Fletch

17

When Fletch woke at a quarter to three Monday morning, he found Bobbi lying in the sleeping bag beside him. He had not heard or felt her come in. It took him a moment to realize she was dead.

The back of his scalp tingling, he scrambled out of the sleeping bag.

As he knelt in the moonlight beside her, his scream choked with horror.

Her eyes appeared to have receded entirely into her head. Her left arm was puffy at the elbow and shoulder. She showed no vital signs.

He guessed she had overdosed.

He spent until dawn ridding the room of every sign of her.

Until eleven o’clock, then, he sat cross-legged on the floor in the center of the room. Rock still. Thinking.