Meant To Be

Chapter five - Bell Buckle, Tennessee

Casey stopped at a petrol station. A chaos of nerves brewed in her chest. Reaching the shop door, she glanced over her shoulder, checking on Zac before going inside.

Grabbing two bottles of water from the fridge, Casey paused, picking up another. She squeezed past a couple of children stressing over their sweet choice with their mother in their ear. She paid, rushing please and thank you before leaving her change from ten dollars behind.

Back outside in the cool evening air, Casey let go of a breath, thankful Zac was where she left him. He looked like anyone else sitting in the passenger seat, waiting to leave.

Zac said nothing as Casey got back into the jeep. She handed him a bottle of water. He screwed the lid off. Casey could see the top of their high school as they pulled back out onto the road. The tangy streetlights keeping it vivid as the day fell around the red brick building packaged with memories.

"You never told me why you're back," said Zac.

Casey wondered if he was looking at their high school too. It was hard to miss. "The tenants moved out of gramma's and I'm having trouble getting someone else in, so I decided to come back for a while. I was getting a bit tired of New York anyway."

"Too big for the Big Apple." It should have been a joke, but Zac's voice was flatter than the water he was drinking.

"Does Helen know where you are?"

Zac said no.

"I know you don't want to go home Zac, but she must be worried sick."

He grunted. "She'll be too busy entertaining the fam bam." Casey couldn't remember Dena's family ever being around. "I told them to take Dena back to Mexico, but they said she wouldn't want that. Like they chose now to start thinking about what Dena wants." Zac shoved the empty bottle in between the seat and the handbrake. The plastic crackling as its shape deformed to fit. Casey handed him another one. He looked at her sideways.

"You can't be hungover tomorrow," she said.

Zac took the bottle. "Are you going to come?" Casey's face reacted first, narrating her confusion with a tint of disgust. "To the funeral," he added, rather sharply.

Casey's hands tightened on the steering wheel, her knuckles pinching white. "I think I'm the last person Dena would want there."

Zac didn't answer right away. Casey assumed he realised his words and wanted them back. "What if I say I want you there."

She dropped through the gears turning onto Zac's lane. Casey had drafted a letter, a text, an email, even though she knew Zac didn't have an account. She did it year after year for the first three and then she stopped, giving up because it seemed obvious Zac did too. "I would take it all back if I could," she said, her voice bullied by sudden anxiety. "Making you choose. Being such a bitch to Dena."

"Dena was no angel."

Casey stopped at the front of Zac's house and pulled up the handbrake.

"Dena was pregnant. She told me that night."

Casey stared at Zac, struggling to believe the truth dressed so plain. She fired I'm sorry into the space between them. The emptiness too damning the more time continued untainted.

"It's all my fault for stopping along the road."

"It's not your fault Zac."

"It is! I'm the reason Dena's dead!" The jeep shook as Zac got out, slamming the door behind him. A pink dusk layered the heavens. Casey watched Zac's lonely body hovering at the foot of the lane like Dena was due home any minute, her hand slow to open the passenger door.

"Fuck you Dena," whispered Casey, water rising in her eyes.

Casey's timid feet crunched on the gravel. She stopped next to Zac. They stood beside one another, saying nothing. The warm wind on their faces.

"How am I supposed to do this." Zac's grief wrapped around Casey like ivy. It's grip tightening as he disappeared behind the house leaving Casey standing alone. She waited, watching the windows. But the lights never came on. Zac drifting through black, inside and out.