Page 15 of As the Rain Falls
I start stimming.
“Lucia is dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. Lucia is dead.”
The crickets living in the garden are softly singing in unison, their whispering barely doing anything to drown out the constant buzzing sounds coming from the refrigerator.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Sweat drips off my forehead, running cold against my cheek. I feel like I might pass out any second now.A fly lands over the pale yellow frosting, a flat note echoing until it abruptly stops.
“Lucia is dead.”
A beat later, the light goes out.
WE LOVE INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM!
Cassandra
OCTOBER, 2016
I purse my lipsinto a pout to blow over my freshly done nails, hoping the nail polish will dry sometime soon. Well, actually, the best-case scenario would be for it to dry right about now, but—
“It’s been nearly three months since Lucia Evans died, and what has been done since the accident? What have the authorities done? What measures were taken? How many more young kids need to die before we realize that there is a problem out there in our streets and our homes, killing our families?”
I glance at Coco with nothing but serious eyes and the edge of my nose stained with dried pink nail polish.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
The human-sized teddy bear stares back at me silently.
“What do you think, Coco? In my humble opinion, Tamara is right.” I nod, pretending to think about it long and hard. “There is a real problem out there.” A pause. “I’m totally out of glitter!”
Coco falls off the bed headfirst. I try to catch him, but my naked foot knocks against the Hello Kitty-themed radio that’s sitting on the floor, which is totally distracting.
The sound cuts off only to start again a beat later, Tamara’s voice distorted into a robotic growl.
“Lucia—Grr—Is it fair—Err!”
Mom gifted this radio to me back when I was eight, and now it barely works anymore. I keep it anyway. I mean, it still works a little. Deep down, I wish I could get another, but buying expensive things will cost us a lot of money. And saving up my allowance never works for me; I like to buy pretty cheap things at the flea market too much.
High and Dryby Radiohead plays at a high volume, and I sing the lyrics off-key while putting on mascara.Between one lyric and another, I pull my long hair out of my face, drag it back with my fingers, and look for any flip-flops lying around.
“The best thing that you’ve ever, ever had! It’s the best thing that you’ve ever had!”
My phone starts ringing right as I am about to get the outer corner of my eye, the alarm cutting through my performance abruptly. I rush to the opposite side of the bed, grabbing thephone on the nightstand before jumping over the mattress. Pressing my fingers over the phone screen is a bit harder to do with sweaty hands, but I still manage to disable the alarm at the very last second.
Oh, I’m definitely going to be late to school today.
Kayla: Where are you?
Me: late.
Kayla is typing…
I drop my phone on my pillow, giving up on waiting for Kayla to text me back. She’ll say something later, I’m sure.
