by Jewel, Bella
I open it and start flicking through the pages, overjoyed to find all the stories he told me and some he didn’t.
“You can keep it,” she says. “I think he would’ve wanted you to have it. I’m sure you were the inspiration in one way or another for every story he wrote since the two of you met.”
I nod, clutching it to my chest in gratitude. Later in bed, my eyelids become increasingly heavy reading about Darlizabeth, the fearless warrior, defending her children against the killer serpents of the Red River of Sythe. As slumber claims me, my last thoughts are of Mereki, the first great love of my life, the benchmark for all other men, and how he taught me about the infinite length and breadth of my heart. I wake up, however, thinking about Josh.
Chapter 33
I spend the morning with Adina, going through her old photo albums and reminiscing. When Warrin wakes up late morning, we have lunch together, and I fill him in on what I’ve been doing for the past five years and the news that I’ve started drawing again. I even tell them about Josh, and they seem genuinely happy I’m finding a way to love again even if it’s all up in the air. Being with them and talking openly about Ki is therapeutic and something I should’ve done a long time ago.
“I think I’m going to take a walk,” I say, placing my plate in the dishwasher. “I have some things I need to do.” I pick up my handbag and sling it over my shoulder. “Is there anything I can get for you at the shops?”
“No thanks, sweetheart,” Adina says. “Enjoy your walk. We’ll be here when you get back.”
I hug them both, then head out the door. It’s a warm, clear summer’s morning, and I’m glad I’m wearing my favourite yellow sundress. I chose it specifically to wear on this day, as it’s going to one of the hardest of my life.
There are two ways to walk from Mereki’s home to the centre of town, and I could’ve easily taken the other route, but that’s not what today is about. Instead, I turn left at the end of Murchison Street towards the old milk bar where my life all but stopped five years ago. Despite the warm temperature, I shiver when I reach the entrance to the alleyway. So little has changed since that fateful night, and I wrap my arms around myself as it replays in my mind.
Fuck! Let her fucking go!
It’s okay, Kalimna.
Don’t touch her. Please don’t touch her.
I’ll save you, Kalimna. I love you.
Ki!
Standing in the place where I was snatched away from Ki’s arms, I acknowledge what I know. My best friend and first love of my life never left this town. He was supposed to be an engineer building enormous skyscrapers and coming home to me each night. Instead, by the time someone found us, I was unconscious, Mereki was dead and so were our dreams.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” I whisper to the empty alleyway, overgrown with weeds and overlooked by time.
A small amount of closure lightens my step as I continue towards the centre of town. My next destination is likely to be just as unpleasant, but equally important.
The first thing I notice when I reach the main street is how many new shops there are. Some of the clothing chains have opened stores, and I’m tempted to check out a fancy homewares boutique, but this isn’t a shopping trip and I know it would just be postponing something I need to do. Today is about confrontation, not avoidance.
When I reach the other end of main street, I stand in front of the shopfront that used to be Smith’s Jewellers, Jacob’s family business. It’s still a jewellery store, but it’s now called Proudman’s, a national chain, and it’s been completely renovated. I’d hoped someone here would help me locate Jacob, but that now seems unlikely. I still harbor resentment towards him and have questions that, five years ago, I couldn’t face asking. But I’m determined to ask them now, so I’ll continue my search.
A bell rings as the door to the shop opens and the man I came here to see walks out, head bowed and eyes focused on the pavement. He doesn’t look up, and I don’t think he’s going to notice me.
“Jacob.”
His eyes snap up, flash with what appears to be panic, then he simply stares. “Emerson,” he says eventually. “What are you doing here?”
“Right now, I’m here to see you.” I’m enjoying his discomfort.
Perhaps to alleviate the tension in his clenched jaw and raised shoulders, he shoves one hand in his pocket, pulls out a packet of cigarettes, removes one, and lights it with a Zippo. “Was wondering if you’d ever show up,” he says after blowing smoke in the air between us.
“Did your father sell the business?” I ask, waving the smoke away from my face.
Glancing at the sign above us, he shrugs. “Turns out he was leveraged up to the eyeballs.” He takes another drag of his cigarette. “It was a forced sale a few years back, but the new owners let me keep my job.”
I have nothing to say to that. He’d been so arrogant about how wealthy his family was and how he was going to be running the business when his father retired. Perhaps a little humility would’ve served them well.
“I need to ask you something.” I change the subject to the reason I’m here.
“I’m about to meet my wife for lunch,” he says, glancing up the street again. “Can you come back later?”
“You got married?”
“Had to,” he replies, flicking the end of his cigarette to get rid of the ash. “Accidently knocked her up. Her parents said they’d buy us a house and help with our living costs if we got hitched.”
“I need to ask you about the night Mereki was killed.” I’m done with small talk. I’ve got questions, and I’m not remotely interested in his love life.
“What about it?” He fixates on the cracks in the pavement.
“I know you and Trent had alibis, but did you tell anyone that I had cash on me? You were the only ones who knew, and I always wondered . . .”
“You think we set it up? You think we’d tell a bunch of out-of-towners to attack you and kill Mereki?”
My blood runs cold. “Out-of-towners, huh?”
