After Forever Read Free

peculiar.
    “Well this is my stop.” I held out the paper
again. “Are you sure you don’t want this?”
    They nodded at the same time. “Take it,”
Fawn said, “somewhere in there is bound to be a happy ending.”
    I folded it and put it in my shoulder bag.
“I don’t believe in happy endings.”
    Before they could say anything, I turned and
hurried down the steps to the pavement. When I looked back up at
the bus, their faces were staring down at me with amused
expressions. I waved lamely toward them and their eyes sparkled in
the afternoon sunlight for just a moment before the bus pulled away
and drove off.
    “Well that was strange.” I said out
loud.
    It was just a few blocks to the assisted
living facility and I hurried toward it, eager to get the work
done… and if I was honest with myself, I was eager to see Phillip
too. It was hard to separate the Phillip in my dreams with the
flesh and blood stranger lying in that bed. I wanted it to be real,
but I knew that it was all my imagination; that some glitch in my
brain had created the illusion that I actually had someone as
amazing as he was who really cared about me.
    The reality was that no one really cared
about me. At least not in the way I needed them to. With my mom
still sick and my brother and sister counting on me to take care of
them, I hadn’t always made the best choices. If I had, I wouldn’t
be hurrying toward an afternoon full of bedpans and soapy mop
water. It was my job to take care of things now, not fantasize
about someone else taking care of me.
    My strengthened resolve lasted until I
walked through the doors of the assisted living place. It was
quiet; eerily quiet. There were no nurses bustling about, no
patrons staring blanking out from wheelchairs, no staff… no one. I
looked up at the clock and saw that I was about ten minutes early…
but still. This was creepy.
    “Hello? Is anyone here?” I called out
through the halls. Nothing.
    I rubbed my arms absently against the goose
bumps that were starting to pop up. A shiver worked its way up my
spine and I looked behind me, hoping to see someone. Still nothing.
I was afraid to look into the rooms that I was walking by. There
was an unexplainable fear taking hold of me and I couldn’t shake
the feeling of dread that was snaking its way through my bones.
    Phillip.
    His name rang through my brain and I began
walking toward his door more and more quickly until I was running
down the halls. The sound of my shoes hitting the tile was
deafening in the otherwise silence of the building. I didn’t know
what was going on. The only thought running through my head was
that I had to get to him. I had to make sure that he was still
here… that he was real.
    When I finally stood before his door, my
heart beating from exertion, I was suddenly not sure I wanted to
open it. If he wasn’t there, I would have to admit that something
terrible had happened. Even if he was, I’d have to admit that
something wasn’t right. Businesses weren’t run this way. People
didn’t just disappear… buildings weren’t just left empty.
    Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I
reached forward and turned the knob. Surprisingly, it turned and
the door swung open. What I saw on the other side was something
from a nightmare. Mallie, with her arms extended over her head and
sparks flying between her fingers, stood over Phillip with an evil
grin on her face.
    A scream tore from my throat and her
attention shifted from him to me. “I won’t let you have him.” She
said sweetly.
    Before I could ask her what she meant, she
threw her arms down toward me and the blast of energy she sent my
way knocked me off of my feet. Her malicious laughter was the last
sound I heard before blackness took me.

    “Time is running out.”
    Tears welled in my eyes. “Why would you say
that?”
    We were inside the house this time. I
couldn’t remember ever having been in here before, but I knew
instinctively that we were in his bedroom.