Grayson's Body

Consistency

Chapter 18: Consistency

Consistency

[kuh n-sis-tuh n-see]

noun, plural con·sist·en·cies.

1. a degree of density, firmness, viscosity

2. steadfast adherence to the same principles, course, form

3. agreement, harmony, or compatibility, especially correspondence or uniformity among the parts of a complex thing

"Maybe it did," I said softly, trembling.

Maybe the knife had killed him. It had to have.

A person didn't survive from something like that.

"What if he's not-"

"He will do."

"We've taken him this far."

"There's no way this guy is a virgin."

I moved back from his still form, until my lower back hit the backboard and he just watched as I did so.

There was this pain starting in my chest, deep and vicious, and I turned my eyes away from him as I slipped my glasses back onto my face. The cool air of the ceiling fan above was touching the back of my neck and I let it. I didn't want to cry but I couldn't help it.

They killed him. A wannabee Indie band had murdered my best friend for money and fame?

Low Shoulder, the band that he insisted he and I go and see that Friday night, had sacrificed him?

Was this real life?

I was thinking about when Grayson had been in my kitchen that night, and I could feel my cognitive brain fitting the puzzle pieces together, twisting them in just the correct way, that they fit. He had looked like a zombie in The Night of the Living Dead or maybe like how Matherson described his vampires in I Am Legend.

His light gray jacket was torn at the left sleeve. The material, pulled at a rough angle, exposed part of his arm. It was filthy: dirt, ash, and what looked like, to me, blood stained the material. His joggers were of the same condition and I saw the glaring red, dark and smudged and tainted, right on the thighs. His shoes were also filthy. I glanced quickly to notice some of the wet, clotted dirt on the kitchen's smooth tile floor that led right up to him. I looked at his black Nike workout shirt. It looked as though they had been wet and then dried. It was kind of crinkled, kind of wrinkled. There was a tear right in the center and there was-

Blood.

It was dripping onto the floor, it was dripping, and I looked down at his foot, the wetness of it in the dark.

"Grayson," I felt myself say as I looked back at him.

He was still talking, and I realized for a moment that I hadn't been paying attention. I had let myself drift, my heart pounding my chest, a subtle mix of fear and pain rushing through me. I wiped at the tears angerly as they came from me again.

This was real.

This didn't feel real even though I knew it was. I knew it by the way he was smiling lightly then, by the way his mouth was forming the words that I wasn't hearing. I began to listen again.

"Anyway, I don't really remember that much after that. I just know that I woke up on some bank and I," he gave a shrug and his hands played with the fabric on the sheets, "just found my way back to you."