It Was Just "Us"

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Rachel

//

Some accidents in life aren't accidents at all, some are planned in purpose. I realized this when I was a fourteen-year-old kid tugging on my daddy's side trousers, carrying a pair of my dirty white converse sneakers while watching my neighbor's house burn down into gray ashes.

Someone died inside that house.

I heard my Uncle Henry, the policeman, told my dad that it was an accident.

"The burning candle was forgotten. It reached the curtain, the fire started then."

It was an accident, my daddy told me.

But I reckon it's wrong.

//

The door of the convenient store made a chime as I pushed open the metal handle. The smell of detergent and a lemon freshener filled the chilly air inside. I slipped my hands on the pockets of my windbreaker and sniffed up the tiny tingles on my runny nose. The soft strumming of the guitar to the 1975 song with Conan Gray singing Somebody Else at the background audibly sounded the speakers as I walked straight to the counter.

"Cold?"

A clover color eyed guy under the long lashes and visible lines of freckles painted on his cheeks with his mustard tennis cap asked me. The matching apron and white polo shirt underneath made it looked like he was the store's endorser rather than the part-time cashier.

"Affirmative," I responded before picking a pack of gum from the displayed goods set on the counter.

"I'll have this and--"

"A cup of vanilla ice cream." He murmured, cutting me off. He's already tapping his finger on the monitor screen as he continued saying, "It's your lucky day today. Few people just bought ice cream so the machine has more than enough for you."

I smiled at him as he returned his warmest moon-eye smile. I handed him the bill and he exchanged it with a cup of my favorite ice cream.

"Hey."

Calling me, I looked at him, straight in the eye. Waiting for him to continue.

"Can you please stop spending your bills paying for a cup of that ice cream and not even taking a spoonful of it?"

I tore our stares apart and scratched on my chin as I looked down on my sneakers, looking all so guilty.

"I know that it's quite your tradition but-" He took a short pause before continuing, "-he already left us, Rachel."

His words got stuck on my ears, making it hard for me to push it aside. It rung on the inside of my mind, like a spinning wheel on its endless marathon. I felt like a huge avalanche just landed on top of my chest and the heavy rocks piled up all the way to my throat, making it hard for me to easily answer him.

"Oh god, your face looks like your cat just died." He reached out towards my face and lifted up my chin using his index finger, gently facing me to look at him.

"Rune?" I called to him.

He answered me with a hum, expecting some hearty talk from me. I want to tell him that I feel so awful about not remembering what had happened in the past. I tried but a large part of it seemed so blur. It kept me awake at night or worst, some monstrous nightmare of escaping, running and catching my breath endlessly haunt me. I couldn't resist the aching longing trying to cling into the depths of my soul. But all I could manage to say to him was---