My Darkest Desire (girlxgirl)

Chapter Eight

As she told herself she would, Cricket got out of bed the next morning with full intentions to speak with her friend about her suspicions.

She didn't even bother to fix her hair or anything, needing to get this over with. Her heart was thumping madly in her chest as she knocked on Carolina's door, wringing her hands together.

"Come in!" Came the blonde's reply, and Cricket walked in to find her taking great care in perfecting her mascara with the help of her vanity mirror, which made the brunette frown. Carolina never did her makeup unless...

"Where are you going?" She asked, moving to sit on the unmade bed.

"Danny invited me to go fourwheeling." Carolina said, getting started on her other eye.

"Oh..."

Great, now there was no way she could talk to her best friend. At least not right now, not before Carolina went off to...wait a minute.

"Since when do you ride fourwheelers?" Cricket asked with a perked eyebrow. The blonde was a New York City type of girl, not a back roads West Virginia girl. She hated to get dirty, and she complained the entire time the two girls and her family went camping two summers ago.

Carolina half-shrugged in the mirror. "I don't know, now I guess. I didn't know if you'd still be sick or not, and I didn't want to just sit here if you hid in your room all day. Plus, Danny's kind of cute, don't you think?"

What the fuck?

"I guess," Cricket replied tersely, already getting up to leave the room. "Have fun, I guess."

Carolina seemed to notice that something wasn't right now, and she spun around to face her best friend. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sick," Cricket said as convincingly as she could. "I'm going back to bed. Have fun."

She could hear the blonde calling out for her as she headed back for her bedroom, but she didn't dare turn around. She shut her own door once she was safely inside and crawled right back into bed.

What the fuck was with Carolina's sudden interest in boys? And this fourwheeling shit...

Cricket couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed at this. Now what was she supposed to do?

The sound of the front door closing made her squeeze her eyes shut, and she yanked her covers up over her head.

The last thought she had before she fell asleep again was of Carolina and Danny, acting as the picture-perfect couple.

How long she had been out for the second time around, she wasn't sure of. At least she hadn't dreamed a thing, so there was nothing dark to recover from. But there wasn't anything happy to lift her mood, either.

She awoke to hands shaking her, and she batted them away half-heartedly as she mumbled a 'go away.'

"Cricket, you need to wake up!"

Carolina's mom? But why would she need Cricket awake so urgently?

Slowly, her hazel eyes fluttered open and she came face-to-face with Mrs. Borgenson's bewildered expression. Something had happened.

"What?" She asked, suddenly alert as she pulled herself to a sitting position.

"Carolina..." The woman choked, and Cricket realized for the first time how badly her friend's mother was shaking.

"What about her?" She demanded, her own pulse beginning to quicken in her ears. All at once, she remembered.

Danny invited me to go fourwheeling.

No...there was no way. Danny was a lot of things, but he wasn't reckless....at least not towards a girl, right? He wouldn't have let anything happen to the blonde...

"That Danny boy..." Mrs. Borgenson said, her green eyes glassy with tears as she confirmed Cricket's fear. "He called just five minutes ago. Said that there'd been an accident. Carolina...."

She broke off for a moment, her fist at her mouth as she tried to suppress a sob. "She was going up a ramp, and she didn't go fast enough and the fourwheeler just....dropped off the top. She fell off, and it landed..."

Cricket put her hand on the woman's arm to silence her. She didn't need to nor did she want to hear the rest - she had a pretty good idea of what had happened to her best friend already.

"Is she okay?" Cricket got out, feeling her own emotions well up inside of her.

Mrs. Borgenson lost it at that point, and Cricket thought her own heart had stopped.

"I don't know!" She sobbed into her hands. "We need to go..."

The brunette was on her feet and guiding a shaking Mrs. Borgenson towards the door almost instantly.

"Do you think you can drive?" Cricket asked, because she wasn't so keen on the idea of getting into a car with the woman in her current state.

Mrs. Borgenson didn't answer - her body convulsing with sobs as she let herself be dragged out the front door. That was enough of a response that the younger female needed, however, and she retrieved the keys from the hook next to the door before guiding her friend's mother to the passenger side of the family's Pontiac.

It was hard for Cricket to drive as well, her mind moving a hundred miles an hour while she fought to keep the car going a steady thirty-five.

What kind of state would Carolina be in when they arrived? Would she still be there?

She couldn't imagine life without her best friend.

And if Mrs. Borgenson lost her only daughter...her only child...

Cricket wasn't religious, but she sent a quick prayer to the big guy in the sky as she continued on to the hospital.