Absent Hearts

Chapter 13 - Paranoid

It's been a few minutes since I woke up and based on the noises coming from outside of the room and the light shining through the curtains I'm assuming it's morning now.

My phone died before my headphones so I can't tell the time, but I don't want to get up anyway.

If anything now the feeling is worse than last night.

I mean I have a lot of people to live for, Emily being at the top of the list. I also met a new guy in my class and he's really sweet; things are going great but I still feel horrible.

I obviously can't ask the boys to take today off but I'm really hoping they'd go without me for today.

Either way that won't happen because I won't let Emily go alone, after all we did meet just a week ago. Neither would she be willing to go alone anyway.

Sometimes I just wish l could just disappear and get wiped from everyone's memory like I never even existed.

I guess today's just one of those days.

¬ ¬ ¬ ¬

It's probably been like an hour since we got to the place we're supposed to look in.

I still can't believe we're doing this. It sounds so incredibly stupid. If somebody came up to me and told me they went "looking for a dead body" I'd literally laugh in their face.

The only reason we went along with them is purly not to waste an opportunity that could be fun.

After 17 years of not being able to have guy friends, sleep overs, boyfriends, personal opinions or preferences, basically any kind of fun whatsoever. We're finally able to enjoy our lives, so as stupid as it may be we'll take any opportunity we can get our hands on.

"Guys, come look, I think I found something." Seth calls out from a few feet away and we all make our way to him.

Looking down at what his pointing at we are met with a spine, yes, a literal spine.

"Is that real?" Kai asks.

"No, it's cake." I roll my eyes sarcastically.

"Maybe it belongs to a deer or something?" Emily suggests.

"I don't know, somebody pick it up and see." Seth replies.

"What? No, are you trying to get arrested? Don't leave your thumb prints on that shit in case it is actually a human spine." Kai mumbles.

"That's what's you're worried about? Dude it's a spine, you could be holding the remains of a human being!"

"A decomposed human being," I correct Emily. "Does anybody have gloves or something?"

"Luna you're not gonna touch that. No way. Gloves or not. Please, you're here because of a scholarship, do you really wanna go back to New York?"

"That's what the gloves are for, so now, does anybody have any?"

They all shake their head no.

"Alright then," I step a little closer to the spine and move the leaves away with the heel of my boot to reveal the full thing. "Yeah, that's definitely the spine of a deer. Sorry guys."