Scream For Me (Headstone Duet #1)

Prologue

Katherine

Don’t Fear the Reaper – Gus Black

I have always thought about what it would feel like to die.

Ever since I was a child, I held the belief that it would be the big, white light that everyone talks about, the out-of-body experience where you’re looking down at your corpse and loved ones crying.

At the ripe old age of eighty-six, in my own bed…

happy. I imagined watching my funeral, seeing all the people I knew in life talk about me as though we were best friends.

Bullshit stories about how I was a great person with a great heart who could do no wrong.

I imagined seeing my grandmother again, getting to ask Kurt Cobain all the questions I wanted to ask him…

Today is not that day. But I will still die.

I take a deep breath, the crisp morning air burning my lungs as I fist the dew-covered grass beside the lake.

Thick fog cascades down the lush green hillside, the same hillside I used to run up and roll down as a kid.

My parents screaming at me, “Slow down, Katherine, you’ll hurt yourself!

” The same hillside where my grandmother’s ashes are buried—under a sycamore tree at the highest point.

The future feels close enough to touch, but never stays.

The future where my husband and I are sat in this very spot hours before our wedding day.

We steal a few kisses before the chaos before starting our forever together.

And years later, we will bring our children to the lake and teach them to swim.

And when the time finally comes, after a long, happy, fulfilled life together, my ashes will join my grandmother at the sycamore tree.

The sting in my eyes brings me back to the present.

That life isn’t mine anymore. Maybe it never was.

I count my breaths in an attempt to calm my racing heart.

I can’t afford to back out now. I slip my phone out of my pocket and catch a glimpse of my reflection in the screen, the sting in my eyes threatens to return.

The eyes that used to be soulful are now dull and empty, my jet black hair thick with grease and pulled up into a lazy bun frames my hollow face.

I don’t recognize the broken girl staring back at me.

Before I can think, I throw my phone into the lake. The soft plop rings out my funeral bell. I take one final deep breath, inhaling the fresh, earthy air one last time, and then I turn on my heel, tuck a piece of thread into my pocket and leave no trace.

I don’t look back when the screech of tires rings out in the distance.

Katherine Abbott is dead.