46
fiction
“Hayley, what are you doing?”
Hayley’s Comet
I heard a voice yelling at me from behind, nearly drowned out by the rain. It was pouring; hard, driving rain that would send most people running inside. But I’d been standing there for I didn’t know how long, stock still and staring, not even feeling the rain anymore. I was soaked to the bone, my clothes drenched and clinging to me, my hair dripping and plastered to my face and neck. But as hard as the rain fell, I couldn’t seem to move.
words Liesel Schmidt image Triff/Shutterstock
“Hayley?” the voice asked again, nearer this time. I felt a hand lightly touch my shoulder, and I flinched. Out of my peripheral vision, I could see my best friend, Megan, inching closer. “Sweetie, you’re soaked. Please let me take you home.” I stared straight ahead and shook my head, still saying nothing. Part of me was thankful for the rain. It washed away the tears that had been streaming down my face, mixing with them, and making them almost imperceptible. But as much as I cried, I couldn’t seem to make a sound, couldn’t howl, or scream or yell out into the wet dark that surrounded me, standing at the edge of the dock with blackness that stretched out before us under the blanket of night and curtains of rain that blotted out the stars.
S
“Talk to me, love,” she said softly. I could hear it in her voice, knew her well enough to know that she would stand there with me as long as it took. I felt a shiver ripple through me, and it was as though it finally shook something loose. “He asked her to marry him,” I said flatly. I blinked away the rain and tears that were clouding my eyes and continued to stare ahead into nothingness. Nothingness. It was an apt description of what I felt. Like my heart had been ripped from my chest, leaving an empty void of nothingness in its place. “What?” Meg said, sounding as shocked as I knew she would be. “When?”
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