Falling Below Zero - Chapter 1
I never thought that two lives would change so suddenly simply because one girl wore pants.
It was July, possibly the hottest and worst month to live in Arizona. Pants were only for the suicidal. Sara never wore pants anyway, even in the winter, since she seemed to have an abnormally high body temperature. But there she was, standing at my door, wearing sweats and a hoodie most likely borrowed from her brother. I nearly fell over from the sight. What was going on?
“Can I come in?” Her voice hovered over the doorstep, frail and quiet. Wordlessly I let her in and led her up to my room. She nearly tripped on the stairs, but she clumsily gripped the rail just in time. I thought little of it. Sara had always been a klutz. Perhaps I should have paid more attention then. Once we got to my bedroom, she crawled into my bed. I stood in the door, almost afraid to get any closer to this girl, someone who didn’t seem like my best friend simply because she looked different.
“Sara,” I asked, “are you sick?”
“It’s cold in here.” She bundled up in my comforter. Somehow, despite her lanky five-nine frame, she looked tiny, a pale diamond ensconced in the teal-on-white patterns.
I looked around. The window was wide open, but only warm, stifling air came in. “You know our air conditioner’s broken. It should be pretty hot in here.” I really didn’t have much else to say.
She shook her head. “Not in the room.”
“Sara, seriously. This isn’t funny—“
She cut off the rest of my sentence simply by looking at me, her eyes flickering from under her dusty-brown bangs. It was one of those moments, when best friends just…knew what to do. I ambled over slowly to the bed, and gently, so gently, she cupped my hands between hers.
I screamed.
In my panic, Sara seized up some strength and pulled me down, covering my mouth. My face stung from her hand’s icy chill. For some odd reason, I felt like crying.
“Shh…just listen to me. I’m going to let go now, and you’re going to stay quiet. Promise?”
My mother called from downstairs. “Girls? Is everything alright?”
Sara repeated herself, lowering her voice another decibel. “Promise?”
I nodded. She let me go. “Yeah, we’re fine!” I shouted, my hand on my cheek in an attempt to warm it. I wondered if the quaver in my voice sounded like I was crying or giggling. Hopefully my mother assumed the latter.
Luckily, she did. “Alright, girls, just keep it down.”
I assured her we would and as soon as I heard my mother continue shuffling around the kitchen, I turned around to Sara. “The hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m sorry, I…” She fumbled for a moment, her ineloquence taking over. “I panicked.”
Sometimes I hated how sincerely honest she was, especially when it came to apologies. My anger sunk into the ground, or most of it did. What remained pushed me away from her; I sat at my desk, pulling my legs to my chest. It was silent, the two of us unable to restart the conversation. But I, ever curious, could not hold it in for much longer. Filtering through the various questions in my head, I started with the simplest. “Wh- when did it start, Sara?”
“This morning. Last night. What do you mean, exactly?” I felt strangely guilty, because it seemed like it took her very life away just to speak that much.
I sighed. “How long has your body temperature been that low?”
“Oh. This morning, then.”
“Then,” I started, suddenly realizing something, “what happened last night?”
Sara shifted around in my comforter, bundling it around her tightly. I noticed that her shivering was intensifying, and grabbed a fleece blanket from my closet. She took it gratefully.
I began again. “Sara-girl, what happened?” When she made no answer and only shifted again underneath all the layers, guilt welled up again. Was I prodding into something I shouldn’t have? I couldn’t think of any way she could get hypothermia, but I had the feeling something else had happened… “We should take you to the hospital. This is ridiculous. Why haven’t you told your parents?”
“No one will believe me. He said so.”
Her voice was nothing but a silhouette of sound, yet it sent frigid chills down my neck. For some unknown reason, I was terrified. I trembled and gripped a handful of the comforter.
Despite the fear, I persisted. “We really have to go to the hospital. You have to get checked. You know you do.”
“What can they do,” she whispered and turned to me, her brown eyes old and frail, “to someone who’s already lost? I’m done, Merrick. I just… wanted to be here with y—.” Her eyes began to flutter, and she fell backwards onto my bed, unconscious.
“Sara! Wake up, Sara-girl! Stay with me, please,” I screamed, shaking her. She didn’t respond and I was sure if I shook her any harder, her neck would snap. “Mom! Mom! I need you!”
I couldn’t take it anymore. She was my best friend, and I wasn’t going to lose her. It didn’t matter if it was the cold, or some mystery man, or insanity was pulling her away. She wasn’t going anywhere.
I stood up, grabbed the phone off of my desk, and dialed 911 with fumbling fingers.
“Hello, what’s the emergency?” A man’s voice rumbled. I bristled at the evenness of his voice. How could he possibly be calm?
“I think my friend has hypothermia and she just passed out. She needs help!”
“I have you at 563 Arlington Lane. Is this correct?”
“Yes, yes, please hurry!” I hung up on him and dropped the phone, uncaring of where it landed.
By then, my mother had found her way into my room. “Merrick, what’s the matter? Why are you crying?”
I hadn’t noticed that tears had gathered on my face. The horrid temperature of her cheek against my hand, the haunting blue of her lips: those were the only things that I could think about, the only things that registered in my mind as I waited for help. But as each tear fell, I knew. Sara was gone.
Sara Liston “officially” died in the hospital an hour later at 2:34 PM, the cause of death attributed to hypothermia. No one could figure out exactly why she would have hypothermia in the middle of an Arizona summer but it seemed like no one wanted to know anyway.
That day, I lost not only my best friend, but my sanity.
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So this is a work-in-progress, and I’d like to see what people think of it. Intriguing? Boring? Confusing? If you could let me know, that would be greatly appreciated.
) You’ve got a great sense of dialog, you can make it sound realistic and effortless like real people talking. You also know how to move the story along with the right amount of detail, and you take the story in the right direction without stalling on pointless junk or moving too fast. That’s so great! Good work!
love the story, PM me when the next chapter comes out!!!!
