Girls' Trip - The Fear - Part IV

Sarah reached out and laid her hand on her friend's shoulder. Terry jumped up and her chair fell over.

“Are you okay?” Sarah laughed nervously at her friend’s reaction to her touch, but she knew it wasn’t her touch that scared her.

No one around them seemed to notice the interaction, as Melinda and Dot were still flipping through the songbook by the DJ booth, and it was far too loud in the bar for anyone else to notice anything strange.  Chairs fell over frequently in bars. Once it hit the floor, you would look and then go back to your conversation.

“I’m not feeling that good.  I think I need to go back to the cabin?”

“What? Really?” Sarah felt the lie. “What’s going on Terry?

Her friend hadn't looked at her since they first laid eyes on the stranger in the bar, but then she finally looked at Sarah, shook her head, and smiled.

“Seriously, nothing is wrong, I ju—my stomach hurts is all, maybe it's something I ate. I think I should go lay down for a bit.  I’ll get up for the bonfire later. I promise."

“Someone should walk back with you.  No one should be walking alone, remember what we agreed to. I’ll go with you.” Sarah offered.

“First, of all, it’s a resort, I’ll be fine.  Secondly, who would walk you back?  One of us would end up walking alone. It might as well be me. Third, the agreement was more directed toward bar close when this entire bar was drunk.” Her voice, confident and convincing, didn’t fool Sarah. She took hold of Terry’s hand and squeezed.

“Are you sure nothing is wrong? That guy in the cor—,“ Sarah looked in the direction of where the cause of her chills had originated and the chair sat empty.

“What guy?” Terry responded. “There’s no one there.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow at her, “Come on, Terry!  Okay, how do you know where I’m looking? You know exactly who I mean.”

“Fine.” She sucked in a breath. “I thought I saw someone I knew, but then I realized he's just similar looking. It wasn’t who I thought, afterall. AAANNNDDD...before you start that conversation, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

She slowly released Terry’s hand and looked at her sideways as if she could see the truth from that angle.

“Fine. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. But, take the main road back. The one that’s well lit and text me when you get back. You have 15 minutes from the moment you leave my sight,” she pressed.

“Yes mom.” She rolled her eyes.

Sarah watched Terry work her way through ever-growing crowd. Before she could see her see her turn the corner their other two friends plopped back into their chairs, leaned in closely, and began to grill her about where Terry went. She caught them up to speed and reassured them that everything would be alright, though she didn’t believe it herself.