Myles
Fuck.
The rain cuts into me like shards of glass. It’s hiding the tears running down my face.
There’s no way. No. Fucking. Way.
It can’t be her!
I pull up my phone and Google that fateful day. The day they were finally able to pull their car from the river. The cops came to me the night before when they found the car that there couldn’t have been any survivors…But there was one.
The news articles confirm it. I’m so fucking stupid. Had I not run…Had I not abandoned everything…Had I just gone to their funeral, I would’ve known.
The sunrise is blocked out by the dark storm clouds. I think I’ve been walking for twenty minutes, but I honestly don’t know. My clothes are soaked. They’re clinging to me like a second skin. Every step I take I can feel the soles of my feet sinking deeper into my sopping wet shoes.
This honestly fucking sucks.
Her eyes…When I first saw her, she reminded me of Angie. She has the same silver blue eyes…It can’t be true.
But it is.
The rain falls harder, blurring the world around me. The pain is starting to wrap around my heart again. That agonizing pain that I’ve felt for the last twenty years of my fucking life...Oh, God.
I kissed her…I…Oh God. We almost…
My ankle rolls on the edge of the road, and I fall to the ground. The gravel cuts into my knees and palms, but I welcome the pain. It’s distracting me from the overwhelming guilt that I’m feeling. Not just from what we did…But because I still want her.
“Adam…” I say to the universe. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
Lightning strikes across the sky, followed by an earth-shaking boom.
“I said I was sorry. How the fuck was I supposed to know!?” I scream to the sky.
I didn’t think it could rain harder, but it does. Fat drops fall in buckets soaking me to my soul. I’ve talked to him occasionally over the years…Well, his spirit? Ghost? I don’t know. It’s mainly just to cuss him out for dumb shit he should have been here to deal with, but this? Fuck…This feels like the most heinous betrayal of all.
Lightning flashes again, striking a tree in the field along the road. Sparks fly as the wood splinters and burns. The rain quickly puts out the flames before they’ve barely begun.
“How the fuck could I have known she was Lumina? I was told no one could’ve survived that accident! Your car went off a fucking bridge and they didn’t find it for threedays!” I scream as I cry. I remember the call. I was listed as his emergency contact and next of kin, other than Angie and Lumina, for everything. I cry harder as I slam my fists against the gravel and dirt.
Another bolt of lightning flashes across the sky. The crack of thunder takes longer this time. The storm is moving away. It’s moving on.
“What do I do? Why…How can I feel like this, even after finding out it might be her…”
Fuck. I know it’s her. I thought it was just the stress of being back that caused me to see the ghosts of my past when I looked into her eyes. Turns out she was the ghost of my past all along.
“Adam…Please.” I'm on my knees in the dirt, on the side of the road, begging to a fucking ghost. This is a new low for me. “Tell me what to do.”
Light starts to bleed through the clouds. The rain slows to a small drizzle as the sky opens. The scent of the earth waking up is all around me.
“You know I was never one to believe in universal signs,” I chuckle to myself. I stand, brushing off my knees and wiping my bloodied hands on my jeans.
Headlights cut through the fading darkness from around the corner ahead of me. I step a bit further off the road as the car speeds past, stops, and then reverses. It’s a black Range Rover. The car stops in front of me, and the tinted window slowly lowers to reveal a younger guy with black, wavy hair slicked back and bright green eyes.
“Shit, man. You’re soaked. Need a lift?” he asks as he glances over me.
I look back toward the diner. A truck is speeding towards us, one that I definitely recognize.
Mina.
