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Chapter 12

She runsup her apartment steps, shoes slapping painfully against the aged tile. Sara doesn't care. Her heart is hammering in her chest; a war drum in her ears. A blistering combination of worry and fear that leaves her lungs burning and her skin flushed. In her bag, she feels her cell phone slap against her thigh with every lunging step.

She just needs her car key—run in, run out, drive. It repeats, a mantra to keep her steady. Her hand shakes as she fits the key into her lock, and she nearly breaks it off with how hard she turns it, but she doesn't care. She shoves it open, the adjacent wall saved only by the twang of the doorstop.

The car key should be in the kitchen—it's always in the kitchen, hanging on the hook just beside the fridge.

From his—no, her wingback chair, Seth's voice reaches her. "Well now, that was dramatic."

Taunting. Always taunting.

Her blood freezes, face paling. She hadn't even considered the possibility—she hadn't had the time to—but there he sits, elegant and poised, and now she wonders how she could have ever overlooked it.

"It was you." A statement. A fact. She won't let him convince her of anything else.

He scoffs, but the teasing glint fades from his eyes. "Was it now?"

"How could you?" The words are breathy, barely audible between her heaving gasps, but the edges of each syllable are serrated—Sara hopes they cut him to the bone.

His stare is wary, eyes flitting between her clenched fists and her barred teeth. Slowly, he stands. Sara finds a small amount of satisfaction in the careful way he approaches her—as if she were wild. As if she were dangerous. "Princess, I haven't the faintest idea what you"re on about."

It's too much. Him pretending not to know is worse than him denying it, and all the fear and anger she's harbored since receiving the call increases tenfold—burning her chest and spilling down her cheeks. The instinct to hurt him is overwhelming.

Her fist flies.

She knows it will pass through him, knows that it won't inflict the pain she wants it to, but her eyes are blurry and the pain in her chest is only coiling tighter. She just wants him to hurt. Wants to seek whatever shred of satisfaction she might find in watching her fist pass through his stupid face.

Her knuckles meet flesh—cracking painfully against his jaw—and he staggers. His eyes, as wide as her own, are open in ways she won't let herself notice. The wounded expression—the shock parting his mouth—it's either her imagination or a trick and she won't be lured in by it. She won't.

He flees, between one blink and the next, and Sara stands alone in her living room with aching knuckles and a hammering heart. Her knees fail her, exhaustion cresting over the anger, and she slides to the floor.

She hates that, even in the midst of her hiccuping sob, she keeps thinking back to the dismay that shone in Seth's eyes the moment before he blinked away.

It takes halfan hour before she feels safe enough to drive.

When she puts the key in the ignition, she can feel the hysteria begin to bubble—a pressure in her throat, a hiccup in her lungs—but she forces herself to breathe through it.

She doesn't think about Seth; doesn't think about the emotion in his eyes the split second before he blinked away. She doesn't think about anything. Flashing the turn signal, merging onto the freeway, it's all done with a numbness that makes her feel more machine than human.

That's ok, though. Right now, she would rather feel the clicking of gears than the pain in her chest.

It's an hour's drive, but it somehow manages to feel twice as long. Sara doesn't remember any of it; just a blur of asphalt and cornfields. She's on autopilot until the exact moment when she pulls into the hospital parking lot, and all the emotions she repressed on the drive hits her with a force that leaves her gasping.

Still, she makes it to Oma's room—a mess of tears and heartache. The staff gives her soft, pitying glances as she passes while simultaneously trying to avoid eye contact so they can continue doing their jobs.

It's like David all over again, but worse (so, so much worse). There is no hope hiding away in the corners of her heart, no promise of ‘maybe'. Oma is dying. Soon she'll be gone.

Oma's hand pats her cheek, fragile and weathered. "It's ok, sweet girl. I've made my peace."

The tears come faster. Harder. Sara chokes on a sob, snot running down her throat. Oma shushes her softly, but the sound doesn't soothe the break. Not this time. "I don't want you to go," she whimpers, grasping at her grandmother's hand. She hates how cold it feels against her palm.

"I know," Oma whispers between a rattling breath, "I know."

Sara shakes her head, eyes burning. "There has to be something they can do," she hiccups. "There has to be."

Oma softens, voice strong in a way her body isn't—level in a way that makes Sara's break. "Some things just are," she says, hand reaching up to stroke her granddaughter's hair. "I've had a good life."

But you should have more,Sara wants to scream. You should have longer.But she can't bring herself to say the words, because there is no fear hiding behind her grandmother's blue eyes—no regrets.

Oma smiles, cool hands reaching up to cup Sara's tear flushed cheeks. "Listen to me, sweet girl. When the time comes, you'll need to speak to Janice. She's the executor of my will. She'll make sure everything is taken care of. Do you understand?"

Sara does, but she doesn't want to. "But—"

"Sara," she chastises, and for a moment she looks so much like the grandmother Sara remembers—scolding her for stealing an extra cookie from the jar or trying to fib her way out of finishing her homework. "Do you understand?"

The words won't come—they're lodged like a knife between her heart and her throat—so, around another hiccuping sob, Sara nods.

