Free Uncertainty by Abigail Boyd

her spirit. It left me with my mouth wide open as I retracted my arm.
    "Ow! Why did you pinch me?" Jenna shouted, recoiling. She rubbed her forearm and looked at me accusingly.
    "I didn't pinch you," I said softly. We exchanged a glance. And then I realized what I hadn't before, because I hadn't been close enough.
    Her eyes. Not the black, insect-like eyes she'd had in my visions. Even Alyssa and Susan had those unsettling insect eyes. But now her eyes were back to their normal, alive shade of pale blue.
    "What was that?" she finally asked.
    I shook my head. "I don't know. That's a new thing."
    Jenna sat down next to me, careful to keep herself at the other end of the bench. A vibrantly painted rose bloomed on the bench between us, the paint just starting to crack like black veins.
    We sat in silent company, her shoulders slumping forward. She looked shocked, staring at the floor. I looked at the painting again through a blur of tears as I began to weep, and all I could see were shades of red and black running together.
    "It's going to be okay, right?" Jenna asked softly.
    "Yeah." And for the first time in months, I felt like that was true.
     
     

CHAPTER 7
    THROUGHOUT THE WEEKS that followed, it became deceptively normal to have Jenna around again. Everyone else in my life seemed to be busy with their own responsibilities — Hugh at the gallery as a busy selling season began, Claire with her work at the insurance company. Even Theo with her mural.
    It was as though the last year had never happened. Jenna was back to her old self, more or less. We didn't talk about her being dead anymore. She hadn't believed that she was, after all, just that she was sick. I felt no reason to push the issue.
    One day I was in my room, getting dressed. I noticed the calender was still set to March; I'd never bothered changing it, since the passage of time hadn't seemed to matter. I tore off all the months before June, and crumpled the pages into the trash.
    Jenna and I spent all of our days together, gossiping about the politics at Hawthorne, talking about movies, and sharing memories. She didn't know Henry existed, which was a nice change. I almost mentioned him several times, but I thought it would be too much to explain.
    I spent a lot of time downstairs or just by myself (at least, it looked that way to an outside observer) on the couch. It felt nice to be lazy, now that I didn't wallow in sadness.
    Hugh took up painting again in the times that he was home. I tried to stand and watch him work a couple times. He had three canvases set up on easels in his studio. All dystopian paintings, all half-finished. Like he had ADD, he would bounce from easel to easel, paintbrush dripping.
    Whenever I tried to watch, even if I was quiet, he would stop and grin painfully at me.
    "I know you don't mean to, kiddo. But having someone stare at me breaks my concentration."
    The only problem with being practically house-bound was that I realized I was beginning to lose my grip on reality. And I missed Theo; as much as I loved having Jenna around, there was a hole there that Theo usually filled. For the first time in my life, I realized how shallow Jenna could be, cracking on fat girls with muffin tops on TV, and endlessly discussing her nails.
    In the last week of June, we were in the kitchen again, joking as I made microwave mini pizzas. Jenna never seemed to notice the fact that she was never hungry. I washed off my plate in the sink, and glanced out the window.
    "Remember last year, when Ambrose wore his hat backwards for a month and kept chuckin' up deuces at the teachers?" Jenna said, snickering.
    Actually, it had been two years ago, but it made me giggle. Our school bully had always thought he was such a badass. Odd that he had given me the most accurate advice I'd ever heard about love after Henry betrayed me.
    I noticed movement from next door, and pulled the sun-faded curtains aside. Theo had come out of her house beyond the fence. I dropped my