Chapter 47
CHAPTER
FORTY-SEVEN
KRAVEN
A person who loves you will never let you go, no matter how hard the situation is. -Unknown
One month later.
“Hello,” I greeted the attendant at the county medical examiner’s office. “I’m here for Melody Knightly.”
It took four weeks to get her ashes. I just got the call that morning that they were ready to be picked up.
The last month was a whirlwind, between the week I lost getting fucked up to school and then trying to look for Julius, it flew by in one big blur.
I didn’t show back up at the house for about a week, and when I did, it shook me to my bare bones.
I’d never forget that afternoon, walking into the disaster of what had become of our lives.
I stepped inside the eerily quiet house, and Isla was the first thing I saw. She sat on the couch, staring intently at me. For a moment, I thought something had happened to my brother.
“Isla—”
She ran to me, almost knocking me over from the impact of throwing her arms around my neck and hugging me so damn tightly.
“Isla, you’re scaring me…”
She broke down crying. “I thought you weren’t coming back like Julius. I thought you both left me…”
“Like Julius?” I hugged her back, loving the feel of her in my arms.
I spent the past week in a drunken and high stupor, not wanting to feel much of anything.
Luckily, my probation hadn’t looked for me, or I would have gotten a call, or worse, the cops would have been looking for me.
Spring break was over. I had to return to the house.
I couldn’t blow off school. My court date wasn’t until summer, and I refused to be thrown back in there for shits and giggles.
“Yeah,” she wept, clinging to me. “He’s gone, Kraven. Julius left.”
I eased out of her hold, trying to understand. “What are you talking about?”
She wiped her tears, rushing to the coffee table before handing me a note that read be back in ten.
“Julius left this?”
“Yes, with an envelope of money.”
Keeping my emotions in check, I asked, “Why didn’t you call or text me?”
“I don’t know…” she whispered, lost in thought. “I think I just… crashed…”
“Here you go,” the attendant announced, yanking me away from the memory. I grabbed the rectangular, hard, plastic urn out of her hands. “Thanks.”
Isla opened her backpack. “Do you want to put it in here?”
“Umm…”
Unsure of what to say, I stared at it for a minute. It was such a surreal feeling to be holding her in this way. I never thought this day would come, at least not like this. She was just a pile of ashes now, in a shitty urn provided by the state.
Although the doctor said we could say our goodbyes to her while she was in the ER, we didn’t.
Julius signed off on her body, and we left after that.
The last memory I had of her was staring into her dead eyes, so saying goodbye to her wouldn’t have accomplished a damn thing.
There was nothing left to say. We shared it all, including how we wanted her dead.
I didn’t know much about spirituality, but that kind of shit couldn’t have been good for our own karma.
I guess you could say I was trying to process it all, and so far, I was failing miserably. I had no idea where my brother was, and the fact that he had been gone this long was also something I never expected, especially since he left Isla behind. Which only proved how messed up he truly was.
I was definitely worried about him. However, having Isla to myself helped tremendously, but given the current events, we were both simply trying to keep our heads above water.
“Kraven, here.” Isla grabbed the urn out of my grasp. “I’ll do it for you.”
I allowed her to, watching her slip Melody’s ashes into her backpack. Wondering if her soul was in there with her, trapped for all eternity for being a shitty mother.
She zipped up her bag and said, “All set.”
I nodded, suddenly thinking about Julius’s phone and how he wasn’t answering our calls. We couldn’t find him anywhere. No one knew where he was, not even Roland.
Isla was a wreck, and I wasn’t too far from it.
“Are you okay?” she chimed in, her eyebrows pinching together.
I nodded again, unable to focus.
“You don’t look okay.”
“Let’s get something to eat,” I clipped, changing the subject. I grabbed her hand, leading her out of the building.
We went to a random spot next to the office. After we ordered our food, we sat in silence for a few minutes.
We were always able to sit in stillness without it being weird. I never felt like I had to fill the quiet between us with words. We found refuge in it. It was nice to finally find someone who was like me in that sense.
