Fix You ~Completed~

Act Fifty-Eight

I waited a while before deciding what to do with the ashes. Deciding where (who I thought was) the love of my life's final resting place would be wasn't something I could take lightly.

Kyla said he wanted to be scattered at the Paragon Bar, but the owner, Richard, said that was a hard no. "What kind of bar lets their ex-patrons get their remains dusted all over the floor?" he'd grumbled when I came to him with my question. I offered him fifty bucks and he still turned me down. "I'm sorry, kid. Kyla was a loyal customer, but a complete piece of shit. If I'm honest, I'm glad he finally got what was coming to him."

"Most people share that feeling," I let him know with a small laugh.

The man behind the counter wasn't that old; my guess was late thirties, early forties, and he proudly wore a t-shirt with Paul McCartney's face on it along with a sleeve of tattoos ranging from bleeding hearts to lyrics I recognized from Fleetwood Mac songs I'd heard in Eddie's car. Despite his rough stance, I could tell by his face he was a kind soul.

"You were friends with him?" Richard asked, reaching across his bar to retrieve a bottle of spirits. He offered some to me, but I quickly declined. "Okay, not a drinker. I find it hard to see you being Kyla's type of person."

"We were dating," I explained, shedding any shame I had over the matter. "This was the bar he used to pick all his side girls up from, right?"

"Oh my god." The bartender let out a surprised huff, shaking his head. The answer to my question was in his pitiful eyes. "You poor thing. I bet nobody's happier to see him gone than you."

I was squeezing the urn in my hands. To the other people at the bar, I probably looked crazy. Honestly, considering the fact they were getting drunk at noon, they had no room to judge the scrawny kid holding his boyfriend's ashes. Or was I supposed to call Kyla my ex now?

"I dunno. Kyla had a lot of enemies," I admitted, tracing the rim of the urn absentmindedly. I held it closer to my chest. "Some of them are probably doing a jig they're so glad he's dead."

It would have been much easier if Richard just let me get rid of the ashes then. The longer I had that stupid thing, the harder it would be for me to let go. I slept with it some nights. That wasn't healthy.

"You should have just sent it to his folks with his other belongings," Gale suggested when I came home from the bar, feeling like a complete failure. He was at the kitchen table, polishing off a bowl of cereal in about four bites. "It's not your problem, Lem."

"It is my problem. I was the only person who I actually cared about Kyla," I argued, sitting down beside him with the urn in my lap. Even though I cared more about Kyla than I ever did myself, he didn't return that sentiment. No matter how I tried to fool myself, Kyla didn't care. He never did and he never would.

I slid the urn onto the floor. Out of sight, out of mind.