Chapter 8

“The doctor said the bump to my head had me hallucinating. Of course there were cops there, but Molly claimed I went on and on about a little girl and this dark haired heavenly spirit with wild hair and stunning black eyes.”

I closed mine, and thought back to the tousled mane the army barber had shaved off with glee. I was glad I kept my place sort of dark—just the TV, ten mini-lights on the tree, a battery angel candle, and the glow of streetlights outside. Unlike at Thanksgiving, I now hoped to God Sawyer wouldn’t realize who I was.

“Molly made me promise that day if anything ever happened to either one of us, we would come back and help the other. ‘We’re all we got left,’ she’d said, because, you know, my mom is the way she is. Molly would have been seventeen about then.”

I sat down after setting the cookies between us. Sideways in my chair, I faced away from Sawyer, too nervous to look at him squarely.