One Drop of Golden Sun

Ch. 40 Will You Be There?

*Lokela

Speaking of letters, Lokela, I want you to know that anything we might have had is over between us.

I don't want to hear you apologize.

Ray's voice. Fucking hell. Her voice wouldn't get out of his head.

You'll be there for me?

That question hurt more than her anger. His own voice, also in his head answered, echoed by his heart.

Yes. He'd be there. I'll be there for you. Every moment of every day.

His skull pounded in pain and sticky blood streamed into his eyes. What the hell?

"Shit man, press this down." Miller put a cloth to Lokela's head. It stung.

Lokela sucked air through his teeth, hissing in pain. "Damn it."

"Yeah, maybe we should go to the hospital," Miller said to Doug.

"We are literally driving to a medical clinic as we speak." Doug was incredibly calm. Lokela liked that about him. He liked how calm Doug was when the whole world was falling apart and Lokela's head was split in two.

It fucking matched his chest.

He started laughing, but it hurt too much to continue. "What the fuck happened to me?"

"A coconut happened," Miller said. He was squinting at Lokela's forehead in the light of the overhead car lamp. "We pulled over to pick you guys up and it fell from the tree next to you and hit your head."

"That was some fucked up bad luck. I saw the whole thing," Zach said, slurring his words from the back seat.

If Lokela hadn't been in so much pain, he'd have cracked his head open with a coconut to prove that it wasn't luck—it was karma. As it was, he sucked his breath through his clenched teeth when the car jostled on a bump. "Coconuts kill people. Is it bad?"

Miller shrugged. "It's not good."

Travis leaned forward onto the back of the seat. "Head wounds bleed a lot. I know what I'm talking about. You can have the smallest cut and whoosh!" He motioned with his hands. "Blood flood."

"Thank you for that description," Lokela said. He took the blood stained rag—it was Trevor's shirt—and held it tight to his forehead. He closed his eyes, trying to think about anything but the sledge-hammer pounding on his brain.

I don't want to hear you apologize.

Ray was on repeat again.

I don't want to hear you apologize.

Doug asked him something. Lokela frowned in confusion. Doug repeated the question, but all Lokela heard was "She fell in love with you, and you broke her heart."

Then everything clicked into place. Ray's angry words when he tried to explain what he'd done, the fear and confusion on Ray's face at the beach when Beth went into labor early, her not answering his texts, Doug driving her to airport, the image Doug described of her sitting on his floor, reading his letters...

Lokela knew what he had to do. Now he had to have the balls to do it. He could barely see, his eyes stung so bad from the blood smearing his face. "Miller! Miller, where's my bag?"

***

*Ray

The evening inched along while Ray tracked the minutes on the round wall clock. She had to move as far from it as possible. The ticking was driving her crazy.