The Missing - Kiersten Modglin (the reading strategies book TXT) 📗

followed. I’d never been religious myself, but I knew there were certain things done certain ways. Whatever we did, I didn’t want to be disrespectful.

Noah placed his hands under Harry’s shoulders, lifting him carefully and waiting for me to lift his feet. Together, we moved slowly, lowering his body into the grave. I touched his hand again, one last time, knowing I’d be the last person to touch him, the last person to see his face.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, kneeling down beside him. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, but I promise to tell Daisy how brave you were. I promise to tell her how you saved our lives and…how proud of her you were.” Silent tears cascaded down my cheeks as I held his cool hand. “Thank you for teaching us. For taking care of us and keeping us calm. I don’t know how we’ll do this without you, but I promise we will. We’ll keep going.”

To my surprise, Noah knelt down across from me on Harry’s opposite side. He didn’t touch him, didn’t say anything, but he tucked his chin to his chest, listening to my words with reverence.

“I know we hadn’t known you for long,” I went on, “but you were one of my best friends. I trusted you with my life… I’ll always be grateful for everything you did for me. For all of us.” I dusted my tears away, squeezing his hand gently. “I promise you won’t be forgotten. People will know about you. Everyone will know.”

As far as eulogies went, it may have been the worst ever. I didn’t know anything about him, really. I didn’t have a cute story about his life growing up. I didn’t know his favorite restaurant or the name of his childhood pet. I couldn’t speak to his life and all the good I was sure he’d done. I could only honor him the way I knew how, with my utmost respect, with the words I wished he was still there to hear.

“That was nice,” Noah said, interrupting the silence. “Really nice.” There was nothing insincere in his tone.

I sniffled. “Thanks.” Standing up, I grabbed a handful of dirt and sprinkled it on his body. Noah did the same. We repeated it over and over, until his body was mostly covered—at least as far as we could tell in the darkness. Then, we pulled the rest of the dirt in on him, patting it down gently until the loose dirt had all been placed on the grave. I lay down next to it, putting my arm over the lump of earth. “We have to put something here. Mark his grave somehow. So when we need to come back, when we get found, we’ll be able to find his grave again.”

“We’ll mark it in the morning before we leave,” he promised. “For now, I need to get a fire started… And let’s both hope like hell I know how.”

“I’ll help you find wood.”

He held his hand up to stop me from standing. “You’re exhausted. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll find enough wood to get us through the night without leaving you. Just rest.”

“Are you sure?”

I yawned as he nodded and began gathering up sticks and brush along the forest floor. I knew he must’ve been just as exhausted as I felt, but it didn’t stop him from working. I lay my head on the mound of dirt again, cool tears trailing down my cheeks and mixing with the soil. I closed my eyes, saying another goodbye to my friend in my mind.

Warmth hit me suddenly and my eyes popped open. The fire was going, its flames lighting up the dark night.

“I fell asleep?” I asked, attempting to blink the blurriness from my vision. How had I fallen asleep so easily? I stifled a yawn, answering my own question. Grief was heavy, exhausting. Add that to all I’d been through that day, let alone the days leading up to it, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open.

Noah was sitting next to the fire, his arms wrapped around his folded knees. He nodded, the left side of his mouth rising slightly. “You snore.”

“I do,” I said, too tired to deny it.

“Me too,” he said simply. “Grit my teeth, too.”

“We’d be a fun pair for a sleepover, hm?” I said dryly. My chest hurt, I assumed from digging for so long, but also from the pain of it all. It still didn’t feel completely real.

He was silent for a moment, not meeting my eye. Then, he inhaled sharply. “You were a good friend to him.”

“I barely knew him…”

“It didn’t matter. Going through what we have together…none of us are strangers anymore.”

It felt true enough, but my throat was too dry to respond. I looked around. “Where are the coconuts?”

He pulled one from the sack I hadn’t seen sitting next to him and smacked it down onto one of the rocks near the fire. We were all beginning to be experts at just the right amount of force it took to crack them open.

He handed it to me, licking a bit of juice from the side of his hand. I gulped the sweet nectar down until the coconut was empty. It felt as if it had been years since I’d had anything to drink. It felt as if it had been years since we’d left the clearing this morning. I looked to my left, at the grave I was still half resting on.

“How are we going to tell the others?” I asked, feeling sick at just the thought of it.

“I don’t even want to think about it,” he said, his upper lip curled in repulsion, yet I was sure it was the only thing he’d been thinking about. “It’s tomorrow’s problem. Tonight, I just want to stare at this fire and not think about anything at all.”

I sat up straighter, cracking the coconut the rest of the way open and picking at the meat mindlessly.