Page 145 - My FlipBook

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

She gave a soft laugh. “Yes.” The luggage they never lost.
“Though,” he mused, “sometimes I wonder.”
“What do you wonder?”
“I wonder…if this is the dream, and that’s reality. Perhaps
we’re dreaming now.”
“Why do you say that?”
Elgin turned back to the window, studying the stark black
and white of night. “This can’t be it. I won’t accept it. I refuse

it, in fact.” Grief hardened his gentle voice. “Impossible that
this is the real world.”
Greta wanted to say something comforting, like this was
the real world but beauty still existed, or remind him to think
of what he still had—Alice, his health and whatnot. It’s what
she’d been trained to do, to fill absurd, painful spaces with
polite phrases. But his words sunk into her skin and fit so

well. Elgin was right. This had to be the dream. Unacceptable
as reality. Totally unacceptable.
She rejected it too.

W

Ash stood over her, nudging her with his foot. “Are you still
sick?” Black morning and streetlights showed through the
crack in the curtain.

Blank slate. For one second, just her and Ash, like every
morning for seventeen years. Then her mind bent over and
picked up the bag of misery. It spilled over into her arms, slid
down her legs, suffocated her with its weight. Mom. Roger.

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