Page 58 of As the Rain Falls (Sainte Madeleine #1)

CHASING GHOSTS IN MY HOMETOWN

Beckett

Angelina drops the flowers next to Lucia’s portrait, her fingers shaking as she brushes them over the pink petals. It’s her first time visiting the cemetery since the funeral. I knew how hard this was going to be for her, but nothing compares to the real thing. Reality is making my heart shatter.

“Beckett, I want to go.” She quickly drying away her tears with the back of her hand. “I want to leave, please.”

My face falls, staring at her pale skin. Angelina looks sickly under the sunlight. “Angie…”

“Please,” she begs, eyes flickering to me sadly. “I don’t want to be here anymore. Not when they’re… They’re all staring at me.”

I take her back to the car. It’s not even a point of discussion. There are other people around us, and Angelina hates crying in public. The look of utter devastation she gives me as soon as I start driving away almost kills me. I’ll think about it forever.

Lucia is still a sore topic. I can’t approach it when she’s like this, two seconds away from breaking down. I’m scared I’ll say something that will make her feel worse than she already does.

“I was wrong. It was too soon,” she admits, fighting through the tears. “I should’ve listened to my therapist.”

“You’re still seeing her?” I ask, wanting to get her to keep talking.

“Yes.” Angelina swallows hard. “I’m not allowed to stop.”

My gaze softens. “Are the meds working?”

“Not that well. There are too many.” She hides her face from me, hiccups getting lower. “Antipsychotics. Mood stabilizers. Anti-seizure medication because I’m prone to-to ha-having those. It’s like I’m high every fucking day.”

“Jesus,” I blurt out.

She’s definitely not responding as she should. If anything, her medication seems to be making her feel worse. “I—I hate taking them. I want to stop. But Dad had to-to do so much work to get them.”

My heart drops.

I’ve always known her family’s struggles.I just didn’t think this would weigh on her like this. Knowing there’s not much I can do to fix this, I focus on driving us back to her house. Angelina only calms down after the cemetery is completely out of sight.

The absurdity of the situation reminds me of something, a small detail I’ve been keeping in the back of my mind for the longest time possible. I do everything to keep myself from talking about my neighbor these days, but she keeps effortlessly showing up in every single one of my thoughts.

It’s really hard not to think about her.

“You know, you sound like Cassandra sometimes,” I comment, unsure of why I’m telling her any of that now.

“What?”

The tips of my ears start to burn.

“You both have this silly habit of making your voices sound higher at the end of your sentences,” I explain, feeling a little embarrassed about it.

Angelina blinks, caught off guard. Her freshly cut bangs fall over her face, hiding her expression from me. She pulls them back, tucking the strands behind her ears.

“Cassandra Rivera?”

“Yeah.”

“You two have been talking?”

“Not really.” I shift gears, the wheel smoothly turning left beneath my hands. “But I see her walking around sometimes. It’s kind of hard to avoid Cassandra entirely when she’s my neighbor.”

Angelina makes a small, non-committal sound, “Ah.”

I glance at her. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

I scoff. “That sound you just made.”

“I didn’t make any sound,” Angelina retorts with a pout, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Yes.” I raise an eyebrow. “You just did.”

She inhales sharply, eyes flickering to me. “It’s just… I just feel like everyone’s been tiptoeing around me lately. It’s like they’re just waiting for me to flip out. But you know who didn’t?”

“Let me take a wild guess.” I clear my throat, already knowing the answer. “Was it Cassandra?”

“She even called me a freak one time,” Angelina lets out a dry laugh, brief and brittle. “All because I tried to warn her about Caleb.”

Her first year of high school has always been a difficult topic to approach with Angelina.

From what I’ve pieced together over the years, a boy hurt her badly.

Lucia wouldn’t tell me the details, no matter how many times I asked her to.

And now, sitting beside me, Angelina is giving me the full story.

