Regretful Love

Chapter Fifteen

                  

It wasn't, he thought, that he didn't believe it. It was that he needed to see it with his own eyes before it was real. He'd come a long way, and going to her grave was something he needed to do. He could hold himself together as long as he was still walking. The breeze carried the scent of soil with it, and he let himself embrace the smell and the feeling of the air on his skin. He walked down to the bottom of the road where he knew that the billboard would be. She was sitting there, just waiting. He'd made it this far so he went over and sat down next to her on a concrete cylinder that seemed to be somehow supporting the structure of the billboard. She looked at him but didn't say anything, waiting for him to go first.

But rather than talk, Kell opened up the pack and pulled out the box and prepared a half syringe of the morphine. He tied the elastic tight around his upper arm, waiting this time for the vein to swell up so that he could see it in the bright daylight and know that he was injecting into more or less the right place. His arm still had scars from the last time in the alley, only an hour or so ago. He pushed the needle in and let the drug flow slowly into his vein.

The feeling came at once, the wonderful floating feeling and the taste of candy at the back of his throat. He closed his eyes to enjoy it for a moment, maybe for too long, because the girl coughed and his eyes shot open to see the needle still hanging from his arm. Quickly, he removed it and put everything away again. Then there was no delaying.

"Come on," he said, standing up as best as he was able.

"Where are we going?" she asked, but she stood too.

Kell started walking, the going tough over the uneven ground, so he didn't answer until they were back on the smooth tarmac.

"There's a church on the other side of town," he said. "A cemetery next to it."

The girl didn't say anything, but he knew she understood and was kind of grateful that she wasn't asking questions. She just let him walk, following slightly behind so that he could hear her footsteps and know that she was there. Ready to catch him if he fell.

They made it back onto the main street, and walked slowly past the shops like tourists meandering on a Sunday afternoon. But he couldn't go faster. They passed the drug store and kept going, past a general store, and past something else that looked like an old-fashioned farming place. As they walked, the buildings became farther apart, and there were no cars parked out front anymore, so he knew they were coming to the edge of the little town. That was when she finally spoke.

"Kell, are you okay?"

What was he supposed to say to that? Was he okay? He decided to be honest. "I don't know."

She came closer so that he could feel her arm brushing his as they walked. "I'm here," she said, needlessly.

The tarmac was hot underfoot, but it wasn't far out of town. He could see the building now: a simple, clapboard church, with a sign outside with those removable black letters that could be changed to say what you wanted to say to the world. They weren't close enough yet that Kell could read what it said, so there was just a black blur on the white surface.

"Kell, I'm scared."

He looked at her. "Why?" he asked.

"Scared for you. Scared of what this means to you. And I don't know what to say."

He smiled at her and reached for her hand, holding it for a second before letting it drop. "I know," he said. "I'm scared too. And you don't need to say anything. Really, you don't."

"I'm sorry," she said. "Sorry for this, sorry for me being here, sorry because... just sorry." She kept walking beside him. "Would you like me to leave you alone?"