Chapter Eight
I don’t remember drivingto Gram’s. Only that I’m here in the comfort of what I know. This is home. Where I run to when I don’t want to embrace the rest of the world and I need to escape it all. I stripped down and tossed my wet and muddy clothes in the washer. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. Gram won’t think anything of my being here. I come once a week to do my laundry since the apartment isn’t set up for a washer and dryer. One of the downsides.
Who knows what’s in my hair? Probably twigs and a bug or two. I’ve got mud squished between my toes.
I should have stopped to get Boo, but I was worried Sandman would show to pick up his motorcycle, and I really don’t want to see his face right now. I want to wash away his touch and the sickening truth about what transpired in the cemetery. That we stood by while someone had their life ended. Their existence ripped away.
Someone I knew.
A person I once called friend.
A mother.
A daughter.
Mariah.
She has a name.
She was loved.
And we didn’t do a damn thing.
I keep replaying the scene in my head.
Could we have done something, or would we have died next to her?
I step into the shower under the spray of cold water having not given enough time for the warm water to heat. Cold and wet like Mariah’s body laying out there waiting for some poor unsuspecting person to discover her remains, hopefully before the wildlife does. My heart is empty. My mind is restless. My soul is tired and angry. Sandman speaking to that girl at the motorcycle club like she was scum under his boot was the last straw on the most fucked up night I’ve endured.
I’m sickened by him.
Disgusted with myself.
I’m feeling all kinds of fucking sorry. Sorry for me.
Sorry for Sandman and what we could have been.
Most of all for Mariah’s child who is now left behind with no mother.
How do I pretend that it didn’t happen?
That she never existed. How can I make any excuses for either of us?
How do I justify the end of a life that had so much more ahead? A beautiful soul. Another light burned out too bright too fast.
Life is so precious and beautiful, and we all take it for granted.
We are born from stardust, and we return to dust eventually like none of us were never here. One day we will all be forgotten. There will be no one left to remember us. To mourn us. To love us. Life and time move on. They continue even when we don’t. The sun will continue to set, and the moon will rise.
We live in a mad world.
A dangerous world where bad things happen to good people on the daily.
But my mind can’t reason with my heart that bad guys always win.
And where does Sandman fall on the scale? Is he good? Bad? Morally grey? If he’s messed up with those men...I made the right choice and yet part of me aches to call him.
To be with him.
To fuck him.
To fuck his brains out.
I’m a horrible person having such selfish thoughts while Mariah lays there dead.
I finish my cold shower and wrap my hair up in a towel. I grab one of Gram’s many robes she has hanging on the back of the bathroom door and secure it around my waist. Then I trudge down the hall and into the kitchen where Gram is waiting with a fresh cup of chamomile tea for me. No matter how many times I try I can never quite make it like she does. I either get the water too hot or add too many flowers. Mine always comes out bitter whereas hers is perfect and goes down smooth.
I wrap my hands around the warm mug and settle into my favorite chair in the living room, tucking my legs under the cloak of the robe.
“What’s happened?” Gram hovers in her floor length white cotton nightgown. Her silvery hair fashioned into a braid that halos her head.
“I did something I shouldn’t have.”
“Now what could you have done that’s brought on such a dark mood?”
“I did a reading on a missing person and it’s someone I knew.”
“You knew. I see. Oh, puddin’ pie.” She frowns and disapproval seeps from her knowing eyes. “One of life’s hard lessons.” She pats my knee. “Drink your tea. Make your peace, but don’t go borrowing trouble.”
“Thanks, Gram.”