The Arrangement 26 (The Arrangement 26)

“There is unless someone stripped it.” She beams at me. “I’m off to lunch. If you change your mind, just ask.” Aleigha gathers her things and is out the door.

As soon as I’m alone, my heart starts slamming into my chest hard enough to bruise a lung. I know what I saw. It was him. I’m left feeling shaking with a thin sheen of sweat on my skin that has nothing to do with the balmy spring air. It scares me. I barely made it through Zara’s death, then when Zach died—my God.

My hand is touching the thin scar that divides my right cheek into two planes. Separated by a single event. The pads of my fingers trace the thin line as I stare, unseeing at the cinderblock walls. There’s no pale-yellow paint. No flickering fluorescents above. Time stops and turns back. I’m there in Grand Cayman, smiling. Feeling so angry, spitting the words at him in the dive shop. I hate you. Zach storms off, planning to dive without me, and disappears into the backroom to get his gear. Then, an ear-piercing crack rumbles me to my core, causing me to turn toward the sound. That horrifying noise. I sway on my feet. Then, nothing. No sound. No sight. Just a cloud of unbreathable ash, searing my lungs. And the mirror that hung on the wall, the one I’d been looking into, bursts. It fractures before I can blink, splintering into an array of flashing, flying shards. A metal support beam crashes behind me shaking the floor making chunks of concrete go airborne. If I didn’t turn toward the sound of the explosion, I’d be dead. Instead, I’m left breathing with an angry scar on my face.

Swallowing hard, I force my hand down. Breathe. Blink. Stop this foolishness. He’s gone. They’re both dead. I chide myself and try to shake the shiver that’s kissed my skin, but I can’t. No matter how much I want to say that was Zach—that he’s alive and I saw him in a picture today—logically I know it’s not possible. I’d write it off to a Facebook glitch. That makes the most sense, but there’s one glaring problem.

I’ve never seen that photo before.