Chapter 31 #2
My focus is so frayed that I struggle to find his face when looking towards his voice. “No… No. I’ll do—”
“We’ll do it,” Leon says, resting his hand on my shoulder.
Rex rests a hand on my back, whispering, “We’ll prepare him a spot beneath the orchard.” A kiss is pressed on my cheek. “Be brave.”
My father’s footsteps drift away, and with the closing of the door, we’re alone.
It feels like a dream as we clean our friend, desperately waiting for him to wake.
I return my hand to his, but his icy touch startles me.
How did we get here? An emptiness stretches through my chest and mind, similar to being caught in the shade on a sunny day, chased with a chilling shiver.
It leaves me feeling light, as if gravity no longer has a hold on me.
I can release myself from this earth and float into nothingness at any moment …
but something stops me: Leon. Seeing him so broken halts me.
He needs me. Being by his side prevents me from drifting into the oblivion, and as my heart aches, he will never know how much he is anchoring me.
I’m surprised neither of us cries again.
We have passed to another level, where tears are nothing compared to the sadness we feel.
Someone delivers us fresh clothes, and I request that they bring some for Zeke.
There’s something wrong with the idea of him being buried in a ranger uniform.
We both quiver as we wipe Zeke’s blood from our own skin—the final disconnect.
I sit beside Leon beneath the flickering lamplight, which softens when daylight pours into the room.
I have never before noticed the stained-glass white dove holding an olive branch in its beak ahead of a yellow sun with multicoloured panes.
The sunrise hits the glass just right, illuminating a kaleidoscope of colourful columns, which reach down, kissing our tear-sodden faces.
I suppose it would usually inspire something similar to joy.
Zeke deserved better than this. He’s a hero, and heroes deserve a happy ending.
A sudden rush of fury flushes my cheeks, and I say through gritted teeth, “Where is Atlas? He should be here!”
“I don’t know,” Leon says defeatedly, shaking his head.
“Don’t leave him alone.” I stroke Zeke’s face, forcing our divide before marching from the church.
Outside in the quiet light of dawn, I raise my finger at the first guy I see. “Where’s Atlas?”
He shrugs with a shake of his head, but another voice offers, “He’s on the mound.”
My march continues towards the small hill at the back of the complex, raised enough to see over the lake outside the perimeter.
Left turn. Right turn. I meander through the trailers, step into the clearing, and break into a jog.
His silhouette stands atop the mound. The veil of night is pushed to skirt the maple trees, violently glowing crimson against the morning light.
My fury amplifies with my marching, and I scream internally when he doesn’t turn to see me, though there’s no way he hasn’t heard my stomping feet.
“You should be with him!”
He still doesn’t turn to me, his hands tucked into the pockets of the ranger uniform. “He’s dead, Lee. I can’t help him now.”
“Leon, then. You should be with Leon!”
He shrugs without replying. His nonchalance is like a jerrycan of fuel tossed onto my fire of fury.
“Atlas! How dare you sulk out here like a spoiled child! I thought you were better than that.”
“You don’t know me!” He turns to catch me in his peripheral with a piercing glare, still uncommitted to facing me.
“We don’t have to be best friends, but they are your brothers! You’re better than this! Hiding away, pretending you don’t care. They are going to bury him, Atlas!”
“You don’t think I know that?!” He turns to me, thudding his fist to his chest. “He was my little brother! I was supposed to protect him. This isn’t real!
This shouldn’t be happening! We shouldn’t have come here!
” His eyes fill up as he spins away from me.
“I promised his mom, and now look. He’s gone. He’s gone … and he’s not coming back.”
His voice breaks, and he turns away. A slap of realisation extinguishes my anger.
With his back to me, I grasp tight around his waist to heal his pain, to hold him together, as I rest my head on his back.
His heart thuds against my cheek, his breath shuddering beneath my arms. Not everyone breaks the same.
Shame on me for expecting him to hurt the same as me and Leon.
Within my embrace, he allows himself to shatter, his body trembling with his cry while he bows and crumples under my arms.
“It’s not your fault, Atlas.”
And how could it be? It was me who was with him.
I was his partner. If he had been paired with anyone else, he might have had a chance.
My eyes burn as I admit the truth, but it pushes me into a darker place.
And with a painful gulp, I swallow my emotions and sink into a void of feelings … the numbing.
It’s hard to describe loss. Someone suddenly no longer being. The last time you spoke to them. The last time you laughed together. It’s incomprehensible to believe they were all the last times. Like all those future moments have been carved from my chest, leaving a physical cavity in its place.
Some soldiers and Kris bring in the coffin, and we’re forced to say our goodbyes.
Atlas reaches Zeke and falters before touching him, but then he gently places his long fingers along his face. “I-I love you, man.” His voice crackles, and he steps away.
Leon hovers above Zeke, tenderly kissing his forehead, and whispers, “Good night, brother. We’ll see you soon.”
I clench my jaw, my head throbbing as I hold in the tears.
Just to watch the hurt on Atlas and Leon is bad enough.
I feel guilty being upset beside them. He was their brother, and I had known him for, what, a whole five minutes?
But he had saved me. He was so kind, so patient, so incredibly full of life.
And now he is not. He was a best friend, someone I was planning on spending my life with, so surely that makes him family?
His hair is out of place again, and I comb my hand over his black strands, sweeping it back for him. “I’ll stay with you to the end,” I say to my dear friend, backing away from him one last time.
They gently lift him into the coffin. Dark knots centre the rippling wooden rings of the rough planks of pine, with steel-headed nails pinning the corners, while four roped handles loop along the sides.
Kris offers to help us carry him out, and I try to be brave as I come to the coffin’s side, readying to take a handle.
We bear his weight, lifting him from the table to take him to his final resting place.
Our boots dust along the floor as we step towards the daylight, with my throat burning while I steady my sadness.
We exit the church door into a wall of faces. The men of the Cornerstone have returned from their missions, lining up on either side of the path, forming a clear route for us, bowing their heads as we step through. Then my breath is taken away by the sight before me.
The liberated women—hundreds of them—line the path, guiding our way.