The After Girls by Konen Leah

Author:Konen, Leah [Konen, Leah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781440561092
Publisher: Merit Press
Published: 2013-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next morning, Sydney’s phone rang persistently, jolting her out of her sleep.

She picked it up and strained to focus at the name on the screen. Ella. Probably to give her another lecture about how she should care more. As if she didn’t. It wasn’t that easy to just burst into tears every other conversation. She almost wished it were.

She hit ignore and rolled over.

But in minutes it was ringing again. She looked at the clock. It was almost eleven. She probably should get up anyway. The fair was today, and she wanted to dye her hair, even though Astrid, the one who’d always done it before, wasn’t here to help.

She let it ring through without hitting ignore and sat up in bed. She stared into the mirror over her dresser. Her roots were showing and she was tired of red, anyway. Even if it was a totally different, completely artificial, Red 40 kind of red, it still reminded her too much of Astrid.

She wanted a change.

Her phone started ringing again.

“You don’t give up, do you?”

“I’m sorry,” Ella said. She sounded tired. “Are you up?”

“Well, I am after you calling me three times.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Stop saying you’re sorry,” Sydney said. “Why did you call?”

There was silence on the other end and then a rush of words. “I didn’t mean it, Syd, really. I don’t think that you don’t care. I was just freaked out and scared and you were calling me crazy, and I was just trying to defend myself, I was just trying to explain …”

“By implying that I don’t care that Astrid died?”

“No,” Ella said, and even through the phone, Sydney could hear the girl getting emotional. Here we go.

“I loved her, too,” Sydney said. “I miss her every day. Every second. Maybe I don’t cry as easy as you, and maybe I’m not scared and freaking out, but I still feel it. All the time.”

“I know you do,” Ella said. “I know.”

“Do you?” Sydney asked. “Because you act like I just want to forget about her.”

“I know,” Ella said. “I’m sorry I said that. But it seems so easy for you.”

“It’s not.”

“Okay.”

There was silence. Staggered, dragged-out silence.

Sydney knew that neither of them wanted to talk about the one thing that must be on both of their minds. The words that Ella had spoken, the ones that started the whole fight. Could Ella really believe that? The freak-out about the phone call, the dreams, the obsession with the cabin staying just as is — it had all seemed at least semi-normal until now. But this was new — this was a whole other level.

Sydney’s anger softened as she tried to put herself in Ella’s place. As she tried to imagine being so torn-up, so distraught, that her mind could take something so far …

“I’m sorry,” Ella said again.

Sydney took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “It’s fine. Let’s just not talk about it. We both said a lot of things that we regret.”

More of that brutal silence.

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