Page 79 of Beg Me Angel

Chapter Twenty-Two

Vera

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She kept it. . .

The rust-covered red Festiva was parked in the driveway, covered in leaves and a light dusting of snow. The passenger side back tire was flat, smushed completely into the dirt, the hood partially opened, leaving room for any small animal needing an escape to find refuge.

I sat in my car, nervous and excited, ready and not completely ready at all. I hadn't seen Sara in a month and a half. We had been kept apart, quarantined from each other as if I had the plague.

But now that it was finally over, I could finally move on with my life. There were no more questions or fear of manipulation and twisting the truth. There was no more doubt and wonder as to how my injuries had come to be and who's hands deposited them on my skin.

I had it all now, no more questions.

My car hummed quietly as the windows started to fog, clouding up my view of her house. The blinds were drawn, front light still on over the door from the night before.

Is anyone even home?

The house looked vacant, sleeping under a sheet of white as the snow began to pick up, falling more steadily. Taking in a labored breath, I ran my fingers through my hair, itching my scalp.

It was so hard for me to get out of the car. So much had happened since that night and I hated to admit it, but I was afraid of the person I might find behind that door.

There was no question in my mind that I had changed, I had grown up over night, waking to a woman I almost didn't recognize anymore.

I had gone from naive and oblivious to the dangers that lurked outside my existence to a woman who searched the eyes of a stranger for any malice, peering into their gaze for a glimpse of what was really inside.

Trust issues. . . Yeah, they existed.

But it wasn't that I had lost my trust in Sara, I just wasn't sure who I was going to see now. Would it be the same wildfire that had been my best friend? Would there still be the same spark in her eye and glimmer in her smile?

Or was she broken, cut into pieces and never going to be the same?

How could anyone be the same?

You don't come out of something like this as the person you were before. . . It's not possible.

The thought scared me, it made me second guess my choice to drive over and see her. Staring down at my phone in the small cubby on my dash, I debated driving off and calling her instead.

If she was different, if she wasn't the same person she had been. . . Would I like the new woman she had manifested into?

What we went through would always connect us, it would always bind us in a lifelong commitment to each other. She was the only other person on this earth that could truly relate to me on the same level. She could understand my pain, my resistance to let in new people, to open my arms and welcome in the the warmth of someone new.

Tapping my thumb on the steering wheel, I turned off the engine and opened the door. I had to see her, it wouldn't matter who she might be now. Sara was my best friend, that would never change.

Shutting the door softly, I flipped up the hood of my jacket and walked to the front door. The snow had turned from small light specks into giant wet flakes, sticking to everything they touched.

The ground was mostly covered in a thin blanket of white, my feet crunched over the crisp top layer, leaving a trail of footprints in my wake.

Standing under the eave, I slipped my hood off my head and reached for the doorbell. Pressing the dimly lit button, I stepped back, looking around the house, and peering at the windows.

A plastic turkey hung on the faded yellow paint of the door, one leg had broken off, the discolored wings were cracked, spidering out like small streams on a map. Cornucopia pictures were scribbled with color and taped to the picture window on my left.

Leaning over the banister, I could see Sara's name printed on the bottom and dated fourteen years ago when we were seven. Her letters were huge and blocky, written in multiple colors.

I remembered coloring those in school as a class, using old, broken crayons that had probably been there for years. It was funny how you could draw so much from one simple picture, one small memory to feed a moment in time.

I could see my tiny hands in my head, holding a yellow crayon that was about the size of a pea, pinching it between my fingertips and coloring some of the flowers that were decorating the outside of the cornucopia.

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