Nice to Know

Tearing Down

The blazing Kentucky sun reflected off the little shacks tin roof. If there was one thing that that fire was good for, it was that I could get away with  wearing short sleaves in public without getting questioned. But even the absence of fabric couldn't keep the little beads of sweat at bay.

The last time I was standing on this concrete I was wearing purple running shoes, whereas I was now clad in heels. It felt like a lifetime ago, even though it was only a year. My house was now being rented out to a new family, the Lotte's old home had been condemned, and now the little abandon shack was getting torn to the ground.

I would miss it in a way, the distant memories of summer days were still pretty clear in my mind. But as I glanced at the suit clad man next to me, I knew neither of us needed this place. That wasn't our life anymore.

Even with the earplugs provided by the construction workers the sound of the building getting broken down made me flinch. The walls cracked and caved in on each other. Those walls had changed my life in a way, if it weren't for them I would probably be a normal college girl.

Sometimes the randomness of the whole thing just floored me. How Randall just bought this rural speck of land and dumped what he'd assumed would just be a dead body there. And then there was me, a bored lonely little girl who got a bit curious.

Maybe now i'd be a bit smarter. Maybe now i'd leave things how I found them. But since my entire life these days had consisted of evaluating my late husbands properties, I highly doubted it.

Once I'd seen enough I tugged on Peters sleeve and jerked my head towards the car. He nodded and we both hurried over to it and shut ourselves in.

The inside of the vehicle was cool and quiet, a beautiful contrast from what was going on outside of it.

We both pulled the plugs from our ears and wiped the sweat from our upper lips.

"Are you going to miss it?" He asked quietly.

I just shook my head. He'd been much more hesitant to just tear the thing down, but neither of us could stand to be around it anymore, and it was way beyond repair. Plus the idea of that place just sitting and rotting even more made my stomach crawl. It just needed to disappear as be replaced by grass and flowers with a smell strong enough to make the permanent stench of rot go away.

My phone buzzed in my purse and I pulled it out.

"Yes, Ivan?" I asked.

"Are you near a TV right now?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"Do you remember exactly what we didn't want to happen. Well it just happened."

"Shit." I said, hanging up the phone abruptly and opening my news app.

I scrolled through the recent stories until I found what he'd been talking about.

A picture of my face from my wedding with the caption-
TRAGIC ACCIDENT OR BLACK WIDOW CONSPIRACY?

I didn't even have to look at the rest. I could feel Peters worried eyes on me.
Turning to give him a mournful look a handed the phone over to him.

His face fell as he read the article. When he looked up at me I could see worry lines appear around his eyes.

I just layed my head on his shoulder and said, "Hey Sabastian?" To the driver, "We can go now, our flight to Minneapolis leaves in a few hours."