Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“I tried to make a paradise for us,” says Kyle, words taken away by the night breeze. “Tried to give us a home. That thing you never had. Somewhere a little happy, a little sweet, safe.”
No one is nearby to answer.
Not anymore.
“I always wondered why you craved safety. Did you feel … unsafe? Were you on the run, even before you met me? Is there something else out there? Something you never told me about? Someone?”
Kyle passes by the old bakery, poster on its outside showing the freckly faces of the two funny curly-haired sisters who run it. Next to the bakery, he passes the café, the owner of which stops by the bar every Friday—and sometimes Thursdays when things are rough with his wife, which seems more often lately. Everything is closed at this hour, quiet, lifeless. Just across from the café, a dentist’s office, electronics store, and auto shop.
He stops in front of the closed corner store that’s usually run by a cute girl in her twenties. He studies his reflection in the dark glass, tilts his head. Studies the tattoo on the side of his neck. The tattoos on the backs of his hands. His stainless steel stud earring, his nose ring. “Not even sure I ever wanted these. But you said my skin would be as hard as diamond someday. I’d have to decide right then what I wanted my forever-body to be like, right then, at the ripe age of eighteen. Who the hell makes smart decisions at eighteen?” He studies himself. “Barely aged a few years since. You were right. Young forever … if it weren’t for these perpetual bedroom eyes. You said I look very ‘college boy who just woke up, late to class, many papers due that he has no time to write’.” He sighs. “Strange to say about someone who never went. I wonder what college would’ve been like. You never had an interest. But it was always my dream. To go. Join a stupid frat. Stress over classes and papers and hate myself. Eat dorm room ramen. Easy Mac.” He runs a hand down his face. “What would you say my permanent age is? Go ahead, take a guess. Twenty-three? Twenty-five? Doesn’t matter. I’ll still get carded everywhere I go. Even with these tats.” He drops his hand to his side. “Whatever.” He leaves his reflection.
“Hey, you remember when you said love never dies?” Kyle strolls down the middle of the empty road. No one in sight. “Only that people grow bored. Did you grow bored? I recall that morning so vividly. We were having one of those talks, one of those deeper talks. You said the soul can’t survive on love alone. It needs something else, something … thicker. I never knew what you meant by ‘thicker’, but I nodded and held your hand anyway. You were in a dark mood that morning. It wasn’t clear whether you were talking about your soul, or mine.”
Down a little ways surrounded by a few sleepy houses and a boarded-up storefront sits a park, desperately in need of some tender love and care. Its only neighbors are a basketball court and a rundown swimming pool.
He stands by the chain link fence, staring through at the pool. “You freed me from my life, from my old family, and I’ve been wondering lately what you freed me for. Did you come to regret it? Are you capable of regretting anything?”
Kyle stops in front of an old bench overlooking the park. He imagines lying on it until the morning. He calculates what angle the sun will rise, what the view would be like.
“Not a bad place to die,” he remarks thoughtfully. “What do you think? Will the high school swim team find my pile of ashes first, or a stray dog needing a warm mound to piss on?”
There is no response. Of course not.
“Just kidding,” says Kyle. “This town doesn’t have a high school swim team.”
He passes a playground, the elementary school, a barren soccer field peppered with weeds and cracked earth. He passes a warehouse, a gas station, an intersection where all four roads seem to stretch on forever. He lies down in the center of that intersection, not a car in sight, and stares up at the starry sky.
“Not a bad place to die, either.” Kyle crosses his arms, tilts his head, and blinks his eyes alternatingly, watching as the stars bounce back and forth between them. “Do you see Orion? And the sword hanging from Orion’s belt? Stars always bored you, but I love them. They’re like tiny suns … only much, much farther away.”
The stars twinkle. The night air blows across Kyle’s short, messy hair, tossing it around.
“You were right,” he then adds. “I don’t miss the sun. Now I have thousands.”