Page 50

The rain was coming down hard outside.
The smell of the rain, which was filthy and moist, was quite strong outdoors. But suddenly, the motel’s dirty smell made it go away.
“Kellen,” she yelled.
Be quiet.
She could tell that the bed was empty by straining her eyes. There was no evidence or sound of the guy she was looking for, yet she could still feel that he was there. She could never forget how to sense his presence.
You can’t forget how to swim because you can’t forget how to walk. Once someone learns them, they will always be there.
She yelled, “Kellen!” again, this time louder.
A faint rustling sound came from the side of the bed, where the darkest darkness masked the spot on the floor that was tight against the furniture.
“Kellen…” she muttered as she moved closer. The darkness moved a little bit further, but her narrowed, focused gaze saw it. She moved forward slowly, not because she was terrified but because she knew something unpleasant was about to come out.
At that same moment, lightning struck across the sky, and she was only a few inches away from the figure that was suddenly hidden in darkness.
The blinding flash of lightning lit up Kellen’s body, and she gasped at the sight. He was curled up on the floor next to the bed where he had taped himself as if his life depended on it.
“Kellen!” she could only whisper his name as the lightning went away too quickly. He drowned in the dark again.
She quickly took out her phone and let the purse fall from her grasp. She turned on the flashlight and pointed it at Kellen. She sank to her knees after taking the last few steps to him. As soon as her fingers touched his hot forehead, he took a deep inhale. The temperature showed that he didn’t have a fever, but he was shivering, and his skin was sweaty. His hair stuck down low on his forehead, almost concealing his eyes. They had gotten too big.
“What have you done to yourself?” She was crying. She cried and stroked his cheek with her fingertips. His jaw was rough, and when she touched his lips, they felt chapped. “What have you done?” she said again, her voice breaking in the midst.
Her hand went down to his arm, and she helped him sit up a little bit. His limp limbs made it easier for her, yet that same feature made her more anxious…  to the pounding anxiety in her chest.
“You’ve come,” he muttered, tasting his dry lips. His face curled up for a time, so it must have hurt. “Why?” He sounded like he was attempting to talk properly through a lump in his throat, but his voice was low and watery.
“Get up.” She tried to assist him get up as she stood up, but she decided to feed him first. It looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. Her palms found his suddenly thin hands, and the light from her phone made his gaunt jaw and sunken eyes stand out.
“No,” he said, pulling her hands away. He sank back into the shadows again as Lena leaned over him in disbelief.
“Kellen?”
“It’s raining. Look out there,” he remarked as if that explained everything.
“What…,” her voice trembled with fear. “What’s going on, Kellen? Please, tell me…”
He abruptly snapped, “I can’t stand it!” And he seemed weak. “Those cold drops… they are… they would… I don’t…” he stammered, not making any sense and without giving a reason. He stopped talking and seemed really angry.
Lena cried as she saw the guy she loved was ruined.
She had heard that the guilty person suffers more, but she could only see how much now.
“Get a grip, Kellen!” she said through her tears. “Please, you need to snap out of it.”
But what if it was too late? What if he was already too far away?
She gazed around the dark, dirty room in despair, even though her vision was fuzzy. “You have to leave!”
His blank tone cut through the sound of the rain in the background. “But this is the place I deserve. I can’t leave,” he murmured, and with each syllable, he sank more into the gloom. “Leave, leave!”
Her cries were taken away. She stopped moving.
Feeling guilty is bad for you. People who cut themselves feel quite guilty. People who kill themselves think they don’t deserve to live. Our own imaginations tell us that we deserve nothing but what we are doing to damage ourselves. Only shame and misery count; reasons don’t.
They claim that the devil lives in hell, but what if he really lives in our heads? What if we’re already in that hell?
“No, you don’t,” she said firmly. “You don’t deserve it. Don’t you ever say anything else again!” She was breathing hard. She gripped her phone so tightly that it seemed like she was going to die.
Kellen gazed at her without blinking, and she was relieved that he was finally paying attention to her and not what had broken them apart. She gripped his wrist and gritted her teeth to keep from crying again as she felt the bones of the once-muscular arm.
When her sadness sought to drown her in a world with no way out, she was blessed to have friends. Kellen didn’t have any. She could see why he got lost so easily.
She forced him to stand up by taking advantage of the fact that he was distracted by how she had changed. She held his wrist tightly the whole while she took him to the balcony.
He stopped with a gasp when his bare foot hit the puddle of water that was seeping from the open door. “No…”
“Trust me,” she said this time, and she was determined to push aside the memories that were trying hard to come back.
His eyes were full of sadness and pain. He didn’t say anything and kept looking at her. And she went out onto the balcony, where the rain poured down on them both right away.
The cold almost made her head numb when she first felt the rain, but it got better after a time. She blinked a lot. The torrential downpour made it impossible to see anything. It was like a big shroud that was meant to keep them in. Kellen’s hand was shaking in her hold, and when she moved to the side, she saw that his shoulders were shaking, too. The rain did a good job of hiding his tears if he was sobbing.
It must finish in the rain if it starts in the rain.
“You need to go back to Brooklyn,” she murmured, trying not to cry.
He shook his head strongly to say no.
“You must,” she said, turning to face him completely and forcing him to do the same. “Isaac’s in jail. You can get back at least some, if not all, of what he took from you. But first, I’m going to assign you a counselor, Kellen. Don’t argue; you need help!” she said in a whisper-yell as he shook his head almost violently. Her eyes begged him to listen to her, even if her voice was demanding.
“What is the point?” he said with a mournful laugh, his eyes burning.
“You can’t live like this!”
He pulled his wrist out of her grip and turned away from her, leaning against the rusting railing. He let out an angry growl. “I can’t live without you.”
She got close to him, close enough that the rain wouldn’t drown out her voice. “Look at us, Kellen,” she remarked. “We’re both hurting. Life has taught us so much through the storms and rains, but it has also hurt us over and over again. If we get back together before we heal completely, before we learn to breathe normally and get our lives back on track, we’ll just be setting ourselves up for another mess.” She stopped to take a breath, which was a much-needed break.
She saw that his shoulder had stopped trembling. “Dave is in the picture now, too. He shouldn’t have to live in a bad home. Let’s get rid of this bad energy, Kellen because I don’t want any of us to drown in it.”
She smiled through her tears as she saw him chewing his lip and nodded in agreement this time.
He looked up and smiled back at her, saying, “I…”  “I dream about our child a lot.”
“I do, too,” she said, and then she moved closer to place her forehead against his.
A second went by.
He muttered, “Can I come to see you sometimes?”
She nodded. “As friends and nothing more, until…”
He finished for her, “Later.”
She let him kiss her one final time before drawing away so that the familiar and always-present sense of love wouldn’t blind her again like it did years ago.
Because love should never be blind; it should always be a choice when feelings take over the head.
And heaven isn’t a location. It is a state of mind that can’t just show up out of nowhere; it has to be earned.
“Frustrating it is…” Dr. Robert had been mumbling to himself, appearing stiff and angry. When Damien cleared his throat, the unemotional genius looked up from the reports he was holding.
Lena took out a big breath.