𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗

I slowly make my way back to the cottage. The sun is still brightly shining, but my emotions are running low. Even though I can't feel my body, and I can't shed a single tear, it doesn't mean that I don't want to.

I want to scream, cry and throw the biggest, most dramatic, temper tantrum ever. But I don't, because I physically can't. I'm meant to feel peace and stillness no matter what emotion is trying to break free from my body.

Walking through the back door, I stop in my tracks once I see Grayson sitting on the couch. He immediately shoots his head up to look into my eyes. We stay still for a few seconds, gazing through each other's dead souls.

"Hi." He breaks the ice by saying.

"Hey." I exhale a deep breath and cross my arms over my chest.

"I just woke up." He nods his head, still keeping his eyes locked on mine.

"How was your nap?" I awkwardly ask.

"It was nice, I guess. There's nothing else to really do here, besides sleep." He helplessly shrugs.

When I simply nod and don't give him an answer, he tilts his head to the side and furrows his eyebrows. "Are you okay?"

I shift my eyes down to the floor, not wanting to look at him any longer. "Not really, no."

"What happened?" He rises to his feet and begins walking over to where I'm standing.

He stays silent for a moment, studying my facial expression. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Can we take a walk first?" I mutter, desperately wanting to be surrounded by the beautiful scenery around me.

"Of course." He nods while heading toward the back door.

Without saying another word, I follow his lead out to the sunflower field. He waits for me to catch up, and I proceed to walk in the opposite direction that Hunter took me before. I want to see more of the land.

"Every time I take a nap, I think I'll wake up in my grandma's small white house in Renton." He says, throwing his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

"Trust me, I know the feeling." I sigh and look down at the grass underneath me.

"I wonder how much time has passed, in the real world. Hunter said time is slower here."

"Who knows." I shrug and shift my eyes up, looking at the flowers around me.

"There's a lot of hills around here." Grayson points out.

"Yeah, but they're nice." God, I'm so awkward.

"Were you with Hunter while I was napping?"

"Yup." My voice cracks as I keep my eyes on anything but him.

"Something must have happened." He whispers while looking back at me.

"It did." I vaguely respond.

He continues to stay silent, while inhaling a deep breath. My eyes focus on the flowers around us.

"Bet you I can get to the end of this trail faster than you can." He randomly states.

My eyes shift to the end, it seems so far away. "Maybe not."

"Is that a challenge?" I finally look at him, and he's heavily smirking down at me.

I go to protest the silly idea, but end up closing my mouth. I look back at him, and he's still staring at me with those captivating brown eyes.

"You're wearing converse, I'm in sandals. It's an unfair challenge." I point out.

"I'll give you a head start." He raises an eyebrow up.

"A head start?" I give him a confused look.

"Yeah, how about I let you run first, count to ten, then catch up?" He nonchalantly shrugs.

"Fine." I let out a tiny laugh and take a few steps away from him.

"Ready?" He asks.

"Yup." I look ahead of me.

"Go!" He shouts.

I start running, but it doesn't feel like it. It feels like I'm moving on top of a cloud. The ground underneath me is soft and mushy. My focus stays on the long run I'm enduring to get to the end of the trail.

About five seconds into my 'head start', I hear Grayson's deep voice behind me. "Ten."

"Ten?!" I shriek while looking back, still running forward.

He begins rushing toward me, of course he's way faster than I am.

"You cheated!" I yell while running a little faster.

"No I didn't." He laughs, his voice getting closer.

Without looking behind, I make a sharp right turn and start running down a different trail.

"Who's cheating now?" I hear him yell.

"Catch me if you can." I laugh and run even faster, hoping he doesn't catch up.

"Don't tempt me." His voice sounds close, so I turn down another trail, still surrounded by sunflowers.

Normally I hate to run. I get sweaty, I lose my breath easily, and my legs always give out. But not today. Today, running makes me feel like a feather. I feel light, soulful, and free.

The air is whooping around me, and I pretend I can feel it hitting my face. I keep my focus on the sensation of the grass underneath me.

Letting out a breath, I turn around and see an empty trail. Grayson is nowhere to be seen. Slowing down my running, I furrow my eyebrows and look at the sunflowers around me.

"Got ya." His voice booms from behind me.

Turning around, I practically bump into him. I gasp and take a small step back. He's still smirking at me, which causes me to laugh.

"You can't get me, if you can't feel me." I giggle and run past him.

"Those aren't the rules." He yells from behind me.

"Screw rules." I shout back, pushing my feet forward.

"You can run all you want, Hope. I'll still get you."

