by Tamar Sloan
She comes to stand beside me, arms crossed, too. “It was Tyler. I caught him last night.”
Oh, no. “Not Tyler…”
“Yeah, it’s hit him hard. He’s not taking it so well.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but my arms tighten around me even more. “He had a long way to fall.”
I keep staring at the destruction before us. I can’t look at Nevaeh. I know what she’s thinking: Tyler is like this because of us.
Nev shifts her weight, the gravel grinding beneath her shoes. “You should probably talk to him.”
I freeze. “Me?”
“Yeah.” Nev frowns. “He wouldn’t listen to me. Said he was going to do whatever the hell he wanted.”
“We shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up.”
Nev finally turns to me. “He’s on a good-behavior bond, Kay. If he gets caught, he’ll end up in jail.”
Alongside his brother.
I take my time facing her, my arms straining as they grip my sides. Nev’s disappointment is going to be hard to add to everything else clamoring to be acknowledged.
Except, as my eyes reach the caramel depths of hers, she smiles. Of all the expressions I’d braced myself for, the gentle upturn of her lips wasn’t one of them.
It has my arms slackening in shock. They fall to my sides. “How can you be smiling?”
She shrugs as she tucks her hands into her pockets. “I think you’d be a good person for him to talk to, that’s all.”
I shake my head as I turn away. “I’m the last person he should talk to.”
“Why?”
My hands bunch into fists. “Because I agree with him.”
Nev pauses, and her voice is soft as she asks the next question: “Why has this hit you so hard?”
As I stand there, it feels like every muscle is as hard and fractured as the concrete I’m staring at. “Someone died here, Nev.”
Nev’s hand reaches out to grasp mine. “We can’t take responsibility for other people’s choices, Kay.”
I pull away. “But we can take it for the sign it is. Our choices have consequences, Nev.”
“Oh, I see.”
I wait, but Nev doesn’t continue. I almost don’t ask. A part of me knows I’m not going to like the answer. “You see what?”
My best friend steps away, shaking her head. “You’re going to use this as another excuse, aren’t you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Nev clamps her mouth shut, her dark brows cramped down in a deep furrow. She turns away, heading for the barricade.
I frown, too, my arms once more crisscrossing against my chest. I’m not stupid enough to ask a second time.
As she reaches them, though, Nev spins around. “You’re going to do what you always do, Kay.” She takes a step forward but stops. “You’ll use what happened to justify not trying.”
With a shake of her head, Nev climbs over the barricade and strides away, stiff-legged and straight-backed.
I blink a couple of times, before spinning around and finding my frown again. Nev doesn’t understand. She wouldn’t know it was Micah that they carried out in a black body bag.
The crappy part is, it doesn’t really matter if she knows or not. In the end, all I’m left with is the shards around and inside me.
Feet shuffling like my body is riddled with age, I keep walking around. Hunching my shoulders, I concentrate on picking up the pace. My sluggish body, weighed down by black nothingness, barely lifts my feet any higher.
Scrunching up my face, I hunker down like I’m trying to walk through a sandstorm. I shouldn’t have come.
I want to go home. To bed. To not think.
I’ve just rounded the final corner and our apartment block is in sight, when I almost trip. Glancing down, expecting to see a large chunk of concrete or a length of pipe, I stop when I see it’s neither.
Clinging to my shoelace by a single thorn, is the rose bush Tyler brought to the garden. I squat down, cradling its dusty, crippled branches.
More collateral damage.
Lifting it up, I discover the roots are still largely intact. There are even a couple of buds under all that pulverized concrete. Then I realize what I’m doing.
I’m inspecting it. Checking for signs of viability to see if this poor plant can survive.
I swing it behind my head with the intention of throwing it back where it belongs—with the broken cement, shattered glass and twisted metal. Using the most energy I have since any of this happened, I fling my arm up hard and high.
Except my hand doesn’t release it. The rose bush arcs through the air, slices down, and comes to rest by my leg, like some spidery extension of my arm.
As if that one motion just sapped all my energy, I sag. I can’t even throw away a stupid, broken rose bush.
Not bothering to think too hard about what that means, I head to the barricades and slip through. As I reach the corner of our apartment block, I duck into the alleyway beside it. Everything is still there: a couple of old plastic pots, a small pile of soil.
Quickly and gently, I repot the rose, once again encasing its roots in soil. Then, using the tap on the side of the building, I water it. Sitting back on my knees, I watch the dirt sink as it turns dark and moist.
Maybe it’ll survive. Maybe it won’t. I’m not even sure why I went to the effort, considering neither outcome sparks anything within me.
I’m not bringing it inside. Aunt Jo will smell the moist soil and comment I’ve brought another one of my lost souls home. She’s always joked she’s much happier that I collect homeless plants than stray kittens.
Tucking it against the wall where it’ll be cool and shaded, I head into our apartment. It’s a relief to find Aunt Jo isn’t home. Probably off buying more potatoes from Terry. They’ve become her first food group.
