The Hollow (12 page)

"How pathetic do you have to be to get other people to find dates for you, and still end up with no one?"

That one hurt. I felt the sting inside, and an instant rush of tears.
I'm not upset,
I told myself.
I'm pissed off.
But it didn't matter which one I really was; my vision still got blurry.

I stared down at the candy in my hands, not really seeing it. Can't they get another cashier up there to help move the line along? I tried to tune everything out and not listen to the conversation, but it was like a bad car wreck. I couldn't turn away.

They were next, but they still kept talking.

"Did you see her at school this week?" asked pink dress.

"Ugh, yes. She looked terrible. Someone really needs to lay off the midnight margaritas on school nights."

"I know, right?"

"Someone should also tell her not to wear black all the time. It totally washes her out. What is she, a Goth girl? And it's called a haircut. Get one."

Pink dress laughed now. "Maybe she wears black because it's slimming. Could be hiding a few 'trouble spots.' You know, ever since her friend died, she has gotten weirder and weirder. She's
such
a loser. I wouldn't be surprised if she jumps off the bridge herself just to get some attention."

"She's totally trying to milk the pity," said yellow dress. "You know she is. First it gets her on the prom committee, and now I bet all the teachers are letting her turn in her homework late. She'll probably start skipping classes next so she can go sob on a counselor's shoulder about how much she misses her dead friend."

"Sometimes I think they planned this together or something, so that at least
one
of them would get some attention. It's not like the dead girl will be remembered for anything else. She was a bigger loser than Abbey."

My face went numb and my mind went blank. Nothing they said could hurt me. I was frozen inside. A wall of ice. I looked blankly at the floor, until the cashier finally got my attention. They were gone, and I was next in line.

I spaced out again while he rang up my purchases, and it was like he was speaking a foreign language when he asked if I wanted everything to be double bagged. I shook my head no. And then nodded my head yes.

He double bagged the candy and handed it over to me like I was contagious. I stumbled out of the store and headed for home. I don't remember actually walking home, but the next thing I knew, I was standing in front of my door. I went inside, dumped the candy into several bowls, and placed them all on the front porch.

I just wanted to be alone now.

Turning out all the lights, I curled up on the couch. Another scary movie was about to start, and I turned it on. But it didn't hold my attention. Nothing did. I kept hearing their voices.

I thought about what they had said in the store. I thought about being alone and miserable on the couch. I thought about the prom I was missing. I thought about the fact that Kristen wasn't here for any of it, and never would be. I thought about how much I missed my best friend. I thought about how awful my life was.

And I think all those thoughts pushed me to an edge. Suddenly I felt impulsive and full of wild energy, like I was teetering on the ledge of an impossible canyon and staring straight down. I jumped up from the couch and ran upstairs to my room. I knew what to do.

Opening the closet door, I grabbed the black gown off its hanger. Mom had taped a note behind it, and it momentarily stopped me.
Even if you don't get the prom, you still deserve the dress. Love, Mom.

It only added fuel to the fire of my reckless abandon. I
did
deserve a dress.
And
a prom. A prom that I was going to give to myself. Changing into the ball gown, I passed over the strappy heels and put on my solid black boots. Then I took a moment to look at myself in the mirror. My eyes were stormy and bright, but my cheeks were deathly pale.

I quickly ran into the bathroom and teased my unruly curls, spraying them so that they really
were
wild and witchy. For a final accessory1 tied a black ribbon around my throat. Now I was ready. I grabbed a vial of Kristen's perfume on my way out of the room and headed toward the door.

I was going to the cemetery.

* * *

The sky was filled with dark heavy clouds now, and it looked like rain. A slow rumble of thunder in the distance confirmed my suspicions. I didn't care.

Slipping into the cemetery, I wandered among the tombstones. My gown made a soft rustling noise with each step I took. Stopping in the middle of the pathway I was on, I spun around in a wide circle. Now the gown made a swishing sound. I liked that even better.

