Grayson's Body

Okay

Chapter 21: Okay

OK

(ˈoʊˈkeɪ, ˌoʊˈkeɪ, ˈoʊˌkeɪ)

1. all right; satisfactory

2. correct, permissible, or acceptable.

3. feeling well.

4. safe; sound.

5. adequate but unremarkable.

6. estimable, likable, or dependable.

Despite the new early curfew that the Kettle police had set by that tragic morning, Sunday night I let myself walk into the dark of the clear streets, the air touching my arms, moving the small hairs there, anyway. I let my mind go right to neighborhood's silent sleeping houses, and tightly pulled curtains, the way that I imagined everyone unconscious to everything, especially themselves, no one knowing what was going in that state, even awake.

It was only him and I.

Mom hadn't even known that I had slipped out, that I had looked out the window, the window that allowed me to easily look across the space to Grayson's. His was dark, an unemotional shade of gray, and I wondered if he was there in the dark, on his bed, staring at his bedroom ceiling, or if he was unconscious lying there. I wondered if he even needed to sleep anymore.

We had talked sparingly that day, Colin's funeral still clotting up my throat, still tearing at my limps as I tossed and turned on the cold, blank sheets.

Grayson's face never left my mind's eye.

I felt the plastic of the mace that was in my front pocket when I took my walk. Somehow, I thought, it was burning into the demin of my pants. I thought it was leaking out and scalding me like a child might experience when he gets his finger too close to a hot stove island.

It wasn't.

I told myself everything would be okay somehow as my shoes hit lightly on the hard concrete, the high streetlamps buzzing and crackling over my head with their sharp, yellow light.

I would later come to find that Psychologist would call what I was going through "self-deception." It's when a person lies to themselves in a way that seems real, that seems like they are telling the truth.

Funny, huh?

But when can a person tell they are lying to themselves?

That's the really scary thing: you can't.

I didn't feel like I was lying to myself as I moved through the streets, as I let the quiet soak into my bones and stay there.

I knew I didn't have anything to fear.

Maybe except my own conscience. 

I allowed myself to walk around the block four times until the muscles in my thighs burned, the tears that had steamed down my face turned into a state of non-existence, until I thought I had thought myself into a state of seemingly permanent exhaustion.

I still didn't sleep easily that night, even though I didn't dream.

They did a big memorial assembly for Colin at school on Monday.

That morning, with the sunrise drenching the sky with a cacophony of soft pinks, and golden oranges, and blood reds, I sat with Grayson in his Jeep on the way to school as he blasted the radio, as the wind hit against my face, against his face, against the leather seat that I pressed my back against.