The Variations by Jones M (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

the sad state she brought onto herself by thinking about him. He had greatly deterred her focus during the exams, and that had her worried about her entrance into senior year.

She was just heading to the bathroom when a knock sounded at the door.

She turned to head towards it. Once she opened it, she could not hide her surprised expression when she noticed who it was.

"Hi, Kate," Emma greeted with a hesitant smile. It soon turned into an irked expression when she really looked at her. "Ooh. You look, um..."

"Terrible, I know," Kate said, scratching her messed up hairstyle. "What are you doing here? I thought that after..." she trailed off.

"I was going to avoid you again. But then I heard about what happened between you and Chris. So I decided to come see you."

Kate furrowed her eyebrows.

"How?" she asked.

"Through Alex," Emma replied.

"Alex?" Kate stated in disbelief. Then she remembered he was Chris' friend.

She was surprised by it. Also, how the hell was she talking to Emma like they were friends, especially after the information she had given her the last time they had seen each other?

Maybe her breakup was disturbing her thought processes.

"Why are you here?" Kate asked Emma.

"I came to distract you," she replied. "I heard from Gwen that you've been spending a lot of time here moping over Chris."

Kate's heart clenched at the thought of her boyfriend.

"No. None of that," Emma said as she approached her. "We are going to flush that guy out of your mind for today. I want you to go get ready. We're going out."

Emma pushed Kate towards the bathroom.

"Wait. Gwen?"

"Are you going to keep saying everyone's name like that? Go get ready!"

Kate sighed, seeing she had no other option. She decided it would be better to go out with her new friend rather than to continue tearing over Chris.

"Okay," she relented.

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"Why do people never listen to me?" Kate groaned, moving to support her back on the shotgun seat of the car.

"I'm sorry!" Emma apologized as she focused on the road that led back to the university. "I thought the hype was all for nothing. I didn't expect the movie to be actually creepy."

"I told you I watched IT already last Halloween. It also got high ratings from the critics. And it has a freaking clown that is made from people's nightmares!"

"I thought you were lying," Emma said sheepishly.

Kate snorted, earning a laugh from her.

"I feel like we should have watched a comedy afterward," Emma stated. "You know, to help us concentrate away from that scary movie. Now the only thing I can think of right now is that clown popping up from my backseat."

Kate was currently not okay with comedy movies. They usually had romance as themes, and she would hate to see characters falling in love when her own relationship with Chris could be falling apart.

She had not voiced that out yet, but she was willing to if Emma would persist on her movie choice.

They fell into a comfortable silence as Emma drove her gray car back to the university. Kate had been surprised that she owned a car, but it had not been as big as the surprise that Emma could be cool at times. It made her wonder how she had the strength to enjoy life after having such a troublesome childhood.

Speaking of which...

"Emma..." Kate called out.

"Hmm?" she asked, still focused on the view of the road. Kate still looked at her.

"I have been doing some thinking recently. I want us to talk," she said. "About Vanessa."

Kate braced her hands tightly on the leather seat, expecting the car to derail for a moment like they do in the movies when the driver is shocked. But it didn't.

"What is there to talk about?" Emma stated, still not looking at her. "I'd rather not go through the past if you are asking about my memories with the person that I killed."

"But that's the thing," Kate stated, shifting in her seat. "I don't think you killed her."

Emma snorted before arguing, "I choked her."

"You started to choke her," Kate emphasized, "but then you told me you got off of her before she grasped her own throat and started shaking on the ground."

The driver gulped before saying "So?"

"If you had choked her to death, she would have been shaking in your grip. Doesn't it seem weird that she died after you released your hold on her throat?"

Marie noticed a slight change in Emma's expression. She furrowed her eyebrows as she faced the road. She took a quick glance at her before focusing back on her driving.

"But I was there, Kate," Emma said. "The doctors said that I had killed her. They said something about forcing her without breath for too long and snapping her throat--"

"But you would have felt that. You would have felt something move in her throat if you had indeed killed her."

Emma looked more confused.

"Was she foaming on the mouth?" Marie questioned. Emma's eyebrows furrowed in suspicion before she slowly nodded her head in agreement.

"Yeah."

"I don't know," Kate said, "but if what you are telling me is exactly what had happened with the doctors, then something is not right."

Emma did not say anything for a moment.

"Did they release the details on her corpse?" Kate asked.

Before she could hear a reply, something banged on the hood of their car. It made the car shake, having its wheels squeal for a moment at the unexpected disturbance.

Kate turned in her seat to look behind them, finding a tinted black car moving to hit the boot.

"What the hell?" she yelled. She turned to look at Emma, seeing a determined expression on her face.

"Put your seat belt on, Kate," she said.

"What?"

"NOW!"

