Page 6 of David's Proposal

She said she didn’t feel well and wanted to rest. Maybe she was coming down with something.

She said.

Ugh.

What a horrible friend I am. I didn’t call her on Tuesday. And I haven’t called her today.

That’s strange.

It’s not like us not to keep in touch with each other.

Okay, so I forgot about her amidst the wedding preparations, but what’s her excuse?

“Chloe is getting ready for the wedding, I suppose,” I mumble, reaching inside my backpack and feverishly rifling through its contents.

“Here. Let’s see what she’s up to…” I say, swiping the phone screen and calling her.

She doesn’t answer.

That is even more odd than not hearing from her all these days. Chloe’s phone is like a precious pendant with sentimental value dangling from her neck at all times.

You’d need to extricate it with a forceps from her.

Although her phone habits might’ve changed, especially since she met that man.

That man…

Oh.

“She’s not answering,” I say.

Preoccupied, I place the phone on the table and show interest in my food again.

2

LIZ

“She’s probably home, sleeping,”I say. “She didn’t feel well last time we talked.”

Finally, I say something remotely true.

“She got a bug or something?” my cousin asks, breaking off a piece of the garlic bread.

I watch her fingers push the food into her mouth.

“It may be. She didn’t feel well on Sunday.”

Her eyes stay locked with mine, and I have a hard time holding her gaze.

“You said so,” she murmurs.

“It was so.”

“Where did you two go the night before?”

“Where do you think?”

She opens her can of soda, and her drink still fizzles when she gulps it down.

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