Page 40 of The Other Side of Green

“Can I ask a question?” I directed myself to Pastor Clarke.

“Of course, child.”

I cringed but then straightened myself up. “How did Grams know to write all these instructions? This all seems very organized.”

“Your Grammy knew she was sick for a long time. Her church family have been supporting her.”

“How did I not know?”

Pastor Clarke carefully folded his paper and ran his finger down the crease. “She didn’t want you to know.”

“What? Why? I thought godly people didn’t lie?”

We all knew that wasn’t true. Grams loved her secrets, although were secrets lies? I wasn’t sure.

“We don’t. But sometimes, it’s better not to share.”

“Luca, did you know it was this bad? I mean, I spoke to her just last week.”

Luca stared at the floor and then dropped his shoulders. “She knew her heart wouldn’t last longer much, Lyra. The tablets weren’t doing anything, it was just time.”

“So she sat there and spoke to me on the phone while inside her chest her heart ticked like a bomb?”

“Lyra, she wanted you to fulfil your destiny.”

“No!” I sprung from the chair. “She wanted to lie to me and keep me in the dark, just like everyone else.” I jabbed my finger at Luca’s chest. “And now she’s gone, and she never gave me the chance to say goodbye.”

Neither of them had anything to say to that. Spinning on my heel, I paced for the small hallway and launched myself up the faded green carpeted stairs.

Leaning against the door, I slumped against the wood. Faded peach walls stared back at me. Grams’ box taunted me from the middle of my comforter, unopened.

My gaze wandered automatically to the house next door. The familiar square of glass staring back at me. Still empty.

But this time I knew no light would switch on, no circle of yellow glow on the floor, no sign against the glass.

Could you crave the past? It didn’t exist anymore did it? I stood in no man’s land. The girl who used to wait for a pebble to land against glass no longer existed.

Turning for the mirror, I tried to see the woman who now stood in her place, but all I could see was the unknown.

Unknown skin. Unknown answers to questions I didn’t even know how to ask.

Was my dad that monster? Was that why Jack and I both had music flowing through our veins when Luca couldn’t hold a note if his life depended on it?

Was that why my hair was bronze, my eyes blue?

Grams told me that was her.

Why the fuck didn’t I know anything, about, well, anything?

Little Miss Green.

I was green. Naive, stupid, and weak. I’d been living in a bubble a shade of blue almost my entire life, not realizing that as I did, I’d allowed myself to keep the green of childhood.

Maybe Grams knew that. Maybe that was why she was so damn determined that I should go to college.

Stalking for my bed, I threw myself down and shifted Grams’ box onto my stomach, holding it in my hands. Just open the lid, Lyra.

I couldn’t.