He’s dead.
It’s only then that I can move, turning to find Cill propped up on his knee. Thank fuck. Relief floods through me but I can’t stop my hands from trembling.
“I thought you were dead.” Adrenaline rushes through my veins. “I thought he got you.”
“I’m all right,” he tells me, although he stays focused on Eamon. “He didn’t say it.”
“I’m sorry, Cill.” I know he wanted to hear it, he needed to. Fuck, I did too. I settle on a single truth. “He’s a coward.”
It takes two of us two drag him to the edge of the reservoir. We weigh down his pockets with rocks and throw him in. Doesn’t take long for him to disappear under the water. Even after it’s done, it doesn’t feel real. None of it does. Not until Cill tells me, “Let’s get home to Kat.”
I only nod, keeping my answer to myself, but he says it. He says the exact words I was thinking, “I need her.”
Kat
* * *
Cill and Reed thought they could tiptoe out of my house without me knowing, but they were wrong. I heard them leave.
I swear there’s some part of me that just knows when they’re in trouble. Like my soul is attached to theirs. And right now, it’s worried.
I tried to fall back to sleep, it’s what Cill would want. Instead I either stared at the spinning fan, thinking the worst, or tossed and turned … also thinking the worst.
They’re gone long enough that after an hour of uselessness, I get out of bed and make a hot cup of tea.
It feels better to wait in the kitchen. Lying under the covers and hiding has never been my thing. Maybe for a couple of days after Cill got arrested, but you can’t hide under the damn blankets forever. Eventually, the world finds you anyway.
Time slips by and I text Lydia. Her response is to call and the moment I answer she asks, “Want me to come over?”
“No, that’s okay. I’m just–”
“Waiting for two men who are nothing but trouble,” she half jokes, sleep evident in her voice.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t dreaming of anything special so I don’t mind,” she tells me. A sad smile graces my lips as I sit down at the table.
“How are you two?”
I chew my bottom lip at the word two. “We’re … kind of like old times, kind of like new,” I admit to her and pull out the chair at the table, debating on what I should tell her. I want to spill everything, every last detail.
“Does he make you happy?” she asks.
“Yeah, happy but worried.”
“But happy?” she asks again and I let out a short laugh, pulling one knee into my chest balancing my foot on the edge of the chair.
“Yeah, he really does make me happy. He makes me feel like me.”
“It might take some time not to worry, you know?”
Swaying in my chair, I know she’s right. I hate time, though, it hasn’t been good to me.
“Yeah,” I agree with her and then ask, “Want to take my mind off of it? Or is one a.m. a little too late and you’d rather sleep.”
The sound of her rolling over in bed filters through the phone before she lets out an easy sigh. “I may have met a man,” she says and then hums. I’m grateful for her, for friendship, for her stories. I try not to think about the fact that I probably won’t see her very much once this is all said and done.
Instead I laugh along with her and decide I’m grateful phone calls exist.
