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“Sorry about that,” Martin said as he took the jacket from her. “He’s not the neatest person in the world, but he’s one of the good ones. I don’t know what kind of business he has with the two of you, but—”
“Not business,” Justin said quickly. “Trina, why don’t you sit down?”
“Trina,” Martin repeated, his eyes narrowed as he looked at her. Katrina’s legs were shaky as she sunk into the orange chair, her eyes still fixated on the jacket.
“Yeah, I’m Justin Carter, this is my sister Trina. We’re friends...werefriends of Lorenzo’s.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Listen, I’m... fuck, I hate to...”
“Where’s he locked up?”
Katrina let out a short laugh, one that bordered on hysteria. Locked up.
If only he were.
“No, there’s... there’s been an accident,” Justin said, his voice louder, surer than Katrina’s could be. “He was in an accident today, and we found this card in his wallet.”
“What the hell were you doing with his wallet?”
“Emergency contact,” Katrina whispered, though she couldn’t be heard.
“They called my sister, gave her things to him.”
“Damn it.” Martin sat down in the black chair, Lorenzo’s jacket now draped across the messy desk. “Damn it, just... did he suffer?”
“He’s still alive,” Justin replied with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry, I really suck at being the bearer of bad news. It’s normally Trina who handles that, but she’s not doing so good today. This, it all came as one hell of a shock.”
“Tell me, friends of Lorenzo’s,” Martin began, “how long has it been since you’ve seen him?”
“He split right before graduation ten years ago. As far as I know he hasn’t been back before today.”
“Did you ever try to look for him?”
Yes.
Yes, she had.
She’d only come up empty.
Then social media had blossomed, and she’d been too afraid of what she would find.
“He didn’t seem to want to be found,” was all Justin said in return. “He’s at Montgomery General, in pretty bad shape.”
“I don’t know why they didn’t call me,” Martin said.
“They called Trina, said she was listed as his emergency contact.”
Martin opened a drawer and pulled something out of it. He looked down at the item, then back at Justin. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“How?” Katrina finally spoke. “How does that sound right?”
Martin handed the item—a photograph—to her, and tears filled her eyes.
It was the three of them... her, Justin, and Lorenzo... taken the first day of their freshman year of high school. They were all smiling at whomever had taken the photo...if memory served her correctly, it had been Judith.
Lorenzo was wearing that leather jacket, the last day he did for quite some time.
