CHAPTER 1:
NOAH
I had to take a piss. It had been a hard day—not the hardest of my life, but right up there. Ellie and I had gotten wasted to make up for it. And now both of us had to use the bathroom at the exact same moment.
“I hhhhhave ta use the pisser, too. Ladies first,” Ellie announced, standing up from the coffee table and leaving our two person game of Taboo. It was something we often played after a long night of drinking, and tonight we’d especially needed something routine. “You men have it easy. You have bigger bladders.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” I joked. “You’re just as much of a man as I am.”
She laughed before feigning seriousness. “Shut up, Noah,” she said, swaying as she moved for the bathroom.
Ellie was a lightweight, as much as she liked to pretend she wasn’t, and I moved after her in hopes that I’d save her from wobbling into the wall. My attempt was useless, because by the time I stood to my feet, she'd already disappeared into the bathroom. And by this point, all this talk about peeing had me really needing to go now. So I marched up the stairs, heading for one of the other bathrooms.
The Turner's house had three levels, and in my drunken stupor I ended up all the way upstairs. How the hell did that happen? Ellie's parents and two sisters must have gone to bed hours ago, because it was dead quiet upstairs. The kind of dead quiet that made my skin crawl and left an unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach. Years ago, Memaw—the grandmother who had raised me for a time—told me that after a person passes away their soul lingers for a few days. Who knew if that was true or not? And what sort of woman told an eight-year-old about ‘lingering souls?’ But all I could think about was Ben’s soul lingering in this very hallway as I crept for the bathroom, the floorboards squeaking under my shoes. The bathroom door was closed, thankfully not locked, and I stumbled inside. Light blinded me before my eyes started to adjust.
“Jesus. Lord. Fuck.”
Blood everywhere.
In an instant, I went sober. The sight before me was beyond horrific. Serious slasher movie shit. Was someone fucking murdered in here? Because all I could see was red, contrasting sharply against white tile. Then my eyes finished adjusting, and I realized that Ellie's younger sister Georgina had slit her wrists. Well, not just her wrists. It looked like she'd slit her whole fucking arm. Both of them. There was way too much blood to know for sure. Her body was slumped, propped up against the side of the tub, while her arms were turned up as if she were meditating with her eyes peacefully shut.
Dropping straight to my knees, I yelled her name and for help. My voice sounded shrill, barely recognizable as my own. Terrified she might already be dead, I brushed her long brown hair away from her neck and felt for a pulse.
She had one, a faint one, but it was there.
Thank Christ!
Commonsense told me I needed to slow the blood flow. And by the way she'd dug into her arms with the big-ass kitchen knife on the tile floor beside her, I knew that wasn’t going to be easy. I moved her body flat on the floor and pulled her legs up to rest on my lap. Blood stained everything. Yanking my shirt over my head, I ripped at the fabric and tied the pieces around her arms. It wasn't enough. I used my hands to put pressure on the cuts. By this time, Mr. and Mrs. Turner were awake and in the bathroom, yelling frantic things at me while they called 911. But I pushed out the noise and the ringing in my ears, focusing all my attention on her.
Amongst the chaos, her blue eyes flickered open for a single, brief moment and hope shook through my body. Her eyes were glazed-over and distant but managed to connect with mine.
“Noah, I'm cold,” she whispered, before her lids fluttered closed once more.
“You will not die on me,” I told her with absolute certainty. “I won’t let you.” I leaned over to press my chest against her body, hoping that might keep her warmer. Then I did the one thing I never thought I'd do again—I prayed to God. He'd let me down a few too many times, and we weren't on speaking terms these days, but I'd never needed anything more. I begged. I pleaded. And then the next thing I knew, the paramedics were there, taking her away from me. I asked them frantic questions, needing to know if she would live, but my questions went unanswered, time and everyone moving faster than my foggy brain could keep up with.
I blinked.
Georgie was gone.
Ellie stood in the bathroom with me now. I hadn’t moved from my spot on the ground, and Ellie yanked on my arm, trying unsuccessfully to pull me to my feet.
“Go with them to the hospital,” I insisted. “I'm fine.”
“Noah, you're covered in blood. Get up.”