They Stay by Claire Fraise

Author:Claire Fraise [Fraise, Claire]
Language: eng
Format: epub

20

Francesca

Something stirs behind me. I turn around, but there’s nothing there. It’s bizarre. There is something very peculiar about this place, but I cannot identify what it is. All I know is that I can feel something in the air. Something palpable that makes the air around me thick and sour in my lungs.

Something dark.

Miles hasn’t said a word since the group split up. His hands are hidden in his pockets, like he doesn’t want them to get cold even though it’s warm outside today.

“Is everything going on with you all right?” I ask. I don’t know how Miles will react. I know that Shiloh would be frustrated with me for asking that question. She often acts frustrated at things she can’t control, which makes me sad for her. There’s a lot of anger boiling beneath her skin, but I don’t sense the same kind of anger from Miles.

Miles hangs his head, rubbing his warm brown hair with one hand. “I’m just frustrated, sorry. It has nothing to do with you.”

“What are you frustrated about?”

“Just…” His voice trails off as he notices a garbage bag caught on a root off the trail. He walks over to pick it up, and adds it to the collection of trash in his arms he has picked up since we started walking. I like to leave every place I visit in nature in better shape than it was before, he told me when we first started our walk. “Shiloh is closed off with me, and I don’t know how to get through to her.”

I had noticed that. “Shiloh is going through unimaginable pain.”

“I know that,” he says, “but, I mean, I’m trying to be there for her, and she won’t talk to me or let me in.” He picks up another scrap of plastic. “I want to fix things for her.”

“You cannot fix this for her. It’s too big.”

“I know. I just wish I could.”

“You really care about her.” I can see it in his face. His eyebrows pinch together like he’s in pain, physical pain, for Shiloh. From what I have heard, that is part of being in love. The pain your love experiences pulls you in with them.

Miles shrugs, and doesn’t respond. I shift my attention back to the woods. Immediately, the chill returns. I hope for Shiloh’s sake that what I’m feeling is the presence of Leonard, but I’m not so sure.

There’s this feeling tugging at me, like we are doing something wrong. I could never tell Shiloh, but I believe I can understand why Leonard thinks that he is doing good. Doing a form of God’s work, I suppose. Poppy’s mother doesn’t seem to pay attention to her even after she has been found, and at the cemetery Gus and Charlie seem to never leave her side. Natalie was in pain during her last weeks on Earth, but in the cemetery there was none. If it weren’t for the way Natalie spoke at the laundromat, like she was a prisoner

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