Ghosts of the Canyon by Michelle Mankin

Author:Michelle Mankin [Mankin, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Michelle Mankin
Published: 2024-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 39

Katelyn

“Oh, honey.” Meeting me outside the terminal at the Los Angeles airport, Maureen shakes her head as she rounds the hood of her silver Thunderbird. “You look terrible.” She grabs my suitcase before I can. “Don’t you dare lift that. Let me help you.”

“Thank you.” I don’t protest her help like I have everyone else’s.

Nevertheless, watching her load my suitcase in the trunk, I remain as lost as I was in New York. Numb, I don’t feel the warmth of the Cali sun on my skin. I don’t experience joy at seeing my friend. I’m alone in a fog of suffocating emotions. Passengers leaving the terminal give me a wide berth as if they can sense my despair and fear it’s contagious.

“Get in.” Maureen grips my shoulders and gently steers me toward the passenger side of her vehicle.

“I can do it,” I say when she starts to open the door for me.

“Can you?” She aims her shaded gaze at me and gives me a long, searching look. “Maybe you can.” With her brow creasing above the pink frame of her sunglasses, she gestures to me. “You sounded better on the phone than you appear to be now.”

I wasn’t better. It was just that she couldn’t see me in New York.

Somehow, I manage to get in the Thunderbird on my own while she rounds the hood. My body feels like sludge. I’m tired, more tired than I’ve ever been in my entire life. I feel like I’ve been treading water in the open ocean with no sight of land for days.

Maureen starts up the car, and I listlessly stare out the window on my side. There are crowds of people on the sidewalk, mostly families and children. It’s as if my eyes are drawn to what is most painful.

I drop my gaze. Deciding my lap is a safer focus, I trace the ridges on my new indigo corduroys. Someone—I assume Liam—bought new clothes for me and left them on a chair in my room at the hospital.

“I’m sorry you lost the baby.” Maureen pats my leg. “Sorry you’re so sad.”

Her rings are hard against my flesh. She’s wearing at least twelve.

I want to respond to her. I should clasp her hand and hold on tight. I desperately need her and the comfort she’s so sweetly offering. I need someone, anyone, to help me remember why the pain I’m suffering right now is worth enduring.

The days in the hospital were lonely. The nights were torturous.

The pain meds gave me hallucinations. More than once, I thought I saw Ryan sitting in the chair where the clothes were this morning, right beside my bed. But he left after I laid into him. He said he would come back, but he never did.

Why would he? We aren’t lovers. We’re not even friends anymore. We aren’t anything. What he wanted, he got from me, and it came at a terrible price.

But Liam visited every day. Apparently, I mean more to him than I supposed. He told me the band is playing another festival this weekend and touring their album after.

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