Mutilate My Heart

Chapter 16

One week, thirty missed calls, forty-seven unanswered texts from Sketch, and one still-beating heart later, I feel empty and confused. Mom's tried multiple times to cheer me up. She tells me that not everyone gets to experience what I did or what she did with Brian Hawkins. It takes everything in me not to tell her that all of this is Brian Hawkins's fault. He should have enforced his damn 'No Girlfriends' rule a little bit harder.

Carli calls me every time Corpse tries to contact her. Which is a hell of a lot more than my thirty missed calls. She says she has to have me remind to her that he's dead and not some awesome human rock star that she 'fell absolutely in love with.'

Nothing makes sense anymore. I've cried out every tear in my body, and it's still hasn't rid the sadness from me. I shouldn't miss him. I shouldn't want to date a dead guy.

Annie's blank eyes stare up at me from the floor. Stupid freaking anteater. I throw a pillow at her and jump up from my bed. I grab my purse and keys and run down the stairs yelling to Mom that I'll be back soon.

I have to get away from here.

The forty-five minutes to the lighthouse are a lot longer by myself. I don't know what I'm hoping to find here. Maybe Benjamin will give me a sign that I should chase after Sketch. Or maybe I'll find the boat of his ghostly lover and float away with the current. Either way, I'm not leaving here until I find the answers that I need.

The sand squishes between my toes as I make my way to the water's edge.

The waves hit against the rocks, and my mind goes back to the first time Sketch and I were here.

"Don't crash."

He seemed so perfect that day. Everything was perfect that day. He's still the same person from then. Whether his heart is beating or not.

Something small and rough hits my foot.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but I know it's the sign I'm looking for. I bend down and pick the paintbrush up and twirl it between my fingers like one of Ink's drumsticks. I have to call Sketch.

He may be dead, but he's the only guy who's made me feel alive in nearly a year. He was dead the entire time that I was hanging out with him and obsessing over him. That doesn't change anything. He's still him.

I pull my phone from my pocket and search for his name.

The robot lady on the other line tells me that this number is no longer accepting calls.

No. No. No.

I try Ink and Corpse next but get the same thing.

I drop the paintbrush and run full speed to my car. I have to find them.

"The venue is six hours away," I say to Carli.

"We could make it there by nine if we leave in an hour." Her voice is rushed and excited coming through the speaker of my phone. "They won't take the stage until then at least. We'll make it."

She didn't take much convincing to go on the zombie-chasing road trip with me. I think she's as ready to see Corpse as I am to see Sketch. If not even more so. I can't believe we're actually going to do this.

"Be here in an hour. We'll take my car and tell Mom we're going to the mall and that I'm spending the night at your house," I tell her.

"I'll be there!"

I throw my phone down on my bed and go to my vanity. We're going to find him. Twenty years from now, he can help me tell this crazy story to our zombie-human hybrid babies. I won't be my mom.