Chapter 26 Nine
Nine
My feet hit concrete. I look around and realize I’m standing on the corner near our old apartment.
The air is chilly, but it’s not the same kind of cold as at Mr. Venom’s home.
The trees planted along the sidewalk have small budding leaves, and the wet pavement glistens beneath the lights of the storefronts.
It’s probably early spring if I had to guess.
There’s a strange familiarity being here. I recognize the area, but it’s more than that. It’s like feeling like I’ve watched an episode of a show but not remembering the events that took place.
I stand there, looking around. Homesickness.
That’s the main thing I feel. I have such a strong urge to turn on my heel and walk home, back to the cozy little apartment we called home.
To snuggle under the outrageously fluffy blankets Van insisted we needed and lay there with her listening to the music playing low through her stereo and giving all my attention to her recounting the things that happened to her at work today.
Just as soon as the thought crosses my mind, another takes its place. This isn’t real. Van isn’t there. Van is dead. I am dead. I’m safe. She is safe in the beyond. I’m here to find out the truth.
Yes, the truth. How we died.
Did she die here, or did I?
“She did,” Kat’s voice echoes through my mind like a reverberated echo in a long hallway.
I suck in a sharp breath.
Where do I need to go?
I look around the mostly empty street. Most of the stores have closed up for the evening. The workers inside cleaning up and preparing to leave for the night.
Off to the left, down the alley, I hear her. Her laugh. I turn just in time to see her face as she laughs nudging me with her shoulder. Just like the small little glimpse that had been popping into my head since I remembered the night of the Christmas party.
“Yes, exactly. You’ve been remembering small things, but they’re tangled like a knotted cord.” Kat’s voice echoes again.
Or like earphones in your pocket.
I can hear her echoey snort before she replies, “Yeah, Laney. Like earphones.”
I watch as we approach the convenience store across the street.
I open the door as she steps through. I can see the tops of our heads through the large glass covering the face of the store, barely peaking over the posters hung in the windows.
My steps are soundless as I move across the road.
I barely think of the action as I follow behind, needing to see everything. Every little detail.
The memory is inching closer. More and more becomes familiar. It is early spring. If I’m not mistaken it’s Valentine’s Day.
“Technically the day after. It’s after midnight. All the stores have taken down the decorations.”
We went to the movies. There was a new romcom she wanted to see. No stalker behavior in this one though. We were on our way home after the movie ended and she wanted snacks and something to drink.
“Yes.” This voice wasn’t Kat. It didn’t have the same airy tone as hers. It was soft, lilting.
Van?
“Yes,” she spoke again. It’s so faint, like she’s pushing to be heard when she knows she shouldn’t be heard. “You…go…couldn’t…wasn’t…fault…forgive…happy…you…”
Each word seemed to come from further and further away, but I listened, taking the final few steps to the store.
As I opened the door, I heard music playing quietly.
Behind the register, an older man sat with glasses low on his nose reading a magazine.
Aside from Van and myself, the older man, and the store was empty.
I walked past each aisle, finally seeing us in the back giggling with armfuls of chips, cookies, and candy.
Through the murmured chatting and shushed giggles coming from us, the magazine pages turning, and the music, I hear it.
The bell. Over the door, the bell dings signaling a new customer has entered.
Dread creeps up my spine. A dark, cold chill. Absolute fear.
Standing in front of the older man at the register, two guys in all black stand. One has a gun pointed at the chest of the older man. The older man has his hands up in surrender, his eyes darting back to the corner where Van and I have been. He talks loudly.
“Hey, just take what you want, and get out of here. I don’t own the place, I only work here. I don’t care what you take, I just want us to all leave here and stay safe, okay?” He emphasizes a few of the words louder than the others, and I remember.
He was warning us. This was when I heard him, and I threw my hand over Van’s mouth before she started to laugh again.
I creep around the corner and watch us. The stuff we had in our hands thrown across the floor around us as I pushed us down, trying to make us disappear.
I remember thinking to myself how for years I was invisible to everyone, and in that moment, I wished so badly I actually was, and that I could have hidden the both of us.
I glance back at the men in black, watching the one with the gun nod to the one with the duffel bag, motioning for him to go around the store.
I watch silently as he goes around clearing off the shelves, stuffing the bag full of food, drinks, candy, and whatever other small knickknacks lined the shelves.
The man with the gun has the older man cleaning out the register and the scratch off tickets, throwing it all in the backpack he’s holding out.
I’m watching him closely, trying and failing to find anything familiar in his body.
The way he speaks and carries himself. But nothing.
I can’t even see what color his hair is. I just know he’s tall, and that’s only because he towers over the shelves.
In the back of the store, I hear a shuffle.
I turn sharply, watching as me and Van whisper hurriedly to each other, trying to figure out how we can get to the door to the right in front of us, but it’s not hidden by the shelves, it’s visible from the register.
I can see the tears streaming down her face, and almost as clearly as if she was saying it right to me now, I can hear her trembling voice as she says, “I’m scared.”
There’s a crack in my chest at her words and I remember feeling how heartbroken and defeated they left me feeling. And I remember what I said after.
I thought you said Van died here.
“She did—”
“I did.”
They both replied. I watch as the past version of myself grabs Van’s face with both hands, kissing her.
