Separian - Book 1

Chapter 21

It was still raining, even now. I don't know how John and the kids had all made it home in this weather, safely. I would probably be camping out in the school cafeteria right now, were I still in Maryland. At least now that the kids were home, they wouldn't have to leave for school tomorrow morning if this kept up. They'd be safe here with the rest of their family.

"Six?" It was too typical a pastime for us now. Trivial and outdated as the game was, we found that Go-Fish was the simplest way for us to open up. Something that a direct conversation didn't always allow for. Because here, it didn't feel like we were talking directly to one another, and yet, there wasn't anyone else here. Like telling the truth while sitting on the opposite side of bulletproof glass. If I had to compare it to something more rational, I would liken it to a phone call. You were always doing something separate from the conversation, but you had to keep up. So far, this childhood classic was the way that worked for us. Only now, there was far less space between us than there was earlier today.

"Nope. Any threes?" I reached to the center of my hand and drew the card she'd asked for and handed it off. "Do you think about her much?" I looked up from my hand. "Sarah, I mean." I raised my eyebrows and returned to my cards once I understood.

"It's not that I don't wish things hadn't ended the way they did," I began. " Like it or not, she's still my best friend, if only because she knows so much about me that nobody else bothered to hear or notice and vice versa. It just came so suddenly and I couldn't stop her; like a bad dream. I doubt she lifted a finger to try and find me when I left. Any sixes?"

"Go fish," she said and went on. "I don't think that's true and I don't think you really believe that. Do you have a king, yet?" Her frustration with having asked for the same card since the beginning of this game amused me. I handed her one of the last two cards in my hand and drew from the deck without asking for what I already knew she didn't have, again. I'd been down to two cards three times so far and every time she hadn't had either one that I needed. So, of course, I asked and then drew until I was holding four cards again and then repeated the process. "What's more, I don't think she's ignorant enough to know the effect her words may have had on you, at least from what you've told me about her. If anything, she feels personally responsible for your disappearance. Any fives?" I handed her the card I'd drawn and then drew again as my turn rolled around, pondering what she'd said. "But, I will admit, she was your best friend for four years and all of a sudden it just wasn't working for her? That smells more than a bit fishy to me. Any sevens?"

I shook my head and she drew. "What do you mean by fishy? Do you have a six?"

"I wish, but sadly, I don't." She showed off her smile, "Go fish." I caught the pun, finally. "What I meant was, if it was as jarring for you as it sounds to me, then I'd say something else, something very important must have up. Probably a move to another country or another state and she wanted to cut her ties without delaying the pain until she actually left. Still, it seems to me that she wouldn't have a problem keeping in touch and visiting frequently, even if that were the case. So maybe it was something even bigger than that. Any twos?"

I handed over the card I just drew and drew again. I'd finally retrieved the six I'd been after for the past ten rounds. Amy had won though, with two pairs more than me. "Well the only thing I can think of bigger than relocation is a death in the family, but everyone in her immediate family was fine and healthy the last time I checked, and she didn't have a problem coming to me when her aunt passed away last year."

"Well, maybe everyone else is fine. Maybe she's the one with the problem."

"What?" I asked. "You mean cancer?"

She bridged the cards and let them fall into one deck again, "Maybe. She didn't exactly give a whole lot of reasoning. But as far as reasons go, that seems like the best fit, to me." She dealt each of us seven cards and we fished through them, laying our pairs down before we began again. I was already down to three cards and she was stuck at five. I'd won less than ten percent of the games we played so I wasn't going to hold my breath. "I've known cancer patients who've reacted similarly to her. She probably just doesn't want to involve anyone she doesn't have to. King?"