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stopped her as she ran out of the school or down the street.
    The only thought running through her head was, She’s lying. I don’t know why she’d want to hurt me like that but she’s lying, she has to be.
    She ran all the way to the hospital, ignoring the yells—the horns—as she ran full speed across streets disregarding any traffic, and even the burning in her side. All that mattered was that she got to her mother’s side. That she see for herself everything was going to be all right. She’d tell her mother what that horrible old woman said, then, as she lay safely in her mom’s arms, she’d get to hear her on the phone, screaming at the principal for trying to torture Melissa.
    Pushing past the people leaving the hospital and shoving her way through the group getting off the elevator, she hit the button for her mother’s floor repeatedly until the doors closed.
    As soon as the elevator stopped, she was out of it, racing down the hallway, past the nurse’s station and straight to her mom’s room.
    Melissa stared at the empty bed and tears began to flow down her cheeks.
    One of the nurses must have seen her run into the room because she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders.
    “She’s just getting some tests run? Right?” Melissa pleaded, her voice trembling. “Right?” she demanded. “They just needed to run a few more tests before she gets to come home.”
    “I’m sorry,” a gentle voice answered.
    “But you said…the doctor said she was getting better.”
    “Your mother didn’t want you to worry. She begged us not to tell you, she said she didn’t want you sitting beside her bed, refusing to move. It was wrong, and I’m so sorry, but your mother didn’t want you to live your life this last week as though the world had stopped turning. She didn’t want you to stop living. She gave us this to give to you.”
    An envelope was pressed into her hands, but Melissa barely felt it even as her hand automatically closed around it.
    A firm hand on her shoulder brought her back to the present.
    “It’s time to leave,” Travis told her.
    Melissa just shook her head. She’d never be ready to leave her mother. She wondered if her mom would have liked the dress she picked out for her to wear, or if she would have preferred the blue one. Her mom had always said the green was her favorite, but she’d only worn the blue one on special occasions.
    When the hand at her shoulder grew more insistent, bruising her flesh, she had no choice. She still wasn’t ready to leave, but she knew her mother wouldn’t want people to see Travis dragging her through the cemetery.
    Allowing him to lead her away from the fresh grave, she felt hollow inside. She felt completely numb to everything but the emptiness that now settled in her heart. It was as though she were somehow watching someone else’s life unfold before her eyes.
    When they reached the waiting car, her stepfather pressed the medicine into her hand. Mechanically, she took the pills.
    Staring out the window as he drove her farther away from where her mother would rest for eternity, she wondered how the sun could possibly be shining on such a horrible day. Why wasn’t it raining, why weren’t the angels crying, like in that song her mother loved so much?
    The next few days slid past in a blur. Her stepfather would give her medicine, and she would take it, feeling too dead inside to do anything but obey him.
    A week had passed since her mother died and Melissa still spent her days curled around her mother’s pillow, crying.
    “You’re not still crying are you? Damn, it’s been a week, get over it already. The house needs to be cleaned and I’m hungry.”
    Ignoring him, she closed her eyes as she remembered how her mother used to read to her—before she got sick. She could almost hear the sweet voice, telling her a story. The words didn’t matter. They wouldn’t matter now.
    The only thing Melissa wanted was to hear her mom’s voice again.
    When she