Regretful Love

Chapter Six

                  

The night stretched out, hour after hour. Kell listened to the creaking of wood in the old barn, smelled the scent of straw and hay and animals, and lay awake, feeling the pain eating away at him. Was it getting worse? Could be. Maybe he'd overdone it working all afternoon, though. That could be it. It was dark enough that he could see nothing, just staring away into the pitch black. It reminded him of lock-in in the orphanage, being too afraid to close his eyes.

He didn't know how long it had been when he finally started to seriously consider the metal box. He'd already injected tonight, knew he should wait for morning, but the pain was throbbing through him now, drilling into his bones, making his muscles cramp up, and it was all he could do to stop himself from crying out. He tried to take deep, relaxing breaths, willing himself to overcome the pain, but it didn't work. If he took some now, would there still be enough for later? After thinking about it for days and weeks and it still being dark, he decided that yes, there would. Just this one time.

Getting up slowly, partly because it hurt to move and partly not to wake the girl, he pulled his pack on and went outside. The night air smelled cool and fresh. He went around the back of the barn, where the light from his flashlight wouldn't be seen, and lowered himself carefully to the ground. It took forever to get everything ready, and he poked himself twice before he saw blood flow back into the syringe and knew he'd hit a vein. He pushed back on the plunger, easing the morphine in, and then lay back, needle still drooping from his arm. Sweat beaded on his forehead and then trickled down into his eyes, but he didn't have the strength to wipe it away.

Instead he counted, all the way up from one to three thousand, watching the stars and letting the numbers flow until the drug took effect and he started to float inside again. He relaxed and packed away the metal box, keeping the flashlight to guide him into the barn. And when he was inside, he lay down, switching the light off, feeling good again, feeling like he'd make it until morning.

"Kell, are you all right?"

Her voice came through the darkness, and he knew he must have woken her up.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Couldn't sleep is all."

She was quiet for a long while until he thought she'd fallen asleep again, but then her voice came back.

"Did you find God, Kellion?"

It reminded him so much of Angelius that he almost called her name. Then he remembered where he was. "Why do you ask that?"

"Because you talked about him and his forgiveness, and I just wondered. I wondered how you found him is all."

Should he tell her? He thought about the bottom, the real rock bottom where he'd found the God he'd been looking for. The house, long neglected, copper piping ripped out to be sold for more money, glass and used needles on the floor, excrement and vomit everywhere, the mumbles of people so far gone they didn't know what they were saying. And that one, clear moment when he'd opened his eyes and suddenly seen where he was—where he really was—and realised what it all meant.

But he couldn't tell her. It wouldn't make a difference if he did; it would just be another story. She couldn't go looking for God in the same place and wouldn't find Him if she did.

"Angelius tried to save me," he said. "Tried all the time. It never took."

***

She'd tried many, many times before, and Kell remembered being so proud of her, seeing her all dressed up in her white dress on a Sunday morning ready to go to church and begging him to go with her. But he said 'no' after the first few times. It wasn't his thing. He got bored, and the hymn books smelled weird, and besides, he had better things to do with his Sunday mornings.