“We have to be quiet,” he whispers, voice raw.
“Then let’s be quiet,” I breathe back.
His laugh patters against my hairline but he doesn’t reconsider, doesn’t pull away. He drops his lips to mine again, a damper, lingering kiss. Like he’s memorising the shape of my mouth. The kind of kiss that feels as much like the end as the beginning.
My stomach sinks, but I still drag him to the bunk, still shakily undress him, still let him undress me.
He presses kisses to my chest, and after a quiet asking look, trails more to my scar. I fist the sheets. I hate that it has to exist here in this moment, that I cannot leave all the past behind, even now. And yet, that it is here... I feel his tenderness so much more.
When he’s traced the whole thing, when I’ve swallowed thickly, I urge his face to mine and seek his gaze. Please?
The frame groans once, twice, as he lowers me to his mattress.
We freeze, hot skin inches from pressing, muscles straining. For a moment, I’m afraid he’ll pull back, and I clutch onto his shoulders.
He sinks, and the hot collide of our skin has him folding over me on a muted gasp.
And then, that something else awakens in us. That other part that cleaves through thought...
He wraps his hand around us, and we trade hot open kisses. We shift against one another like an itch we’re desperate to satisfy, and as our shaking crescendos I can’t help a fleeting thought. That our bodies are sobbing.
wake
To stir to life
Death.
I didn’t expect to wake up to it.
I stare down at the body on the floor. So much smaller than I thought.
A hand thumps on my back. “What’re we staring at?” Grandpa says.
And I rear back, arms held high, in time for Trent’s entrance into the kitchen. “I didn’t do it.” I’m saying it too emphatically, trembling. The tremor in my hands isn’t really about the chicken; it comes with a deep exhale. Relief.I didn’t do it.
Trent raises a gentle brow. His gaze shifts from me to a suddenly wailing Grandpa, to the chicken, sprawled on the tiles.
Kitchen light pools over the feathers. One sticks to the edge of my foot.
Grandpa drops to his knees and checks the chicken, double checks. He utters, “You’re really gone.” And then, in a pitch that wakes through me, “You’ve left far too young.”
Trent is on his knees beside Grandpa, pulling him into a hug, and I stand behind them still trembling as my gaze shifts to thewall of postcards. Too young, like Ika and like Beth. Taken. To whatever came next. Nothingness, probably.
Or maybe they became true ghosts. Maybe the two of them even met. Maybe they even hit it off. What a tragic meetcute. They bond over their shared misfortune, and then roam together, watching us. Grimacing and laughing in turns at Trent and me. Our antics.We’re gone, Ika, but look at them. They have to live with it.
I slap a palm over my mouth to push back a giggle. It really wants to get through though. Grandpa’s chicken just died. I should have some respect! At the very least I should be quiet. And yet...
The giggle churns up in my stomach and I slap another horrified hand over my mouth. Trent and Grandpa pause and turn their heads and I shake mine. So sorry, sorry. I can’t...
The laugh bubbles out.
Grandpa stares, and then looks at himself and Trent in their dramatic embrace, and then eyes the chicken. He starts laughing too. And like it’s something contagious I’ve spread, Trent’s shaking his head with a small smile.
After the laughter eases, Trent says, “Let’s scoop her up?—”
“Let’s take her to the farm,” Grandpa says. Gently. Like he’s softening the idea of her death the way parents tell their child after a beloved pet passes. “We’ll take her to the big, peaceful farm in the country.”
Where her spirit can roam freely.