"Yeah, right Grayson. You still haven't-" I immediately stop running the second I'm met with a large body of water. My eyes widen as my feet come to a halt right in front of a lake.

"Gotcha." Grayson smirks, placing his hand on my arm.

Even if I was able to feel it, I wouldn't want to. My mind is consumed by the flowing liquid around me.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Grayson furrows his eyebrows by looking into the distance.

"We should head back." I gulp and go to turn around.

"What's going on? And where did this come from?" He whispers while stepping in front of me.

"I don't know, okay? I don't want to be this close to a body of water." I practically beg him to move with my terrified eyes.

"Hope, what happened? You can tell me." I can hear the soft undertone to his voice. Even though my body is already relaxed, I'm sure hearing that sound on Earth would relax it even more.

"I'll tell you if we step away from the water."

He nods his head and begins to walk further back. I follow his lead and exhale a deep breath. Once the lake is nowhere in sight, Grayson sits down in the grass.

I sit down next to him, adjusting my white dress. "Large bodies of water scare me."

"I'm assuming it has something to do with Hunter's death." He whispers.

"He drowned." I say, a little too quickly.

"Hope, I'm so sorry." Grayson shifts a little closer to me on the grass.

"He went out on a boat with his friends. They were drinking, and it was dark, and we got a call from the police saying that he slipped and fell. He hit his head extremely hard and that allowed him to become unconscious. The water picked up and he drowned."

"That's horrible." He lowly says.

"It was, and there were a lot of questions that kept circling my brain." I look back at him while rubbing my lips together. "His friend Kyle started acting sketchy. He didn't attend his funeral, and I thought that was messed up considering it was his boat."

"Is that the guy who had his hands on you at the carnival?"

"No, that was Chase, but Kyle was there. He has black hair and dark eyes." I can practically see his face in my mind, and the thought makes me sick.

"Right, I remember." Grayson nods.

"Hunter told me a lot of the missing information." My voice starts to tremble, and I'm trying so hard to let my scared emotions out.

"What did he say?" His voice whispers.

"The truth." I turn to fully look at Grayson. "Hunter was arguing with Kyle, and then Kyle pushed him."

"Wait, what?" Grayson's eyes widen.

"Kyle pushed Hunter off the boat, he hit his head and drowned. None of his friends tried to save him because they didn't want to get busted for underaged drinking, especially while operating a moving vehicle."

"Holy shit." His face falls as he scoots even closer to where I'm sitting. "Kyle killed him."

"It wasn't intentional, but he still caused his death to take place. If he never put his hands on him, my brother would still be alive."

"Do your parents have any idea that this happened?" His voice shakes.

I immediately shake my head. "Nope, but I had a suspicion his friends were involved."

"What about the police? Nobody questioned them?"

"The police act like they care, but they don't." I shrug and look back at him.

"And what about your parents?"

"What about them?" I scoff.

"How do they feel about all of this?" He sighs.

"They act like they never even had a son. I hate them for that." I shake my head in disgust.

"I'm sorry you have to go through this." He says while keeping his eyes on me.

I look back at him and sigh. "I know how you feel, by the way. I want to cry too, but I can't. It feels like-"

"Like your body is going to explode." He finishes the sentence for me.

"Yeah, that's exactly how it feels." I nod at his words.

"Having no emotions is weird. You don't realize how important they are until they're gone."

"I want to feel sad." I admit.

"But why?" Grayson furrows his eyebrows.

"Because I want to grieve. Some asshole pushed my brother off a boat and it changed my entire life." My voice shakes, that's the closest thing to a feeling that I have.

"Maybe that's another reason we're here. To not feel sad, or angry." His voice gets lower at his last few words.

"Angry?" I look back at him.

"That's what I was before we came here." He helplessly shrugs.

"Why were you angry?" I ask.

"Because I didn't want to spend the summer with my grandma. I wanted to stay in Jersey with my friends."

"So, why didn't you? Just stay in Jersey?"

"It's a long story." He looks down at the grass.

"We've got time." I small smile creeps on my face as I stare at him.

He looks back at me, searching my face for any type of feeling. "Maybe, but for right now I don't feel like sharing."

"That's fine." I mutter while looking down at the small blades of grass surrounding me.

Grayson slowly moves his hand over mine. It's a gesture we've been doing, even though it's useless.

"I would comfort you, but since I can't actually touch or feel you, pretending will have to do."

I stare down at his hand covering mine, his palm resting over the top of my skin.

"Thank you." I mumble while looking back at him.

"You're welcome." He gulps before staring off into the distance, allowing the silence to consume us.