Pouring every single emotion she has ever made me feel into it.
I took the cracks in my chest using them as strength to kiss her this last time.
In my mind, I knew it was going to be the last. I remember how final it felt.
How I sat there, gripping her so tightly, a voice in the back of my mind told me I was probably hurting her, but I didn’t listen to it.
I couldn’t listen to it because I knew this was the last time I would get to see her like this, get to touch her like this.
“Laney,” her whispered sob rips through me. The past me, and the one watching this unfold.
“You need to go and get help. You’re faster than me, and I’ll just slow you down.
Go to one of the other stores, find a payphone, something, and call for help.
Do you understand me?” My voice was so steady, so strong.
It was a lie. I was so afraid. I was already beginning to feel those familiar pangs in my chest that have plagued me all this time.
The hole in my chest being chiseled out slowly, with each second that passes.
“No, Laney, I can’t. I’m staying right here with you.”
“Van,” I whisper her name like a prayer, repeating the action I took those short months ago, leaning my forehead against her own.
“I love you. I love you so much. I have loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you. Your safety is all I can think about right now. I need you to be safe. Do you understand me?”
Her cries are muffled behind her coat sleeve as she nods. I stared deep into her eyes, memorizing the way they gleam.
“I need you to go.” With all the strength in my body, I pushed her away from me, and something inside me snapped. I watch as I nod toward the door with the exit sign shining above it like a beacon of safety.
With one more look her way, I jumped up, running along the drink coolers toward the other guy with the duffel bag.
“Please, please don’t hurt me. Just let me leave and I’ll pretend I was never here,” I pled as I approached. He jumps, like he was shocked someone else was in the store.
I stand back watching as the past me grabbed on to his arm, begging to be let go. It’s here from my spot overlooking the scene, that I realize Van didn’t leave like I had hoped.
My loud pleas and crying caught the attention of the man with the gun and the older man. The man with the gun approaches quickly, shouting at me to get down on the floor, and I watch as I do, kneeling before him with it pointed directly at me.
The older man stands behind the counter, watching me, pity etched in his face, then confusion.
With the gun man’s back to him, he turns watching as Van creeps out from behind the far shelf toward to the back exit.
A small smile curls at the edge of his mouth.
It’s sad, knowing. He looks back to the version of me staring down the barrel of the gun, and I remember looking up to see him nod my way.
A look of pride so similar to one my dad would give me when I would do something right, it gave me hope.
It was what I needed in that moment to know this was the right choice.
And I truly believed that. I knew deep down, in every atom of my being, this was the right decision. It was what was supposed to happen.
But Van, she’s still there. I watch her as she stills, her hand on the door, so close to being free. And I watch as the past me glances her way, seeing her standing there, terrified. My eyes beg her to go. To run. But Van doesn’t move to leave.
There are sharp cracks of gunshots, and I watch as the force knocks into me.
Blood pooling around me, as the past me holds on to my stomach and thigh.
A small moment of silence is deafening in the seconds after the shots ring out.
Then there’s a scream. An eardrum busting scream, and the sound of shuffling.
And still I watch. Like a voyeur as chaos of the past ensues. A dull ache has begun in my stomach near my rib, and in my thigh, but I ignore it. I know it’s just a phantom pain resonating across time.
The older man has climbed over the counter, fighting the one who shot me.
He screams in his face between each throw of his fist. And the one with the duffel bag leans over me, his hands covering my own over the wounds.
I remember the pain and then the numbness and then the cold, and, in between, his voice as he frantically tried to stem the bleeding.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry—”
Through it all though, my focus just stays on Van.
She moves slowly, on shaking legs, away from the safety I begged her to take, and towards me, lying there, silently.
I don’t remember her approaching the madness of that moment.
I don’t remember her grabbing one of the broken beer bottles that had fallen out of the duffel bag and rolled across the floor.
I don’t remember the deadly quiet tone of her voice as she spoke.
“Step. The. Fuck. Away. From. Her.”
The guy glances up at her, startled by her presence. “Where did you come from?”
“Back the fuck off.” She steps closer, the bottle’s sharp edge pointed his way.
I look at her, standing tall over his kneeling form, and to the right by his ankle where the gun is laying abandoned. At the same moment, they both look down and see it too. Lying there in a pool of bright crimson.
She pounces.
He moves.
And time slows.
“You wanted me to go, but I couldn’t just leave you there.”
Her voice plays clearly in my mind as frame by frame I watch the man grab the gun, pointing it vaguely in her direction, just as she slashes through the air with the bottle, catching his other forearm. The second the bottle cut him, the gun fired.
She froze, looking down, moving her jacket. Right in the center of her chest, a bright red mark begins to appear, growing bigger and bigger by the second. Then she falls. Her body landing right beside mine.
“It wasn’t your fault, Laney. It was mine. I should have listened to you, and maybe none of this would have happened. I hope you can forgive me.”
The older man pushes the first gun man away, just as the one who shot Laney scrambles to his feet, and they both run out the door.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the older man mutters running over to us, checking our pulses before running back to the register and grabbing the phone.
The past me has passed out, my eyes are closed, and my breathing is slow. Van lies there, dark eyes wide, and with a shaky hand, she reaches out, touching my face. I watch as she blinks, and then finally, her eyes close too.