I spun around crazily until I was too dizzy to stand up straight, and staggered over to one side. I ended up in a sort of half curtsy directly in front of a tombstone. Looking at the name carved on it, I bowed even lower. "May I have this dance, Mr. Finklestein?"

For some reason, hearing those words out loud struck me as absurdly funny, and I found myself giggling uncontrollably. I couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop. So I waltzed my way down the hill holding my arms out in proper dancing fashion, all the while clutching my vial of perfume in one hand.

In between bouts of hysterical giggling, I hummed snatches of an old lullaby. Around and around I went, waltzing along several paths in order to get to my final destination. I was almost there.

Then my foot caught on the edge of a broken tombstone, and it caused me to stumble. I tried to regain my balance, but I went down hard. Luckily, my outstretched arms took the brunt of the fall. Unluckily, that fall was against the edge of that tombstone. It scraped both of my hands raw.

I sat there on the cold, hard ground and stared down at my palms. The flesh had been torn away in jagged lines, and fresh blood was oozing to the surface. I didn't know what to do about it.

What I
did
know was that Kristen's perfume was missing. I searched the ground frantically for signs of broken glass, but there weren't any. I finally spotted the vial near a tree trunk and crawled over to it, just as the rain started.

The rain hit hard and fast, and my dress was quickly soaked.
Mom is going to be so pissed.

I held my palms up to the rain, so at least they wouldn't be bloody anymore, and then picked up the vial. Somehow it had survived the fall.

When I spotted Kristen's tombstone, I gave up on any thoughts of saving the prom dress and plopped down beside it. It was the first time I'd seen the stone, and I reached out to touch it, half expecting to feel that same cold shock I'd felt when I'd touched her casket. But it just felt like stone.

I traced the deep outline of the smooth letters carved there. She was really here now.

Opening up the vial of perfume, I spilled a couple of drops onto the tombstone. It mixed with the rain and ran in tiny rivers down to the ground, soaking into the dirt below.

"Hey, Kris," I started softly. "I finally made you a perfume."

I grasped for the words. I was so numb inside that I didn't know what to say to her. "I hope you like it. I used grapefruit and ginger, with just a hint of vanilla. I think it suits you. It took me a long time to get it right, but I wanted it to be perfect." A huge fist of sorrow slammed into me, and my eyes started to swim. I felt it overwhelm me from the inside.

"It's prom night… tonight… Kristen," I tried to speak in between sobs. "We should be… together. But not this way… It wasn't supposed to happen like this."

A gasping sob escaped, and I was lost for words again. I bowed my head, and my sorrow turned to rage, pure hate directed toward Kristen, the world, myself, anybody.

The thunder rolled again behind me, and I stood up, clenching my fists in anger. "Why aren't you here, Kristen? You're supposed to be here!" I screamed at the tombstone. "How could you just fall in? We never fell in the water!" The rain streamed down my face, and I ran.

I ran as fast and as hard and as long as I could down to the riverbank. I thought I saw a white shaped mist, and I ran after it until my legs ached and my lungs burned.
Is it her? Is she here?
I chased it until it disappeared, then I collapsed in a heap at the edge of the water.

My body struggled to fight for each breath, dragging in one short painful gasp of air after the other. I put an arm above my head, and poured the rest of the perfume into the dancing current, moving closer until I was right along the water's edge. Closing my eyes, I rested my head on the swirl of water beneath me. It whispered seductively, inviting me to lose my pain and sorrow, my rage and my fear, to feel still and calm.

To see Kristen again
…

My hair floated around me, forming a dark halo. The water was freezing, and even though it should have made me cold, it didn't. Instead it felt like a soothing balm to my emotional wounds. I breathed deeply, imagining Kristen here, while the scent of grapefruit, ginger, and vanilla surrounded me.

But I was still numb inside. I lifted a hand and let it ride the current, watching as the empty perfume vial floated away. I kept breathing slowly, trying to still my mind. And then it started working. I was calming down.

The sound of someone shouting my name made me open my eyes.

Caspian was standing on the opposite side of the river. "Oh God, Abbey. I thought you were dead!" he yelled. He jumped out to a large flat rock in the middle of the water, and then another, to get closer.