Kate rushed to do what she was instructed. The moment it clicked in place, Emma pressed on the brakes and moved the car at a fast pace.

Marie grasped tightly onto her seat. Her heart thudded as she wondered what was happening. Her thoughts had taken a turn for the dark side, and she was frightened that something bad would happen.

She looked at the sides, noticing how there was no other car except for theirs and the black one charging behind them.

"Emma, what the hell is happening?" Marie asked the driver. She didn't get an answer because a gunshot was soon heard. It hit the side view mirror on her side.

"What the fuck?" Kate screeched. "Is he firing at us?"

Another gunshot sounded, moving and hitting the windshield in front of them.

Marie screamed, ducking for cover.

"Kate, I need you to calm down," Emma yelled.

The sound of a gun firing was heard again. A blasting sound was heard, and the car began losing control.

That did not sound good.

"Emma?" Kate was scared.

"The bastard shot at a tire!" she yelled, trying hard to steer the car.

However, it was futile.

She had lost control over the car, and the two were sent spinning with it.

Kate and Emma screamed as they held onto their seats for support. A couple of seconds later, they crashed into something.

The impact was loud, sending an irritating ringing sound to their ears. Glass rained down on their forms as the two were affected by the abrupt motion of the car. They banged their heads pretty hard on the headrests, and the force was enough to leave them disoriented.

Kate heard a car approach as smoke filled her senses. She wanted to get out of the wrecked vehicle, but she couldn't.

Her form felt weak, and she instantly passed out.

 

Chapter 57

"Miss! Miss! Are you okay?"

"Jerry! Get the hell out of there!"

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The sound of an explosion had Kate waking up with a gasp. The movement had been abrupt, and it had her head aching in an instant.

"Ow..." she moaned as she winced with her eyes closed, moving to scratch the back of her head. She was confused when she felt some kind of rough cloth texture instead of her hair. She moved her hands around, making out some kind of gauze wrapped around her head. 

That was when she noticed she was in an unfamiliar environment. Blue walls stared at her from the rectangular room, and the small bed she was lying on was filled with white sheets. She had worn a blue-dotted hospital gown, and there was a beeping sound on her side from the heart rate monitor.

'What the hell?' she thought, wondering how the hell she had gotten there.

"Glad to see that you are awake," a person wearing a white coat with a stethoscope spoke as he made his way into the room.

It took a couple of seconds for Kate to realize she was in a hospital.

"What?" Kate had no idea of what to say.

The doctor turned to his clipboard after looking at her, writing a couple of things on it.

"Okay," he said. "I'm Doctor Charles."

"Where am I?" Kate asked.

"Saint Catherine's Hospital," he replied easily. "Now, I need to do a couple of tests on you."

"Tests?"

Doctor Charles moved in front of her.

"How many fingers am I holding?"

"Um, two?" Kate stated, seeing the middle and index fingers that the doctor had raised.

"Great to see your vision isn't impaired," he said, writing something on the clipboard.

"Wait. What happened? Why am I here?"

"You tell me," Doctor Charles said, looking up at her. "Miss, do you remember anything prior to your waking up?"

Kate furrowed her eyebrows as she delved into her thoughts.

"No," she replied. "I don't remember anything."

"Nothing?" the doctor furrowed his eyebrows. "Even your name?"

"I know my name," Kate said. "I also know that I am a junior student at the University of Charles Darwin."

"Well, thank goodness you know who you are. That head injury you suffered could have been much worse."

"Head injury?" Marie inquired.

The doctor sighed before saying, "You were in a car accident. The vehicle ran into a tree."

"What?" she said, shocked.

"You were lucky that a traveling family found you along the highway. I must say, though, that I am confused as to why you were not in the driver's seat. Were you doing some kind of challenge you kids come up with these days?"

The doctor gave her a weird look.

Kate furrowed her eyebrows, digging through her memories.

And then it all came back to her. Emma coming to hang out with her, then going to the movies, and that stupid black car...

"Emma," she said, and it confused the doctor.

"Who?"

"I was not alone in that car," she told him with wide eyes. "I was with a girl named Emma. She was the one driving the car! We had just gone to the movies, and we were returning to the university when a car appeared out of nowhere and started derailing us."

The doctor looked shocked.

"Are you saying that someone tried to kill you?" he said, and Kate nodded at the frightening fact.

"You need to tell the police," he advised. "They've been investigating on the car, but they found nothing."

"What?"

"It exploded, Kate," Doctor Charles mentioned. "The car exploded minutes after someone helped you out of it."

"Oh my goodness," she sighed, thinking about what could have happened to her if no one had turned up at the scene. She would have been dead by then.

It helped explain the dream she had before she had woken up.

"The police could find nothing in it but your identification documents. Your phone also got ruined in the accident, and we did not know who to call. They have all been relying on you to wake up and tell them what