Love Is Dead

Kristen's POV:

“Wait!” I yelled after Liz as she stormed out of the room and into the chilly afternoon German weather. I barged out the door after her. “Liz!” I called, grabbing her arm and stopping her in her tracks.

She turned around, tears streaming down her cheeks. She closed her eyes, letting more tears spill. “What?” she croaked, her voice cracking slightly.

I bit my lower lip, not knowing what to say. How could we fix this mess we were in? How could we get everything right again?

Not knowing what else to do, I held my arms out as she collapsed into me. She sobbed into my shoulder and I comforted her, every once in a while whispering “It's okay,” or “Don't worry.”

But was it really okay? Was there really a reason not to worry? Tom, the love of her entire life, had just kissed her best friend. And her best friend kissed back. What dignity was left?

“Liz,” I started, speaking softly as she continued to sob. “Liz, don't cry...”

Her sobbing ceased for a moment, but it didn't work, and the tears came again. It broke my heart to see her this way. She was always so happy and cheerful, always smiling, lifting the spirits of everyone around her. She was never sad, and to see her cry...it broke my heart.

We stayed like that for a long time.

***

We all still decided to ditch the museum, but it wasn't as fun as we'd imagined.

We decided to go to a small pizza restaurant for some food at first. We got a big table to fit all seven of us. Bill sat on one side of me, Liz on the other. Next to her was Georg, then Gustav, then Magda across from her, and beside Magda was Tom.

We ordered our food, and while we were waiting (which seemed like hours on end), Liz kept giving Magda and Tom dirty looks, and glaring at them.

Magda stayed silent, not looking at anyone.

Tom kept trying to get Magda's attention, but she wouldn't talk to him. Finally, Tom stopped trying, and sulked the rest of the time we were there.

Finally, the food came, and only Bill, Georg, Gustav and I ate. By the time us four were all full, there was still an entire pie left. We had ordered two, just because we knew Tom would eat a whole half of just one of them, but he didn't even have a bite.

We got the bill, and Gustav, Bill, and Georg started arguing about who would pay. The waitress dropped the bill on the table in fright, and all three boys jumped up to grab it. Gustav got it first, but Georg pulled it out of his hand and signed it before Gustav could even process what had just happened.

We gave the waitress a nice tip for having to deal with that.

Afterwards, we decided to take a walk. Tom sulked behind everyone, and Bill and I stayed up front. Magda stayed far away from Liz, and Georg and Gustav started singing at the top of their lungs.

I wanted to sing too, but I wasn't sure if I should, considering there were three of us that weren't...themselves today.

We went inside a small store, just to pass time. It was a candle shop. There were a bunch of little rooms with different smells for different seasons or holidays. Christmas, Summer, Easter, Halloween, etc.

Bill and I headed into the Summer room, and I smelled something I recognized. It was a sweet smell I couldn't really describe, and I started to freak out, smelling a bunch of different candles, trying to get the name of the smell. I couldn't find the right one, so I started to smell two or three candles at once, thinking maybe the smell was a mixture of different ones.

After trying at that for an hour (and failing), we decided to start walking again.

We made our way into the busy street of the shopping center, when suddenly, my phone started ringing.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Kristen, you gotta get back here!” Casey's voice rang.

“What? Why?!” I said, starting to panic.

“They know you're missing!”

“What?!”

“They know you're missing!” she repeated frantically.

I hung up the phone quickly.

“They know we're missing!” I shouted, repeating what Casey said over the phone.

Everyone stopped in their tracks, their faces turning pale.

“Shit,” Liz whispered.