Page 13 of Last Flame
“I’m sorry.” I mean it. “I’ve already found the girl for me.”
“Oh.” She blinks. “I didn’t know you were seeing someone.”
“I’m not.”
“I don’t—”
“She doesn’t know yet.”
She’s quiet a second. Then she nods, slow, and lets go of the cup. “I hope she figures it out.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”
I leave the bike and cross to the park on foot. Marcus is on his bench, same jacket, same paper he’s been reading for as long as I’ve been doing this.
“Nice night for a walk.”
“It is.”
That’s the whole conversation. It’s the same one every night. It’s a good one.
I keep going until the trees close in behind me.
It’s the path I always take. I could walk it with my eyes shut and most nights I half do. My feet find the roots on their own while the rest of me stays back at a door three miles behind me. I like to think it becomes a little more mine every time I walk it.
The trees give out and there it is. Same as last night. Same as every night.
Black stone. Dead grass. The marks reaching out of the rock in long arms toward a tree line that keeps its distance. Like the woods know better than to come closer. Nothing grows here. Three years and I’m not sure anything’s tried.
I set the coffee on the rock and sit down on the same patch of dirt I always sit on. I’ve worn it smooth.
I’ve been coming here every night for three years and I couldn’t tell you what I’m waiting for at this point. Nothing happens. Nothing has ever happened. And I still can’t make myself stop coming, like tonight’s the night it’s different.
Hasn’t stopped me yet.
A squirrel comes out of the trees and stops dead right at the line where the grass goes black. Won’t cross it. I sit up a little. Nothing comes here. Three years and the only thing that’s ever stood on this dirt is me.
“She showed me a note,” I tell the squirrel. Out loud. I’m talking to forest animals now, but at least it’s somebody. “Shoved it at me four seconds after she opened the door. Already sure it was nothing. Already sure it wasn’t for her, not really.”
The squirrel flicks its tail.
“She kept it anyway.”
Which is good. She deserves that much. She deserves a lot more than that, and a handwritten line about her own light is the smallest possible start, and she nearly handed it to me twice.
The squirrel decides it’s heard enough and bolts.
Nobody made me come here. There’s no one waiting on a report. No one left who’d have the standing to send me, even if there were. I come because I decided to, and I keep coming because some part of me still needs to, and those aren’t the same as being told.
The coffee goes cold. I finish it anyway.
I stand, knowing it’s useless. I’ll be back tomorrow. I’m always back tomorrow.
I’m almost at the tree line when I hear it.
So quiet I should have missed it.
Humming.
