Free The Reaping of Norah Bentley by Eva Truesdale

getting halfway up myself. “God no; don’t leave me alone. Please. I’m sorry. I’m not making sense again.” I settled back and drew my knees up against my chest, rested my chin on them. “None of this is making sense.” My voice sounded hollow.
     
    “Give it time,” Eli said, stepping closer. “It will make more sense. I’d be lying if I said it will ever make complete sense, but…”
     
    I looked up at him, but I wasn’t sure enough of myself to speak anymore. The silence stretched on for a few minutes before he spoke again.
     
    “I…I didn’t handle that as well as I would’ve liked, maybe,” he said, conversationally now. He shuffled where he stood in my gaze, kicked at a pebble on the ground.
     
    “What?”
     
    “How do you tell somebody they’re supposed to be dead?” he mused without looking at me, pacing the length of the bench with his hands in his jean pockets. “I’ve been wondering. Not like I just did, obviously; I didn’t mean to upset you so much.”
     
    I went back to staring at my knees.
     
    “Stop saying that,” I said. “Stop saying I’m supposed to be dead.”
     
    “I’m sorry.”
     
    He seemed content to remain quiet, but I suddenly realized I wasn’t.
     
    “How do you know, anyway?” My eyes stared vacantly at a trickle of water running down the concrete fountain while I waited for him to answer.
     
    “It’s my job to know,” he said after a moment of hesitation. I looked up, searching for more; but he continued in a quick, borderline-desperate voice: “I can’t tell you anymore than that. I shouldn’t have told you that, and I shouldn’t be here; I shouldn’t have done a lot of what I’ve done these past few weeks.” He frowned, and in a mutter he added, “I’ve already pissed a lot of people off.”
     
    “What people?”
     
    “Norah, please…” He sat down beside me on the bench and took my hand in his. “I’m sorry. But please don’t ask me anymore questions right now.” His fingers stroked the back of my hand, in and out along the rise and fall of my knuckles. “Can we just sit here a minute?” His voice sounded weak all of a sudden, and it stirred something inside me— something that didn’t like the thought of causing him any pain, even though my own heart was aching. I didn’t really understand it; I just nodded and wrapped my fingers around his and held them still. He leaned his head back, turned it so his chin hovered just over my shoulder, and closed his eyes for a minute.
     
    It was the first time, maybe, that I’d looked at him. Really looked at him, I mean. At his narrow face. The curve of his strong jaw. How the longer strands of his hair just barely skimmed the tips of his eyelashes, and the way his dimples grew a little more pronounced every time his thin lips quivered with breath.
     
    And my own lips were trembling, suddenly; the side-effect of the battle raging in my head, between wanting to curl up in his arms and wanting to get up and run, to leave this craziness all behind. In the end I did neither.
     
    My phone rang. Saved by the bell—or, in this case, the “Hey Jude” refrain that served as my ringtone. I glanced down at the lit up screen, and couldn’t stop a sigh from escaping my lips. Maybe “saved” wasn’t the right word.
     
    “What’s wrong?”
     
    I held up the phone so Eli could see the words on the screen for himself: Incoming Call From Luke. And beside the words, Luke making one of his many goofy faces. I don’t think I had a single serious picture of him. Normally, the picture that came with his call made me laugh, but right now I could hardly even bring myself to look at it.
     
    “Are you going to answer it?”
     
    I’d wanted him to call me so badly earlier. But now my finger just hovered over the accept button. It stayed there for five seconds, ten seconds, twenty seconds—
     
    The ringing stopped.
     
    “Guess not,” I said. God, I was such a coward.
     
    “Maybe