In my room, I sit on the bed, tucking my legs up to my chin. Benjamina sits on my desk, glossy leaves catching the limited sunlight streaming through the window. I gaze at her impassively. I know what she’s trying to tell me, that it’s only a matter of time before he’s here, but I don’t care.
My back is to my window, which is how I prefer it. It means I can’t see outside, can’t register the new world on the other side. There’s no longer an apartment building across the road. There’s no rooftop to climb up to, to lift myself away from this existence.
There’s no Micah waiting for me.
My arms tighten, pulling my legs closer. I’ve spent most of my life living in a world without Micah. It doesn’t make sense that this has hollowed me out so completely.
But it has.
Every moment with Micah was building something that was amazing and unforgettable and heart-soaring. Just like the apartment block where we met—the higher we went, the further there was to crash.
And in a short space of time, we were reaching for the stars.
Blinking, I bury my face, trying to shrink inside a little more. I’m desperately trying to hold myself together. To stop the aching hollowness from taking over.
To pretend that if there’s no Micah, there’s no world beyond my room.
I sense when my father arrives, although I thought it wouldn’t be till tonight. He must’ve seen that Aunt Jo’s out and decided not to wait. His presence doesn’t spark the usual lightness in my chest. I’m not sure anything ever will.
Although, maybe it’s because of the conversation we’re about to have…
He pauses as he enters my room, seeing me tucked up on the bed. “Kadence.”
The bed sags as he sits beside me, pulling me in and tucking me into his side. I let my father pull me close, although him being here only makes me feel worse.
He holds me for long moments, maybe waiting to see if I have anything to say, but I have no intention of talking. There are no words to capture what’s happened, or why.
He pulls back and I begrudgingly raise my face. His speckled brows are pulled low in concern as he studies me. “Kadence. What happen
ed? Why did you stop time?”
I look away, staring at Benjamina. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Although I don’t turn back, I can hear the frown in his voice.
I fell in love.
I fell in love with someone who had me believing and hoping.
And he’s gone.
I shrug. “I’m not sure that time is something we need anymore.”
The intake of breath beside me would normally make me wince, but today, I’m nothing but a husk.
I blink, recognizing the truth in my words. “You said so yourself, Dad. The world is going nowhere but down. Why draw out the inevitable? If we stop time, then we end the pain.”
I feel Dad shake his head, but I keep staring ahead. “Kadence.”
When I don’t answer, his arm slips from my shoulders. Its absence leaves a cool patch I wish I didn’t feel.
He sighs. “We need to find out if Hades is up to something.”
Shaking my head, I stand up, crossing my arms as I step away. “Someone else will have to do it. I’m not the right person.”
He needs someone who believes this can end, anywhere but with the grief I’m already feeling.
When I finally glance at my father, his face looks as if gravity was too much for his shoulders. He stands, too. “Very well, daughter.”
I tighten my jaw as he walks to the door. There’s a world out there I refuse to accept. A world I wasn’t sure is worth saving before any of this happened.
It’s a world without Micah.
He pauses, his hand on the doorknob. “Has it worked, Kadence?”
“Has what worked?”
“All this.” He waves his arm in my direction. “Even if I hadn’t restarted time, would it have stopped the pain?”
He closes the door gently behind him, nothing but a soft click echoing in the space he leaves behind.
It’s a small sound. A gentle sound that follows his softly spoken question.
But it spears through me like an arrow. An arrow powered by truth.
All of a sudden, Nev’s words, Dad’s disappointment, the loss of Micah—it fills every hollow, aching hole inside me. I go from excavated and empty, to crowded and brimming.
Except this is worse.
I didn’t think it was possible, but it is.
It’s worse because it’s real in a way I wasn’t willing to admit.
It’s worse because I have to decide what to do with it.
Micah
“Oh, no, you don’t.”
I’m stopped in my tracks as Thomas halts his wheelchair straight in front of me.
I glance to the left at the path he’d just sprung out from. A bush had been obscuring him. “Were you waiting for me?”
“Damn straight, I was. I don’t know where you’ve been going all day, so I figured this was the only way to catch you.”
The sun is barely peeking over the top of the trees as I stand with my hands fisted, glaring at him. “You’re at Elysium now, you don’t have to be up so early.”
Thomas angles his chin as he doesn’t back down. “I get to wake up whenever I want, actually. And today, I wanted to talk to you.”
I take a step to the right. “I can’t. I’m—”
Thomas deftly blocks me. “Too busy trying to avoid me.”
I grit my teeth. It’s true. He’s been trying to talk to me since I got back, but that one time with Tanisha was enough.
Another step to the left, and Thomas is there with me. The guy has some impressive reflexes.
I frown, trying to show him this isn’t some kind of joke. “I can’t help you, Thomas.”
“Unfortunately for you, I’ve been spending time with Edward and Victor. What you’re saying is, you choose not to help me.”
My teeth feel like they’re about to splinter, they’re jammed down so hard. “I. Can’t. Once you’re here, Thomas, that’s it. There’s no going back.”
“Let me tell you a story, Micah. A week before”— he waves his arms at his wheelchair—“this, I realized something. I realized I was the drop-kick Tanisha said I was. Everything she said I did is true. I treated my family terribly.”
