One Last Breath by Ginny Myers Sain

Author:Ginny Myers Sain [Sain, Ginny Myers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2024-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

On the drive to Celeste’s house, the giddiness starts to fade right along with the daylight, and cold, hard dread wells up in its place.

When we stop in front of the little yellow house on Brandywine Avenue, Rio pulls her T-shirt back on. “Is this it?” she asks me.

“Yeah. Bailey’s family moved away not long after the murders, but Celeste’s mom and dad never did. I used to ride my bike by here all the time, hoping I’d catch a glimpse of them.” I pause, remembering how East used to complain when I made him come along. Which was pretty much always.

Rio is staring out the window at the neat flower bed. The carport with the blue Toyota parked underneath. “I thought I’d recognize it,” she admits. “But I don’t.”

We get out of the truck and start up the walk, but I haven’t really figured out what we’re going to say yet.

Maybe nobody will be home.

We stand outside on the porch, in the suffocating heat, for a solid two minutes, trying to work up the nerve to knock. I have this feeling that reminds me of when I was six and Dani paid me five dollars to jump off the high dive at the pool. I stood up there forever, torn between wanting to jump and wanting to climb back down the ladder, until Logan Kellerman finally got fed up waiting his turn and pushed me off.

Where’s Logan Kellerman when I need him?

It’s Rio who gives up and rings the bell. I see the curtains move in the front window, and then Celeste’s mother answers the door. It’s the first time in forever that I’ve seen her up close. Usually, I just glimpse her from a distance.

She looks so different than she did in the old newspaper articles that came out just after the murders. Not just older. Her face is sharper. More hollowed out.

I think of my own mom, and how she became a different person after Dani.

How I did, too.

I remember the way Celeste’s mom was studying me downtown, the afternoon of the memorial, and suddenly I’m wondering if she’s been watching me my whole life. The way I’ve been watching her.

“Yes?” Celeste’s mother is eyeing us like she’s expecting us to try to sell her something.

“Hi,” Rio starts. “We have kind of a strange question to ask. I was—” She hesitates. Looks at me. “We were—”

“I work at the Star,” I say. “I’ve been doing some research into what happened to your daughter. And to Bailey. For the anniversary coming up. The twentieth. And I was hoping we could see Celeste’s room.”

“I know it’s a weird thing to ask,” Rio jumps in. “But we’re—” She stops and looks at me again.

“You’re curious,” the woman says.

“Yeah,” Rio admits.

I expect that to make Celeste’s mother angry, but it doesn’t. In fact, she seems to relax a little bit.

“How old are you two?” she asks us.

“Eighteen,” Rio tells her.

She studies us for a moment, then some kind of light comes on behind her eyes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.