Epilogue One
Babalon - Chapter Two
Nadia
I’m drowning.
An ache is squeezing the air from lungs so hard they’re going to burst. Each constriction prevents the next strangled gasp from filling them.
They’re raw, full of agony and the remnants of my screamed pleas.
Sorrow filled tears drip heavily down my face, leaving my eyes red-rimmed despite not having any more left to give.
This is the hell I’ve been living in for days, since I walked away from his lowered casket and the sound of his family’s cries.
The text I received from Mama Reyes was a shock, but things didn’t truly set in until I had to look at him at the funeral home.
When I got word of the newspaper article, I ran to the closest gas station to find one.
The ghost of sharp gravel digging into my knees still haunts me—seeing the mangled mess of his car on the front page, through the dispenser’s glass, dropped me to the pavement.
Shaking, I pressed the button and pulled the door open to drag out over twenty pages of extra nonsense just to read the article more clearly.
Tears fell over my cry-pinkend cheeks, dripping onto and soaking into the thin paper.
There in black and white, listed the details of his wreck.
Of the time, the place, and how he was dead on impact.
My heart neared implosion, painful pressure so heavy on my chest, I couldn’t breathe through the agony. Every aspect of his accident filtered through my thoughts in wave after wave of ‘what if’s’ and ‘why’s’.
Did he panic and over-correct? Was he under the influence after his race?
Did he accept his fate when the edge of the road yanked his car further away?
What was going through his mind in those last seconds before the lights went out and his heart stopped?
Is the seven seconds real? Did his short life flash before his eyes and he got to experience all the greatest moments one last time?
Death is surreal to think about. One second the person you love the most is standing next to you, dragging you into their arms refusing to let you go.
Promising to take you away from the existence you’ve known all your life, then the next they’re gone.
The humor and relief they brought to your life, the love and happiness suddenly over.
Late nights lying across the hood of his car will never happen again.
Tucked away in the back seat, listening to his heart thump against my ear and the low melody of his rock music cocooning us… I will never have that with him again.
He will never get to race under any labels or contracts. His dreams and goals ending on the side of the road, alone, and it breaks my heart knowing he passed away without those he loved most next to him.
I was on the verge of losing my own will to live when I showed up at the funeral home, his mom and sisters huddled together in the front row of pews.
His two friends sitting behind them with their hands on Mama Reyes’s shoulder while sucking down their own tears.
There I was, feeling like an outsider to their love.
He was surrounded by candles and offerings, an ofrenda put up towards the foot of his casket, photos of Mother Mary, flowers, plants, what broke me the most was his leather jacket draped over the top and his keys.
I couldn’t do it, walk up and see him, touch his hand and cry over his body like others have because if I did they’d have to put me in a fucking asylum.
I let my best friend go that day and I haven’t been the same since.
He’s been gone a few years now and I’ve wallowed in my sorrow long enough.
There’s no limit to grief, there’s no right or wrong way to process it either, but I’m ready.
I need to move on and stop letting it have dominion over me.
I need to find something that gives me purpose so I can, at minimum, make it to the next sunrise because if I’m being honest, I don’t want to live.
I came home about twenty minutes ago and locked myself in my room still reeking of an innocent girl—and I’m far from one. I’ve been damaged in ways that would damage normal families. Betrayed by everyone I’ve ever known, then left behind when I should have been in the passenger seat next to Kaleb.
Part of me knows I would have survived the wreck if I was with him and lived through a different type of regret and grief.
Maybe it would have been easier to come to terms with his death if I was there.
For the rest of my life, I will want to call and hope he picks up his phone where I can hear his warm voice on the other end.
That infectious smile he had, his playful jabbing, his love.
Last night’s shift was uneventful at best. Working multiple jobs is taking a toll on me physically, adding to the mental load I’ve carried around for years.
I’m ready for a break. As soon as I came in, I booted up my computer to begin looking through online classifieds for something more.
The main goal is to leave Hazelwood, if I’m able to combine my pay from all of my jobs into one and relocate—yeah, that would help me the most.
Finding a posting for a Basic Correctional Officer, I skimmed the qualifications and noticed it came with continuing education—making me think of Kaleb and what he said about college not being what it’s cracked up to be.
Researching this though, it’s much shorter—not requiring four years and countless hours only for a piece of paper at the end.
It has structure, classroom time, and physical training; set up more like a job rather than school
Can I do this? Look criminals in the face every day without being so damn angry at the world I take it out on them? Can I finally heal?
Hovering my mouse over the ‘apply’ button, I finally click and the screen changes to one with spots vacantly waiting for my information.
I still smell like ass from my shift, clothes stained with mysterious substances I choose to avoid rather than stripping away and diving headfirst into the shower.
This…it can’t wait. I need an escape, I need out of this place.
My eyes run like faucets, always crying or raw from doing so.
Right now they’re welled with tears again but I blink them away, determined to get through this application.
My fingers fly across the keyboard, filling in the information one box at a time—focused and detailed in what I’m providing.
Will I be qualified enough to bring in for an interview?
Who knows, but I’m going to try regardless of the outcome.
This could be my chance out of Hazelwood.
As much as I would like to call it quits on life itself, just disappear instead of putting my heart and soul through the pieces of a tortured life, I can’t.
Not when Kaleb would want more for me, let’s not forget he’d be at my shoulder telling me what to put in each space to make me a more favorable candidate.
Somewhere out there, there’s more for me and I want to find it—love, maybe a family.
Something equally mine as it is someone else’s.
Kaleb wouldn’t have wanted me to give up and even though I don’t want to keep going some nights, I have to do it for him.
I have to take him with me even if it’s only in my heart.
Road trips, exploring the world, experiencing things we have only dreamt of seeing.
Getting married, building my family however I wish.
Loud music, louder cars, and long night drives.
Page after page goes by before I reach the end, hitting submit like I’m smashing the launch button for the country’s nukes—the answer to all of my problems. For a moment power surges through me—I’m taking control and don’t care who’s here to see it.
This is my life and if I have my way, it will be as wild as that last ride he promised me.