Slipping

  ****

  "Miles?"

  I jerked my head toward the sound of the voice. I was sitting at a train station waiting for…I couldn't remember what I was waiting for, but the voice wasn't right. My eyes scanned the moving people until it landed on a face that made my heart stop. It was Rayla. My nine year old sister walked toward me quickly. Her eyes were intense as she moved through the crowd. I stood, my eyes burning as she approached.

  "Ray—" She put her hand up to stop me as I tried to pull my baby sister into my arms. A whole year had passed since I had hugged or teased her.

  "We don't have time to talk, Mi. I've got to warn you." Her voice was her own, but it didn't sound quite right. It didn't sound like a nine year old’s voice. It sounded like she was all grown up. There was an urgency in it I had never heard from her before.

  "Warn me about what? I've missed you Ray. I'm—"

  "Miles," she reached out and grabbed my hands, "there's going to be a murder, Miles."

  "What?" I half laughed because it was such an odd thing to come out of the mouth of my nine year old sister.

  She looked away from me, like someone was calling her name. Then she was moving across the station swiftly, moving between the people in the crowds like they weren't there.

  "Rayla! Wait!" I yelled, trying to follow her, but the number of people was overwhelming. I shoved and shouldered but no one was letting me through. "Rayla!" I screamed, pushing. But as quickly as she had come, she was gone.

  2

  I woke up with a start, lurching forward and sending my table lamp crashing to the floor. Rayla. My eyes jumped across the room and landed on a family picture of the four of us on a trip to Colorado. All of our noses were bright red. It had been a cold bastard that trip. Almost unbearable.

  What a dream. I rubbed my face, feeling more exhausted than when I laid down. I hadn't dreamed of Rayla or Mom since the accident, not once. I had wanted to, willed myself even because that was the only way I could see them. Finally, there she was, but where the hell did my head conjure up this warning about a murder?

  I shook my head, grabbed the lamp and sat it back on the night stand, deciding to forget about the dream. It was probably just the beer. I didn't want to think about Rayla that way because her face was so urgent it scared me. I liked to think of her as innocent and carefree, like she had been when she was alive. She was so happy. That girl's smile could light up a room no matter the mood. She would come in, twirling and singing right on tune. She was one of the biggest lights in my life. To lose her was like dulling the sunshine.

  I pulled myself out of bed, trying not to think about her because all it did was make my stomach turn. I moved down the hall, my feet dragging against the wood floor. The noise of it echoed through the quiet house.

  "You're up early on a Saturday," Dad said across his coffee as I plopped down in front of him at the kitchen table.

  "Yeah."

  "You look like hell."

  "Thanks Dad." I pulled the bagels over to me and took a big bite of one. Blueberry. Yuck. Not my favorite.

  "You going with Jordan to the lake today?"

  I closed my eyes for a second. "Nope."

  "Oh." He paused. "I talked to Marcy and she said you kids were going out there today."

  "Well, maybe Jordan is but not with me. It turns out when you dump someone you don't want to hang out with them anymore." I dropped the bagel on the table and left the room. I didn’t want to talk about it, and my dad was the nosy type. If he wanted the dirt, he could ask someone down the street. News of the break up had probably reached the ends of our tiny town by now. Dad was probably the only one not clued in.

  I didn’t bother with a shower because I decided to head to Mr. Ronald's and help out with his garden. He was an old man who had lived down the street from us my whole life. Every year around this time, I helped him in the garden. He turned out the best tomatoes in town.

  By the time I got home that afternoon, I was wiped out. It was sticky outside and physically draining. It was good to work with my hands though. It kept my mind off of Jordan and the knowledge that when school rolled around on Monday, our break-up would be the gossip of the hallways.