The Wrong King

Prologue
The Wrong King

The flashes of street lights overhead reminded James King of the lights on the ceiling in the hallway in the hospital room as the gurney had been pushed at full speed.

Flash... flash... flash.

Trauma is like that, showing up in the mundane places you never expect it to be, he thought. His fingers gripped the steering wheel as tight as they'd gripped Derek's fingers that night - until the nurse had pulled him away and made him let go, like a foreshadow.

The headlights cut through the dark, illuminating trees, bushes, lawns, and cars parked on the side of the road. Mailboxes flashed; the eyes of a cat glowed in the dark, peering between hedges as the truck rumbled by.

The rumbling was the same as it had always been. The key ring clinked, bouncing off his knee as the stereo crackled, and the window on the passenger side whistled, not quite closed.

All the old sounds were so familiar, yet foreign, too, the memory of them faded over time. But it was all coming back.

It was ALL coming back.

His stomach churned.

The clock on the dash glowed green numbers - 1:51 AM.

It was probably his fifth or sixth lap around the neighborhood when he saw the light on through Alex Hendricks's window, bright and warm; it reminded him of Gatsby's light across the lake. Hope in the dark, a beacon. If anyone would tell him the truthful answer to the question boiling in his heart, she would. He pulled over before he had thought it through all the way, the truck idling on the side of the road in front of the Hendricks house.

James ran across the grass, bending to look between the shrubs under her window, pushing aside branches to see the ground, kicking at the dirt with the toe of his sneaker until he'd found a couple pebbles, a couple small wood chips... He backed up a few steps and looked up at the second floor window, took aim, and threw the first stone. He felt like a cliche: a boy throwing pebbles at the girl next door's window in the dead of night.

It took three stones and one wood chip before the curtain parted and the window scraped in the frame and Alex was silhouetted through the screen. She peered down at him, her hair in a messy bun, her glasses sat low on her nose. She squinted into the dark.

"Down here," he called.

She looked down at him. "Eighty-Six?" Alex asked, calling him by his hockey jersey number. "What are you doing?"

"You wanna go for a ride?" James asked. He waved a palm at the truck idling in park on the side of the street behind him, the headlights illuminating the street.

"Now?" Alex looked over her shoulder at the clock on her nightstand and then turned back to look at him. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" she demanded.

James sighed. "Sorry," he said. He shook his head and waved her off, "Sorry. Never mind, Forty-Two." He tossed the wood chips back into the shrubs. "Sorry," he repeated a third time, and he turned away, shoulders slumped, head hanging low and started to walk back to the truck.

"Wait," Alex said.

He paused and glanced back up at her.

"I'll be right down."

"Alright," he said.

By the time Alex came out the front door, James was back in the truck, engine idling. She had thrown on her jeans and a t-shirt, left a note for her mother, and came running across the lawn carrying a cardigan. She pulled the passenger door open, threw her sweater onto the bench seat beside James, and climbed in. James pulled away from the curb while she was still buckling her seat belt.