With patient hands, Oma guides her closer until her face is buried in the crook of her neck—her grandmother's fragile arms wrapped around her. Despite her weakness, her hold is strong; a tether in the storm. A lifeline. Sara's terrified of what will become of her once it snaps.

"I know it's hard, and I know it hurts, but all things heal. Even the heart." Oma presses a kiss to her temple, her words a whispered promise against her skin. "I'm ready and, in the end, that is the most any of us can hope for."

Two days later,Sara leaves Oma's side to grab breakfast from the hospital cafeteria. She's not gone long (fifteen minutes at most) but when she comes back, the bran muffin she ate weighs like a stone. There are too many nurses going in and out of Oma's room, and when she catches one of their eyes, Sara knows. She knows that she missed that last goodbye, traded it away for a crappy muffin that Oma could have made ten times better with less.

The nurse consoles her, hand rubbing practiced circles on her back as she explains that sometimes this is what happens. Sometimes the dying wait until there is no one to watch them go; no one to be haunted by the sound of that final, rasping breath.

Maybe it's true. If it is, Sara finds no comfort in it. She cries until it hurts, until someone comes to take Oma—no. Not Oma. Oma's gone. It's just her body (a body, the deceased own nothing). It feels like only minutes, but she knows it must have been at least an hour before they wheel it away to the morgue in the basement. Sara tries not to think of the steel wall of refrigerated, temporary graves—tries not to think of how her grandmother's face is among its patrons—but it presses against the lids of her eyes; a horrible vision she can't shake.

One of the nurses, the one that soothed her while she sobbed, asks if Oma had any family she can call. Anyone she can grieve with.

Sara thinks of the red sedan that drove away and never returned; thinks of the daughter at the wheel. She could find her—she knows she could, if she really tried. Her mother would want to come for the service at least, wouldn't she?

Shouldn'tshe?

Sara wasn't the only one abandoned when her mother left. Oma hadn't heard from her since she drove off. Sara frowns.

"No," she says, voice hoarse. "No other family."

Her mother should be there, she should know, but that doesn't mean she deserves to. She lost that right the moment she walked away without ever bothering to look back.

On the way home,halfway into her drive, she stops by a tattoo shop. The bell rings over her head, a tauntingly merry chime, and she grits her teeth to quell the tears.

The woman behind the counter takes one look at her, eyes softening in pity. Dark hair is swept into a ponytail, the colorful sea of floral ink decorating her arms and neck on full display. "Lose someone?"

Sara nods, voice too raspy to be trusted by itself. "My grandmother."

The artist nods, her smile sweet and knowing. Sara wonders how many others have walked through that same door, listened to that same taunting chime, while carrying the same ache in their heart. "Come on back and we'll set you up, honey."

Numb, Sara follows. Sits on the bench. Reminds herself to breathe.

"Do you know what you want?"

Sara thinks of the springs she spent in her grandmother's flower garden, cutting roses and making bouquets for the table. She remembers searching for ladybugs—how her grandmother would tell her to make a wish every time she found one hiding between the thorns. Sara can only think of one wish now, and it's to remember how Oma looked on those spring days; smiling and happy with her favorite polka dot sundress and an iced tea sweating in her hand.

"A ladybug," Sara rasps, pulling her shorts down to expose her hip. "Right here."

Where only her eyes will see, where her father never will.

She doesn't want to give him the opportunity to tarnish it with his opinions.

Seth doesn't return homeuntil the following afternoon. Sara hasn't left her bed for anything less than pressing, and she curls deeper into her covers when he enters. The tattoo on her hip stings, a physical reminder of the pain in her heart. It pairs well with the bruising ache across her knuckles. Somehow, the pain is grounding.

She can feel him hovering at the edge of her vision; a silent shadow. She hates that he doesn't speak when, before, that's all he ever seemed to do. Hates that he's decent enough to be almost human. It would be easier to suffer his taunts, to be angry, than his pitying gaze.

Refusing to look away from the dramatic grayscale of the Half Dome print framed beside her bed, she swallows down the emotion threatening to choke her. She has to ask; she has to know. "It really wasn't you?"

A pause, then—in a voice so soft she could hate him for it—he answers. "No."

Sara pulls the comforter over her head, but doesn't bother stifling her tears.

He doesn't come back.Not that day, or the day after. Sara almost thinks she's rid of him, but can't quite find it in her heart to believe it. Whether he's doing it for her benefit or his own, she's thankful for the space. For the quiet.

Ansel follows her like a shadow. If she's in her room, she can find him at the foot of the bed; in the kitchen, on the windowsill. Sara's not sure if it's because he senses how deep her grief runs, or if it's just because he's unused to her being home so much, but Sara's thankful for the company. Though she tries not to think too much about his new favorite spot in the living room. It's hard enough to ignore the emptiness of the old wingback without finding her cat curled up on the cushion.

She can only afford to take a week off from school before she risks falling behind further than she can catch up. What she wants is more time to process, to mourn, but she knows she won't get it. Life, at least her life, doesn't cater to her needs. She drags herself out of bed, turns the shower on as hot as she can stand, and lets the steam fill her aching lungs. She stands under the spray, washing her hair with a numbness that speaks of habit more than thought. Her mind is back in the hospital room, Oma's hands on her cheeks.

Speak to Janice.

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