Free Blurred by Tara Fuller Page B

she sank down onto the bed beside me, looking so much like the worried little girl who used touch the space between my eyebrows and tell me everything would be okay when I was missing my mom the most.
    “Who is she?” she asked. “What does she want with you?”
    I pressed my lips together, trying to keep it in. She couldn’t help me. Why did she even want to know? In the end, my need to tell her everything inside me won out. “Her name is Anaya. She’s been following me since the fire. She just showed herself to me today.”
    “Anaya?” Emma shook her head, staring down at her lap. “And what does she want? Tell me exactly what she said.”
    I probably shouldn’t mention that I’d practically tried to feel the girl up. That I couldn’t get her out of my head. That even now, there was something in my chest aching over the fact that she’d been hurting and she wasn’t here now. God, how far would I have let it go if she hadn’t stopped me from touching her? Yeah, she was hot, and sort of sweet, but she was also dead . Maybe Dad was right. Maybe I really did need to get my head checked.
    I brushed the curtain of blond hair away from Em’s face so I could see the emotions playing there. “She said she’s waiting for me. That it’s only a matter of time before…”
    Her head snapped up and her eyes glossed over with moisture. “Before what?”
    “I die.” I combed my fingers through my hair and tugged. “What else would a reaper want with me?”
    When I gave in and looked over at her, she was shaking her head, a glossy gaze fixed on her fingers, twisting my bedsheets into knots. “No. No…you’re not. It has to be a mistake. You must have misunderstood her.”
    “Em…” I sighed, wishing I had a different answer to give her. One that included me living out a long happy life with her by my side. It made my chest ache to think of how much I was going to miss. She’d go to college. Go after her dreams and make mistakes. I wanted more with this new Emma who wasn’t scared of the world. I wanted more and I wasn’t going to get it.
    “Stop looking at me like that,” she whispered in a broken voice. A tear slipped down her cheek and I reached out to wipe it away.
    “Like what?”
    “Like you’ve accepted this.”
    I ran my tongue ring back and forth against the backs of my teeth and shook my head. “I was supposed to die in that fire. I’m not even supposed to be here now. And she’s not lying. It’s not a mistake. I feel it, Em. I feel it every damn day. I’m dying.”
    Emma caught a sob in her throat and slid her hand over mine, lacing our fingers. I let her. It felt too good not to.
    “You are not going to die. I won’t let that happen.” She ran the back of her hand over her cheeks to wipe away the wetness.
    I sat up and faced her. “Are you God? Yoda? Gandalf the Grey?”
    Emma just stared back at me, clearly not amused.
    “Then you don’t have any control over this,” I said. “So stop trying to fix it. Stop trying to fix me .”
    Emma pressed her lips together, probably holding in an ocean of words she wanted to drown me with. She finally folded her hands in her lap and started messing with my pillowcase. That was one perk of being someone’s sidekick for this many years. She knew when to quit. She knew when to stop pushing.
    I studied the outline of her profile in the moonlight and realized I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay mad at her. I didn’t want to. “Is Finn waiting for you?”
    She shook her head. “No. He had to work late. He got a night job at that auto body shop in town.”
    “Where is he staying now?” Please don’t say in your bed. Please, in a world of shittiness, just give me this.
    “He got a little garage apartment,” she said. “The guy that owns the body shop is renting it to him until he can afford something better.”
    As much as I hated it, I felt a little bad for the guy. It couldn’t be easy being thrown into a life where you had to start