I didn't move.

"Abbey," he said very calmly, "what are you doing? You need to get out of the water."

I laughed out loud. "I need to get out of the water? But Kristen didn't get out of the water, Caspian. How else am I supposed to reach her?"

"Come on, Abbey," he coaxed, crouching down closer to me, but still a couple of feet away. "I don't know what happened, but you need to sit up and get out of the water. Now." His voice turned hard.

I sat up abruptly, and water flew everywhere. The rain was still pounding down, and I saw he was soaked too. His hair was plastered to his head, but that black streak stood out vividly against the rest of his pale hair.

"You don't
know
what happened?" I said hysterically. "What
happened
is my best friend died, Caspian. That's
what happened.
She drowned in this very river, remember? You were at her funeral. Only it wasn't really her funeral, because they didn't have a body to bury. But they do now. Or… they did. Her body was found last week, and she was buried. And that means it's all real. She's gone, and I wasn't there." The weight of those words hit me hard.

"I know, Abbey. I know the hurt you must be feeling. But why are you here now… and in a dress?" His beautiful green eyes pleaded with me to give him the answers he wanted.

I picked up a layer of the soggy, ruined gown. "This?" I held it out to him, and then let it drop. "This is my prom dress. Tonight's the prom. Because this stupid town can't do anything normal, our prom has to be on Halloween. Kristen and I were supposed to go together with our dates. But I guess she had a prior engagement." I laughed vehemently.

"Abbey, come on, please, get away from the water," he begged. "Come over here by me. You can talk to me about it."

"Talk to you about it? I can't
talk
to you about it. I shouldn't even
be
here with you, Caspian. I never should have met you here. This was
our
place. Mine and Kristen's. And what do I do? I forget all about her. I didn't tell you about what a good person she was, or how funny she was, and how much she loved her family… She loved them so much, Caspian." I spoke furiously now.

"Kristen would have wanted you to be happy, Abbey. Even if that meant meeting me here and showing me around."

"You don't know what she would have wanted!" I screamed, standing up to face him. He stood up too. The wind whipped around us and took my words away, then threw them back into my face. My breathing was out of control, and I felt that pure rage pulsing through me again. "I knew what she wanted when no one else did. Not anyone at school, not anyone in this town, and not even you!"

My voice turned quiet now. The rage was still there, but it was focused-a quiet, raw rage. "Do you know that I dreamed about her, the night she died? That's how close we were. I knew when she was dying. I could feel it. I felt it, Caspian. Everything. But I wasn't here. I didn't stop it. I didn't even know what it meant the next morning. She needed my help, and I wasn't a good enough friend to help her. So I guess that means I wasn't really her best friend after all."

I turned away. My fury died down. I felt limp and ragged, cold again inside as my anger turned to grief.

"I didn't go to the prom tonight because she wasn't here to go with me," I said bitterly. "Oh yeah, and also because I'm such a loser, and so pathetic, that they have to set up dates for me. Do you know they begged people to ask me out? I'm washed out, and they said I need a haircut…" I trailed off.

"Abbey, I need you to slow down," he pleaded. "I don't understand you. Who asked people to ask you out? And who said you need a haircut?"

"The cheerleaders," I replied. "And some girls at the drugstore."

"It's okay that these things upset you, Abbey. Come over here and we can sit together. If you don't feel like talking, you don't have to." His voice was calm, but slightly unsteady.

I stared at him. He had a wild look in his eyes that matched mine, and I felt the desperate urge to make him understand me.

"Feel?" I scoffed. "That's where you're wrong, Caspian. I don't
feel
anything at all."

And then I saw something change in his eyes. A look of understanding that completely undid me. I took a step closer to him, and stumbled. "Oh God, Caspian," I said, horrified. "I don't feel anything."

That was when the wall broke. All that pain and numbness cracked, and shattered into a million tiny little pieces. Each one came tumbling down, revealing that huge hole left behind. A gaping black void surrounding my heart.