Hollowed by Kelley York

after you were infected? " I don ' t know what I ' m expecting. Maybe I hope her experience was happier than mine. Or maybe I want to be reassured I wasn ' t alone in how miserably that whole scenario had played out.
    Her smile is sad this time. " Yeah. Noah wasn ' t too happy about it. "
    If I were standing, I ' d be hitting the floor right about now.
    Coincidence, that's all.
    " What was Noah's last name ? "
    She purses her lips. " D ' angelo. Noah D ' angelo. Why? "
    Of everything she ' s told me, this makes the least amount of sense. No coherent words will form in my throat. My mouth has become useless for human speech. What do I tell her? That I think we had the same boyfriend?
    I shake my head slowly. Ruby tucks the napkin with my number into her pocket, cups my face and squeezes my cheeks. " Chin up. I ' ll be in touch, okay? " She shifts the shoulder strap of her purse, adjusts a clip in her hair, and leaves.
     
     

 
17 . Wednesday – 9 :02pm
     
     
    I ' m numb all over.
    Can it be coincidence? There has to be half a million guys named Noah in the country. But Noah D ' angelo? That makes the idea of coincidence pretty slim. T he second that name fell from her lips, I couldn ' t think of anything to say.
    For another twenty minutes I sit there, staring into her cold cup of coffee and breathing in the faint cherry blossom scent she left behind. Would probably keep sitting , except my cell starts to vibrate. The text has nothing but a question mark on it from Oliver, wondering where I am, if I ' m okay.
    I will my legs to work and slip out of the café, dazed. My dead sister isn ' t so dead after all, and she just might have been dating my (ex?) boyfriend. On top of that, I didn ' t get much useful information for Cole and Oliver. I should have kept her longer and questioned her more. Overall the entire meeting feels counter-productive to maintaining my sanity.
    Not two feet out t he door, someone is behind me. It c ould be anyone walking down the road, but they ' re too close, right up on my back. I suck in a breath and turn slowly.
    The guy from the park Ruby labeled as Fred. His face is not on the top of my list of people I want to see, but thank God he ' s not on the bottom, either. The air whooshes right out of me. I guess he doesn ' t like the way I roll my eyes and turn around to keep walking, because his eyes widen briefly before he glares.
    " Hey! "  
    " I ' m so not in the mood for you right now, Freddy. "
    He grabs me by the arm and yanks me around, which earns him a swift kick in the shin that gets him to let go. He hops back on one leg, nursing the other with both hands. " Ow! You stupid bitch! "
    Do I laugh, or do I feel sorry for him? His words are hollow, like a five-year-old repeating what he ' s heard and not thinking of it himself. " Someone ' s teaching you bad language. What do you want? "
    Fred looks back up with a petulant little-kid scowl on his twenty-something-year-old face. He straightens up, folding his arms across his chest. " You know what I want. You were here seeing your sister, weren ' t you? "
    If it were Joel, I ' d be terrified to lie. Something tells me he wouldn ' t fall for it, but this guy — even the blonde bitch that was with him last time — they ' re different. Compared to Artie and Joel, Fred is a kitten. " I don ' t know how many times I have to say that I don ' t know where Ruby is. She died years ago, and if that isn ' t true then I don ' t know what to tell you. "
    " Then what are you doing here? "
    Shrug. " Waiting for a date. He couldn ' t make it. "
    This statement seems to amuse the hell out of Fred. " Got stood up, huh? "
    I counter with a smile, complete saccharine. " You ' d know all about that. " His expression falters. " I ' m going to tell you one more time: I don ' t know where Ruby is. Stop following me. " I turn to leave, pause, glance back again. " And tell your friends to stay the hell away from my family. "
    Fred opens his mouth to say something,