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I licked my lips again, tasting copper against my skin. I grimaced as the pain in my body slowly faded into the background. I felt myself growing used to it. Numb to the pain, like I’d become numb to my father. Numb to my home. Numb to the absence of my mother. Numb to the anger I always felt. Numb to the insecurities I kept buried deep in the pit of my soul.
“Clint!”
I tried bending my arms, but it was no use. I tried using my legs, but to no avail. Moving hurt too much. And part of me wanted this river to sweep me away and carry me off to somewhere else. Another place. Another time. A place where my mother existed and not my father. A place where school existed, but not Roy and those assholes. A place where my bike existed, but not the car chasing me.
A place where Rae existed, without her bullshit life and friends.
Rae.
I closed my eyes, allowing her smell to wash over me. Allowing the feeling of her body pressed against mine to draw me back under. If this was it, dying with her memory on the tip of my brain was a nice way to go out. I felt myself accepting my death. Accepting how cold my body was growing. And while my father would surely call me a ‘cop-out pussy’ at my own damn funeral, it didn’t matter.
So long as I had memories of Rae to keep me company.
I sighed as my jaw snapped shut again. Like my body had released itself, only to lock back up because it was easier to simply shut down. And all the while, I thought about how strange this was. How worried I’d been for Rae’s safety. How worried I’d been that her friends wouldn't like me. How worried I’d been about some dumbass reputation being destroyed because she wanted to walk into school holding fucking hands.
None of that mattered anymore.
Because all that worrying had been for nothing, when this was how things were going to end.
I love you, Rae. And I hope you know that.
And as I felt myself slipping into the cold, dark expanse of the river, I could have sworn I heard Rae’s voice ring out in the depths of my ears.
“Don’t you die on me, Clinton Clarke!”
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