Chapter 8 Indie
Indie
I Need You - LeAnn Rimes
My feet pound hard against the frozen ground. I’m not sure if it’s to get out of the cold quicker or stamp at the emotion threatening to rear its head.
Running near the winter months is for psychopaths.
I’ll say that with my whole chest—or my partially failing one.
The crisp morning air is burning through my lungs, my breaths coming in short, quick bursts. Eventually I slow as I approach the familiar crunch of gravel path.
It’s been two days since I removed myself from the livestream, asking Regina to work out how to block it for me entirely.
I haven’t cried so much in years until then; I felt like I was grieving the loss of him all over again.
I didn’t even shed a tear at the two-year mark, kept at bay by the underlying delusion that he’d appear one day. But now I’m at the stage where I’m having conversations with myself in my head.
I need to stop selfishly hoping that he can read my mind, can hear my tattered heart calling out for its other half to rejoin it.
To just come back to me.
He’ll have moved on, as he should have.
I need to work on doing the same and mean it this time.
When I reach the familiar headstone, I crouch down, my black gloves brushing the light dusting of snow off Dad’s headstone.
My head was foggy, and my eyes hurt from the silent tears that came when I closed my eyes for sleep. Running helps clear my mind, and before I knew it, I’d run halfway between our home and my parents’, the graveyard the closest place I could allow myself to stop and just think.
“Hey, Dad,” I whisper, my hand dragging across his name engraved in the whitewash stone, the indents of letters dipping beneath the pads of my fingers.
I was so close to him growing up; I fortunately was with both my parents. He left a massive hole in my chest when he left our lives.
Every time he’d leave for deployment, it always felt like we were saying our final goodbyes. I’d been so lucky, having him for twenty-one years, remembering the last time I saw him with a smile on his face as he shouted, see you later.
Doesn’t matter how many of them felt like they could have been the last; it never prepares you for the real one.
I’m not sure if I believe in Heaven. I’m not religious. I like to think that the good ones go somewhere else from here, just waiting on their loved ones.
A world like this, but without the pain and hatred. Each of us living in an age we’d considered our best years, happy and safe.
But I do believe in Hell. I think the world we live in can be a glimpse of it, and I hope those that belong there go further down the abyss.
I don’t know where I’ll end up if any of it’s true. Maybe a higher power will see I’ve only tried to do good when I turned my life around, rid the world of evil, and let me rest in peace.
My ears pin back as I rise to my feet, aware of footsteps crunching in the snow, and I tilt my head to see under my cap.
Regina walks towards me.
“Hey,” she says. A burst of icy cloud surrounds her, along with two steaming brown cups in her hand.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, taking the one from her outstretched hand.
She hikes a shoulder up, gaze focused on the headstone. “Seen you were through this way on my phone map, decided to get us these. Plus, I knew you’d probably stiffen up in the cold and wet, then call to whine for me to come get you anyway.”
My lip curls up at the side. The thought of having to run home does make me feel sick.
As much as I used to hate it, it’s part of my daily routine now.
“I was going to see if you wanted to join, but you looked comatose this morning, so I thought you might have got back late.”
I popped my head into her room on my way down for breakfast; she was cocooned in her bed sheets, little cusps of snores coming from her open mouth. I didn’t want to disturb her when she looked so peaceful.
Those kinds of sleep are often rare.
She dips her head back as she laughs. “Thank fuck you didn’t.” She gives me a grimace. “I did a couple drive bys last night…I don’t know, something just felt off.”
Her eyes narrow, staring off to the distance. “It could just be all paranoia from Clarke’s death, but then when I drove past again, she must have been out late with a friend. Was heading into the room with a guy. She seemed to know him well enough, all smiles and laughing.”
We wouldn’t expect Elenna to be acting like a grieving widow.
And if she’s been having an affair, or is seeking comfort in others, that’s none of my business. She wanted away from him; he kept her prisoner.
He didn’t want to lose control over her.
“As long as she’s safe, that’s all that matters,” I add, and she takes a sip of her coffee.
“Seven years?” she asks after a beat of silence, and I slowly slide my gaze over to her.
“Yeah. Doesn’t feel like it.”
One thing life has taught me is that the saying time’s a healer isn’t always true.
Time is a record of how many years spent without them.
How you’ll soon end up living longer without them than you did with them.
That you’ll forget what it’s like for your heart not to ache thinking about them, and that there was once a time their voice wasn’t a distant memory.
When I’m here, I feel a sense of closeness when I visit Dad, having conversations and catching up on my life, or lack of.
I hope that wherever he is, if he’s aware of what happened to me and can see the things I’ve done, he’d be proud.
That I eventually dusted myself off and did good with the things he taught me.
He’d probably be mad at first, screaming at how irresponsible I am with such a risk, how there could be a better way, or even that their problems aren’t mine to solve.
But then he’d likely take his own weapon and get rid of those who hurt me.
I will one day; I’m just making sure I’m ready and have a catalogue to show them of what’s in store for them, instil some fear that they crossed the wrong girl.
A heavy weight settles in my chest; so many moments were taken from us.
Some I get angry at the world for, others I’m just glad he didn’t have to live with the knowledge of.
My dad got deployed right before I got in a relationship, and I wish he could have known about Saint and me, how much he brought me out of that shell of shyness I was wrapped in most of the time.
Even standing here brings back memories of him.
It was one of my weakest moments, and I saw a side to Saint I never expected.
We hadn’t even been together that long, but he didn’t cower away from my heartbreak.
He showed me the kind of man he was. That he was willing to be there through the good and the bad. If only this memory could have penetrated through the worst time of my life, things would be different.
I take a step back from the grave, a tear slipping down my cheek as the ache in my heart grows heavier.
I feel like a shipwreck, grief for the most important men in my life dragging me under the sea’s currents, allowing me just enough time to gasp for air before another unexpected wave pulls me down within its depths.
Regina’s hand gently slides into mine, wrapping around it and giving it a reassuring squeeze. It makes my next breath harder as the images flash behind my eyes.