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Mom cooking in the kitchen, humming a melody.
Mom looking at me, calling me her beautiful boy, telling me she loved me, the swan pendant glinting at her throat.
Those same memories are assaulting me now, bound to these images, these fragile pieces of photographic paper. I push a pic of her and dad aside to lift one of her and myself.
I must have been two or so, with a smile full of small teeth and a shock of white-blond hair, legs and arms chubby. She has an arm around me, the other waving a red toy truck. Dunno what happened to it.
Her smile is so bright, it hurts my eyes. She looks happy.
I look happy. I trace my grin on the photo, wondering at it. It’s my favorite photo of us and I’m not even sure why. On a whim, I shove it into my pocket, even as I sort through the rest.
The letters. They’re a diary of sorts, not addressed to anyone. I dunno if she planned on sending them to someone, some family member maybe? Who knows. Thing is, she never did. They’re loose sheaves of paper, with dates, mom’s cursive writing filling them.
In some she talks about dad. How she loves him but he also scares her sometimes. How her life here in Destiny is, how she loves the river, how she longs for theaters and fancy restaurants. How she is content, but also uneasy.
How she loves her little boy.
These are the ones I prefer and hate the most. They make me feel things. They make my eyes sting and my lungs feel too small.
Fucking letters.
My hand shakes as I stuff the pendant in my jeans pocket, then gather the papers together, pile them up. I need another cigarette. I need a stiff drink.
Dunno what the hell I’m doing. I wish she were here to tell me, to guide me. But maybe I’m asking too much of the dead. Expecting answers. A helping hand. Who was there for her? Nobody, that’s who.
Some things are set. They don’t change.
There’s nobody for me here, either. I guess that’s how it should be. I’m twenty-one fucking years old. I don’t need anyone. Never have.
We all live and die alone, isn’t that the way of the world?
***
I’m walking in the woods behind the house, smoking my last cigarette, when I hear her yelling.
That same voice who informed me she wouldn’t have me eat at the diner anymore, that she’d do all she could to keep me away.
Maybe I’m mistaken. Sound travels differently here, bouncing on the trees, hitting the water, fragmenting on the reed clumps and open spaces sloping toward the river.
But then I hear it again. My thoughts are a jumble as I throw away my cigarette and set off in the direction I heard the yell from, before I’ve even decided I was going to do it. What am I doing anyway? I told her I’m not a hero, not a savior. Quite the opposite, as she well knows. I’m not the good guy in this story. I’m a goddamn villain with no happy ending in sight.
But Luna doesn’t have my experience with fights, my training in the art of inflicting and receiving pain. I can take the punches and kicks in my ribs, but I’m not sure she can. Not sure she should. She shouldn’t have to wade through any more pain, ever again. She should... she shouldn’t have to.
That’s on me.
Jogging through familiar trails, among the thinning trees, I make it to the road quickly, and then I’m running toward her house, toward the town. It doesn’t take long for me to see them—Luna, and three guys.
Hell, what’s up with that girl? When did she become such a magnet for trouble? Yeah, I know I picked on her years back, I know I was an asshole and it hadn’t been her fault except that I...
That I had wanted her so badly.
Fuck. Fuck!
Cursing, I slow down, a stitch in my side, wincing at the memory of her. The hurt in her eyes when I called her names. The momentary rush of satisfaction for making her hurt like I was hurting, in my body and in my fucking soul. Because I wanted her, and she was a good girl, and I could never have her in my goddamn life.
One of the guys, jerks her back, and that’s when it dawns on me that he’s holding her, while the other two... what? What are the assholes trying to do to her?
“Hey!” I accelerate, racing toward them at a dead sprint, my heart slamming against my bruised ribs in a staccato of pain. “Stop! Fuck off, you fuckers. Leave her alone.”
