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Giving up doesn’t look like tears and drama.
Doesn’t look like a decision at all.
It looks like this. Like staring at a table of things. A smile to a coworker before leaving the bar. A cat that didn’t come by.
“You don’t believe in karma.” Kyle closes his eyes. Nothing feels right or good. It can’t be fixed, whatever it is. “You said an evil person can do all the evil they want, find happiness, keep it greedily, free of consequences. You said good people can suffer every day they live without reprieve. I wonder which one you think I am. Which one you think you were. The evil one who did bad things and never once paid for his crimes. Or the good one who suffers until his … his very last sunrise.”
Something about tonight tells him.
It’s time.
“Sorry, Tristan.” He carefully folds the letter over the ring, takes the items. “But I have to break our promise.”
He glances around the house one last time, wishes the cat were here to say goodbye. Maybe she doesn’t care if he’s gone.
She only came for the food anyway.
The place he’s chosen is neither the four-way intersection nor the bench at the park. It’s not even in the town, technically. He wanders the wrong way out of his sandy neighborhood and heads down the old dirt road into the desert. As he walks, he slowly removes his shirt, then his shoes, socks, and pants, each dropped like a breadcrumb along the way. His underwear, last.
The air is as dry and sharp as teeth against his skin. The sky is infinite. The horizon, lined with long rolling mountains.
Not a soul in sight, nor even the presence of one.
Absolute solitude.
Kyle chooses a large stone to sit down by and lean against. He faces east. He unfolds the letter, allowing the silver pinky ring to drop harmlessly onto the ground next to him. When he reads, the words come off the page as if whispered in his ear. A smile touches his lips as he leans back against the cold, smooth stone, the dry night air stirring all around him, picking up dust from the sandy ground, whirling it playfully into the distance.
Kyle chooses to remember only the good stuff as he waits. It isn’t much longer that the sky starts to swell the deep blue of impending morning.
It’s almost time.
“I thought I’d be more afraid. Instead, I feel …” He finds the right word. “… ready. You told me once to make up a story, something to comfort me, to justify my actions, it didn’t matter, the effect would be the same. So here lies Kyle Amos, or Henry Rosenberg, whatever it is today. Soon to be a pile of ash, laden with the same ring he found upon yours one short year ago. He was a man of few words. Survived by a cat who hates him, a cat with sand fleas, probably.”
He holds the letter against his heart. The paper even smells like Tristan. Ring on the ground nearby. Memories in his heart. He is surrounded by loved ones.
The sky swells a richer blue, growing more vibrant by the second as the end approaches.
He never knew a sunrise could feel this peaceful.
Or look this beautiful.
A perfect, precious way to say goodbye to everything.
Until the sounds of footsteps on sand touch his ears, then come to a stop at his back. “The hell you doing in my spot?”
9.
Meet the Morning Sun.
—·—
It’s the young man from the police station. Swollen black eye. Busted lip. Loosened blue tie and opened white dress shirt, half untucked, slacks with a stain on the left thigh.
Kyle looks up. “Your spot?”
He stands over Kyle. “Yep.” His voice is unexpectedly soft and velvety, yet with a subtle edge Kyle picks right up on. “You got it. My spot. That rock you’re leaning against is all mine. I feel compelled to ask, why the hell are you naked?”
“You don’t own this rock.”
“I do. Even etched my name on it. Right by your head.”
Kyle glances to his side. Scratched crudely into the stone is a name he’s surprised he didn’t notice before.
“El …?”
“Elias,” he says. “My real handwriting is better, not a good carver. Used my motorcycle key, too. Back when I had one. It’s gone now, the key and the bike.”
This is the last thing Kyle needs. “I don’t mean to be rude, but can you please fuck off?”
“Me? Fuck off? No, sir,” says Elias, crossing his arms. “I believe it is you who must fuck off.”
“I will be doing no fucking off.”
Elias’s face fills with rage. Then it goes away with a sigh as he gently touches his swollen cheek. “My head hurts too much to be angry. Why are you doing this to me? And why now? In front of my rock? Naked? Did you even ask its permission?”