I open my mouth, but Thomas raises his hand to stop me.
“That wasn’t the punchline,” he growls.
I finally see how important this is to him, so I consciously ease my muscles. Although it won’t make a difference, giving Thomas the time to listen to his story is something I can do.
He must see the change in me, because his shoulders relax. He wheels back a little, squinting up at my face. “My best friend overdosed. I watched the paramedics try to revive him. He never woke up—but I did. I woke up to the waste of space I’d become.” His gaze slides away, focusing on the greenery around him. “Worse, to the harm I was causing.”
I don’t offer any platitudes, instinctively knowing that’s not what Thomas is looking for. He’s not here for absolution. He’s here to be heard.
“So, I made a decision. I bought that parking lot, having no idea what I was going to do with it, but figuring it could be something special. Something I could do to give back. Then I saw the apartment block was for sale, and it was just as cheap. I started the paperwork. I was going to refurbish it. Give my mom and anyone else the chance to live somewhere that wasn’t a glorified crap-hole.”
Exactly. Which proves why he’s here. I open my mouth to say just that. “Which is—”
But Thomas’ hand is back up silencing me. “Still not the punchline, Micah. I was flying out to sign all the paperwork, in a rush to get there before the office closed, to finally be someone my family could be proud of. Heck, someone I didn’t hate. I got a phone call, saying an earlier flight had opened up. It felt like a stroke of luck. A sign I was finally getting it right.”
Thomas pauses, his gaze losing focus, but I don’t speak. A sense of foreboding tells me we’re coming to the punchline.
“The flight wasn’t a long one, but it turned out to be a whole lot shorter. Some sort of engine failure. I didn’t die right away. I couldn’t feel my legs, but the pain everywhere else couldn’t be ignored. It wasn’t long before the end came, but certainly enough time for me to know everything I was meant to do would never happen.”
And Damien Black went on to buy those apartments instead.
“Do you see it now, Micah? I wasn’t meant to be on that flight. What’s more, I’m not supposed to be here. I haven’t done any good.”
My stomach clenches. There wasn’t just one punchline, there were two.
This is why Thomas remains in his wheelchair.
Except, that’s not how Fate works. Everything happens for a reason, whether we understand it or not. “There are lots of people here, Thomas, who have a history of poor choices. Not everyone is like Victor or Edward.”
I get the sense that quiet, introspective Blake could have a story he’s not too proud of.
Thomas opens his mouth, but it’s my turn now. “Tanisha is probably a great example. She didn’t have long on Earth before she arrived. How much good do you think she had a chance of doing before dying? You don’t think she’s made some choices that fill her with shame?”
My face flames as I say the words. We all have.
I take a step back, deciding that if I’m not going to make it to the desert today, home is better than being here. I brace myself, having already learned that the hard part about the truth is, it can hurt. “This was meant to be.”
“No!” Thomas’ fist slams down on the arm of his wheelchair. “No, it wasn’t, Micah. I don’t know why you refuse to see that!”
Another step back, and I’m a little closer to the protection of my home. “It’s not me who’s refusing to see this, Thomas.”
Thomas’ hands grip the wheels of his chair, looking like he’s determined to follow me. “I know I can’t go back. It’s too late for me now.”
I blink, not sure where this is heading. “Exactly. This is where you’re meant to
be.”
Thomas sighs. “Maybe eventually. But I didn’t get a chance to do the good that needs to be done. That’s why I need you to go back.”
I reel back, my lungs filling with shock. “What?”
“I need you to check on Tyler. He’s the one who’s been hurt the most. I’ve seen it. He needs help.”
I’m shaking my head so hard, I don’t know how my neck doesn’t snap. “That’s not possible, Thomas.” I tried helping, and look how that turned out. “You don’t mess with Fate.”
“I’m pretty sure someone is.”
That has me freezing, frown deeply gouged into my brow. “What are you talking about? No one can change Fate, unless it’s my mother.”
And she would never interfere. It’s her golden rule. It’s what’s allowed her to bear witness to the pain, alongside the joy.
Thomas’ hands tense around his wheelchair again, but this time, he wheels himself backward a few inches. “You don’t want to see it.”
His voice is so full of disappointment, I almost flinch. Quickly collecting myself, I straighten. I’m not the one doing the wrong thing here. “I see it, I watch it every day.” And now I have the knowledge of Kadence’s pain to add to it. “And it’s not easy, Thomas. I get that.”
“Oh, I see it all right.” He glares at me. “Unlike me, you have the ability to leave. Except you won’t.”
I try one last time. “You have to believe it’s going to work out.”
Spinning on my heel, I turn around. This conversation is over.
Thomas’ final words are said quietly, but loud enough to reach me as I stride away. This time I do flinch. They hit me with the power only words can.
They echo the insidious doubt I haven’t been able to shake since I returned…
“But what if it doesn’t work out, Micah?”
Micah
Any of the residents can check to see what’s happening back on Earth whenever they want. All they need to do is find a body of water and focus, then the images will appear. Some do it obsessively, others let go of whatever’s happening below and allow what’s to be, to be.
