Page 133 - My FlipBook

T R A I L O F C R U M B S

The cabin. The words fell into the hollow, stirred up
something inside Greta.
When Rachel asked, “Are you interested in coming?”
Greta had thought that was it, her reset.
“I’ll come,” she’d said.
But it hadn’t gone as planned, hadn’t been her reset. And
today, as she’d cowered against a water fountain, Dylan had
smashed her insides again with one word. Inside a bathroom

stall, she took deep breaths, trying to pull herself back to a
state to be seen in public. I’ve got to get out of here. Ash. She
needed him, that pillar by her side. But couldn’t tell him. She
waited until the bell rang at the end of the lunch hour, and
the bathroom and hallways emptied. Then she pressed cold
paper towels against her eyes and slipped a note into Ash’s
locker about feeling sick and leaving early.

Outside, the cold soothed her inflamed face. She closed
her eyes and let the swelling calm. After scrounging in her
backpack for change, she waited fifteen minutes for the bus.
On the path in front of Elgin’s house, Greta eyed the
doors to the upper and lower suites. She didn’t want the
basement—the memory of it full of mold and shadows—
but upstairs she’d be with Elgin, in his barely there running
outfit, by herself. He seemed harmless. She hadn’t caught
him staring at her breasts or acting like a creeper. Still. She

tromped an arrow in the snow, pointing to the basement, so
Ash would know where to find her.
Greta slipped through the basement door, quietly, to
avoid waking any ghosts. Her eyes adjusted to the grayish

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