Roommates

chapter 38

I watched Penn's lifeless body fall to the ground with an ominous thud, as his life began to drip out of his body, from the bullet hole in the middle of his back, his dying eyes looked into my exhausted ones.

I opened my mouth to let the sounds of my sobs out, but I couldn't release them from my throat. I wanted to release the inhumane sounds bearing all of my overbearing emotions, but they refused to release themselves.

Penn coughed out a splatter of blood and laughed as he tasted the red drops staining his teeth.

"It looks like... you won again, Evianna," Penn's head slowly fell to the ground, I watched as he stopped wheezing and breathed his final breath without ever tearing his eyes away from mine.

"Bear," I ignored Elaine's call and kept my eyes on Penn. "Bear, look away. Look away now, bear."

I felt two hands grab me from the chair and into a warm embrace. The gentle touch of my sister's fingertips made my cries erupt in panic-stricken breaths.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. I didn't have my glasses on, I- I thought he was gonna hurt you, bear," Elaine pulled me closer and all of my tears melted into her shirt while my cries were muffled into her chest as her protruding belly poked me.

"He was gonna hurt you, bear. He was gonna hurt you," Elaine repeated as she cradled my head and leaned into my hair.

"He was gonna hurt you."

Elaine and I rolled Penn's heavy body in three layers of carpet and shoved him into her Honda. Without any words, because there simply weren't any to say, we drove to a forest, miles and miles away, and we began to dig a hole in the ground with shovels we bought from Home Depot.

Dingy shovels for his dingy grave.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I want to do it myself."

"Never trust anything you didn't see for yourself. If you wanted me gone so bad, you should've tagged along with daddy dearest-- you should've done something about it yourself, just to make sure."

I rubbed my forehead, in an attempt to shake Penn out, and kept a firm grip on the shovel.

"I need to see it for myself."

"Mom and dad are gonna fix this," Elaine muttered after a drop of silence. "He was crazy and dangerous, he was gonna hurt you."

"He was a lowly drug dealer and before that he was nothing, then he died as nothing... because I killed him, because he was gonna hurt you," Elaine rambled on as the speed of her digging increased. I stuck my shovel in the wet dirt and looked up at her.

"You saved me, Elaine," I leaned against my shovel for support and looked up at my sister.

"I did?" Elaine matched my gaze with tears falling down her cheeks.

I nodded and pulled her into a hug, one we both needed.

"Mom and dad are gonna fix this, I'm gonna go back to New York, you're gonna finish school and nobody will ever talk about this again."

I held onto her tighter and squeezed my eyes shut as more warm tears escaped.

"Zola? Elaine?"

I quickly pulled away and whipped my head towards the dark forest.

Lee.

"Elaine, Elaine you didn't!"

"He found your keys near your car, bear, he's the one who called me. We had to split up to check the probable locations Nas sent to find you, I promised I'd text him if I found you," Lee's heavy steps against the dead leaves drew nearer and the regret I felt began to fill with each step I heard.