I grip the wheel a little harder, absorbing every word.

Caleb Monteiro was the boy .

“Didn’t Lucia warn you off about him too?” I say, keeping my voice as light as it can be. I know my sister must have made very similar complaints to the ones Angelina is making just now. “And did you listen?”

Angelina’s gaze darkens, and immediately I know I’ve fucked up.

“Okay, first of all, no need to point that out to me,” she spats, half-offended. “I was there, Beckett. I know what happened way better than you do.”

“Alright, I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing for me to say.” I wince while lifting both hands in surrender, letting go of the wheel for a second before gripping it again. “Maybe you could… I don’t know. Talk to her about it.”

“And be called a freak again? Right.” She rolls her eyes at me. “You know what, Beckett? Just let it go, okay? You are not a girl. You won’t understand it.”

The silence stretches out between us, making me uncomfortable. I don’t bother pointing out that, even if I don’t get how it feels, Cassandra might. Angelina just needs to give her a second chance.

I get it, though. I don’t think it’s an easy time for a girl like her, who mostly used to surround herself with other girls. Besides Antony and me, I don’t think Angie got along with many boys her age. She couldn’t stand to be around them, their mentality, or how they talked.

“It’s just so fucking annoying, you know?” she adds after some time. “I mean, I know I don’t always sound the nicest, but still.”

“You sound just fine, Angelina.”

People like to put others in boxes. Like, if you do something a certain way, then you’re like this or like that. Good. Bad. When really, in reality, everybody is made up of a little bit of both. Especially someone like Angelina.

“The one time I’m actually being a good fucking person, nobody believes me.”

“I believe you,” I remind her.

“But I wanted her to believe in me,” Angelina’s voice breaks as she keeps on sobbing heartbrokenly, making those terrible sounds, and…

God, I can’t take it.

I really can’t.

It fucking pains me .

“Cassandra is so fucking stupid.” She shakes her head. “And I’m done this time. I’m so done.”

“What did he do to you?” I ask, trying to get a full picture. “Did he try to, uh, did he try to pressure you or something?”

Angelina starts sniffing, making choking noises that make me want to kill Caleb Monteiro. It’s like she can’t even breathe, not while she’s thinking about him. Another reason to hate him, like there weren’t so many already.

“No, I was just stupid back then. I don’t want to talk about it now,” she evades the question, digging through her purse for a tissue. “I’m so tired of everything.”

“Don’t say that because it sounds a lot like things are getting bad again.”

“Well, it’s how I feel!” Angelina snaps. “I’m not going to try to kill myself again, Beckett. I’m medicated, okay? I’m not going back to that hospital! I’m not!”

“Okay,” I say softly, knowing I’ve overstepped again. “M’sorry.”

There’s really not much else I can do but wait for her to calm down again, and it’s frustrating. If Angelina doesn’t want to open up to me, I can’t help her. Of course, it hurts my feelings a little. But maybe this isn’t about me or how close we are. I’m clearly not the friend she needs right now.

By the time we reach her neighborhood, she’s fallen asleep, too exhausted to keep conversation going.I hesitate before waking her, but Angelina isn’t a light sleeper. It takes me poking at her twice for her bleary brown eyes to flutter open.

“We’re home?”

I inhale sharply and nod. “Do you need me to carry you inside?”

She wipes her face with the back of her hand one last time, but the tears are already dried. “I think I can walk.”

Angelina pushes the door open and steps out of the car, her hands still shaking.

I watch as she makes her way inside the house alone, knowing damn well that a couple of months ago Lucia would’ve been by her side.

From the moment they met each other in kindergarten, I knew they’d be good friends.

Angelina was chubby and cute, and my sister immediately took a liking to her.

Even as small children, they were inseparable.

Sometimes, if I squeeze my eyes hard enough, I can almost see her standing right here. It’s all just an illusion, of course. When I blink again, I see nothing but an empty space.

Lucia is never here.