“Do you really think he’s gone?” Isla asked so low I could barely hear her, bringing my attention back to her.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure, Kitty.”
With timid eyes, she asked, “Has he ever done this before?”
“No.”
Other than tracking down Julius, we hadn’t discussed much about him in general.
It was as if we were searching for Joe or Melody and just moving on autopilot.
The only difference was the anxiety I felt from not being able to find him, only reminding me of what it was like in the beginning when we first started looking for our parents.
Which faded as the months went on and we couldn’t find them…
I was half expecting him to walk through the door at any second. I didn’t think he was gone forever, but at that point, I didn’t know much about anything, and I wasn’t going to lie to her to make her feel better.
She bowed her head, muttering, “What’s going to happen to me?”
I lifted her chin to look at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” She paused with nothing but worry in her stare. “Do you want me to leave?”
“Leave?” I frowned.
“Yeah, Kraven. As in your house.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Why would I want that?”
“Because Julius isn’t there…”
“Oh,” I rasped, catching on. “After everything we’ve been through, you still believe that?”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore, Kraven.” Her voice was laced with defeat, and I hated it.
“It’s been one thing after another, and coming from someone who’s been through everything, I’m so lost right now I can barely see straight.”
“Because of Julius?”
“Because of everything.”
Considering her answer, I nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Is it?” She scoffed. “I barely knew your mom, but here I am, mourning her. I don’t want to make it about me, and I feel guilty of how much I am. I’ve never met anyone like her before. She was magnetic. This magic personality I couldn’t resist being lured into.”
“Yeah... she had that effect on people.”
“You too?”
“Sometimes,” I mused. “Mostly when I was younger.”
“You had a good time at your birthday party, though, right? You were dancing with her. It seemed like—”
“Kitty, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“How about the truth?”
“I don’t know the truth.” I tossed a shoulder, shaking my head. “I have no idea how I’m supposed to feel other than I’m supposed to feel something.”
“Do you miss her? Are you sad? I think those questions are a good place to start.”
“Why does it matter?” I countered. “She’s already dead.”
“I think it would help you heal.”
“Heal?” I chuckled. “You can’t heal wounds that won’t ever stop bleeding, Isla.”
She winced, not trying to hide her sympathy for me.
“Don’t do that, Kitty. I don’t like it.”
She stressed, “It’s okay to hate and love her, Kraven. You can do both, you know?”
“Yeah?” I contrived. “Well, part of me wonders how I can miss someone I never really knew, and then the other part of me remembers the moments she was magnetic for me too.”
She reached for my hands, holding them on the table as she insisted, “Your mother did love you. I know it’s hard to understand, but her love for you was always there. It didn’t go away when she did. If anything, I think it grew.”
“That’s what makes everything so fucked up. She loved us, but that love was never enough for her to stay.”
She squeezed my hands. “All I know is she kept up with you guys.”
Surprised, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, she knew everything. She was caught up on the last seven years of your lives, so either she was around, or someone was telling her.”
I scoffed out a chuckle, shaking my head again in disbelief. “That just makes everything worse.”
“Kraven, I didn’t tell you to make you feel worse.”
“Anything with my mom ends up being worse, Isla. How have you not figured that out yet?”
“Hey.” She sadly smiled. “You called her Mom.”
I glanced down at our hands, deciding to bury our conversation. Moving on, I went back to her initial question. “You’re welcome to stay at the house for as long as you want.”
We locked eyes.
“You mean that?”
“Of course I do.”
“And what if Julius is gone for a whi—”
With no restraint, I blurted, “Is that an invitation?”
The hostess set our plates on the table, breaking the moment, and we pulled away.
“Here you go, you two. Enjoy.”
Isla thanked her and abruptly stood, revealing, “I’m going to go wash my hands.”
I couldn’t get a good read on her before I watched her leave, wondering what she was thinking about what I called out.
Did I take it too far? Did I push her away? Scare her?
I didn’t have answers.
All I had were questions…
And I was beginning to feel as if it was all I ever had.