Finding Beauty (Rewrite)

Chapter 39

~Beauty~

"Her friend called out for her to hurry downstairs or they'd be late. Begrudgingly, she stepped into her boots and slung her backpack over her shoulder. As she traveled down the hallway, a hand burst out of her bathroom and pulled her in. The door shut behind them and through the moonlight slipping in through the window, she recognized her lifelong pal."

"He pressed his fingers to his lips to silence her impending scream. From the first level of the ancient house, she heard her friend - the very same friend that stood in front of her- call her down again. She felt a rush of cold air run up her spine. 'I heard it, too,' her best friend whispered. 'Don't go down there.' "

Teigan's leg was bouncing beneath his seat. "I think I know who it actually is."

"And that's the end of chapter ten," Bethany said, closing the book. He deflated into his seat with a pout.

"One more chapter?"

Tiegan had seemed fairly uninterested in reading when she recommended he pick up the book she recently finished. Bethany knew with every fiber of her being that he would enjoy the thriller. This was why she had finally sat him down a couple of days ago and read the first chapter to him. Once she started, he didn't want her to stop. He would sit at the opposite end of the couch and listen to her for as long as she went on - which was never long enough for him. After probing him on why he wouldn't pick up the book for himself, he explained that reading often felt like a chore because of his dyslexia. She tried to encourage him, telling him that the practice would help. When he wouldn't budge, she caved in and read to him. She was beginning to enjoy the activity just as much as he did.

"We have to get to work cleaning up that backyard."

Teigan had finally received some interest in selling the house and naturally, the potential customers wanted to take a look around the place before buying. In order to make it more appealing, the both of them concluded they should get rid of the playground wreckage in its center.

Beth got a weird feeling in her stomach when Tiegan showed her the emails from the interested buyers. It was the feeling in your stomach that you got when the rollercoaster took its first big plunge - excitement and dread mixed into one.

Teigan got up, hunching his shoulders in defeat. He trudged over to the backyard and glanced back when Bethany hadn't moved from her spot. "Come on, then!"

She caught up with him as he held out a sweater for her to put on. The weather was warm enough for their jackets to be unnecessary. Pretty soon the roses in the garden would be in bloom and the sun would stay out in the sky until late in the evening.

Carina was sitting on one of the patio chairs out back reading a magazine. Her head perked up when she heard them. She greeted them with a warm smile, getting up and trading places with them inside.

"You two sure you want to take care of all that yourselves?" She regarded the heap of plastic with repulsion. She pulled her red cardigan closer to her. "It might be fused into the earth at this point."

Beth gazed at it herself. She might have had a point. Still, Carina had seemed especially busy lately. She was always doing something whether it was making a lavish dinner that no one particularly requested, doing a deep cleaning of a room she had cleaned only two days before, or going out to buy groceries at the first sign they were running low. Bethany worried that the aging woman could be outdoing herself.

"We got it. You deserve a break anyways," she said. "I'm sure Teigan has given you a lot of work to do after all these years."

Tiegan placed his hands in his pockets, narrowing his eyes at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"