asked. I hid my face from him, shaking my hair so that it created a curtain to veil my face.

"I just have to go to the bathroom," I said. But my voice squeaked. And Eli knew me too well.

He was up and in front of me in a matter of seconds. He cupped my face in his hands so that I was looking at him.

"If anything happened, we would have found out," he said.

"How? Who would have told us?" I asked, my eyes already welling up with tears. I couldn't stand the thought of my best friend dying.

"Alyssa's mom. We told her to keep an eye on Brooke, remember? To tell us if anything happens. She's fine," he told me.

I knew he was right, but my mind was already way ahead of reason. The tears began to spill over onto my cheeks and I found myself losing control. I tried to break free of Eli's grip, but he held on. He pulled me close to him and I buried my face in his chest, letting my sobs come freely.