His eyes dart to the ground, then he whips his clenched fist up to cover his mouth and coughs loudly. “Everyone thought it was out-of-towners.”
I take a step closer to him. “Look. I know you weren’t there. I know you didn’t attack me or kill Ki. I’m sure he would’ve shouted out names if he’d known any of the men. I just want to know what happened that night. I never believed it was a random mugging gone wrong. It might give me some kind of closure if I have a better understanding.” I wait until he looks me in the eye. “Perhaps you have something to get off your chest.”
He drops his cigarette to the ground and stubs it out with his shoe. His chin drops to his chest. “Trent and I saw you get the cash from that old lady,” he begins. “After we left your stall, Isaac and Troy were drinking with a whole group of rough dudes I’d never seen before.” He glances up at me but can’t seem to meet my eye for more than a second. “Trent was going on about his ‘bitch of a stepsister,’” he says with air quotes, “getting a whole lotta cash for some stupid artwork.”
“You think it was those guys who attacked us?”
“When you walked past with Mereki a short time later, a couple of the out-of-towners were checking you out and saying they’d like to hit that.” He pauses. “Trent told them you were his ‘bitch of a stepsister,’ and the rough dudes disappeared after the music had finished.”
“That’s it?”
He shrugs. “I’ve no idea if they were the ones who did it, but I felt guilty, and I know Trent did, too.”
“So guilty neither of you visited me in hospital or told the police what you just told me?”
He shakes his head. “Trent freaked out when news spread. He thought he’d be charged as an accomplice or something even though he didn’t actually know if the guys he told were the ones who did it.” Lighting up another cigarette, Jacob begins to pace. “We didn’t want to take the risk.”
“I knew you weren’t my biggest fan, but di
d you ever consider warning me?” I ask, holding my hands out, palms up. “Trent had my number. You could’ve sent me a message.” It could’ve saved Mereki’s life.
After a long silence, he raises his eyes to mine, regret written all over his features. “I was drunk and stupid.”
“Sounds like Trent still is.”
Jacob nods. “He hit the bottle even harder after that night and did a stint in jail about a year later for hitting an old man on a pedestrian crossing. His blood-alcohol was three times over, and his license was already suspended for previous offences.”
I hadn’t noticed a woman approaching until she was standing by Jacob’s side. “Chelsea?” My eyes drop to her very pregnant belly.
“Emerson?”
I glance between her and Jacob. “You’re married?” I ask incredulously.
They both look at me and shrug before Chelsea pats her belly and says, “Number two is due in January.”
“Well good luck to the both of you,” I say with as much sincerity as I can muster. “It was . . . real.”
Jacob gave me what I came for. Nothing is bringing Mereki back, and justice will never likely be served to the men who killed him, but I need to move forward with my life regardless. It’s time.
Chapter 34
As the late afternoon sun dips behind the trees, I make my way down to the river alone. It feels completely surreal. For eight years, I made this trek almost every day, and so many memories hit me full force. Unlike the town, the riverbank remains largely unchanged as if time has skipped over it completely. I’d worried there might be some kind of development in the area.
When I arrive at our clearing, the whispered questions in the back of my head grow louder. Do I want to see what’s left of the pebble art? Do I want to see it destroyed when I came here to heal?
Gravitating towards the river’s edge where I’d watched Mereki fish so many times, I smile sadly, remembering the best and worst day of my life and the pact we made.
“Let’s make a pact to come back here on this day at sunset every five years, no matter what,” he said, staring at the burning orange ball descending towards the horizon. “November nineteenth. I would say every year, but I think that’s unrealistic, and I don’t want to come back here that often. Do you?”
“Wouldn’t you want to visit your mum and dad?”
He shrugged. “They can visit us in the city.”
I remained quiet for a few moments, deliberating. Three little words. They could have meant nothing, but in that moment, to me, they meant everything. “I don’t like how you said ‘no matter what,’ as if there might ever be a reason we wouldn’t be together.”
“Is that what you thought I meant?” he asked, shaking his head. “Of course we’ll be together. I just meant that who knows what we’ll be doing or where we’ll be in five years. We’ll be twenty-three years old and probably finished with our studies by then. Hopefully I’ll be kicking arse at a big engineering firm, and you’ll be working on a major exhibition.”
I laughed at the beautiful picture he’d painted. “Well when you put it like that . . .”
“I just think we should always remember what this place means to us and come back to where it all began. We’ll tell the river about all the exciting things we’ve done since we left.”
I pushed up onto my knees and threw my arms around his neck. “That’s a wonderful idea. Let’s do it.” I kissed him hard on the lips before pulling back to meet his gaze. “So, four days after my twenty-third birthday, we’ll both be right here watching the sunset, no matter what.”
Nothing and no one would ever come between us.
Taking a deep breath, I mumble, “No matter what.”
Despite my attempted composure, the tears come. Swiping them away, I push my shoulders back, determined to be strong for my beloved Ki. When the words come again, they’re said with confidence. “No matter what.”
The breeze picks up and I hear his voice, swirling around me. No matter what.
He appears out of nowhere, and I sob with relief. I feel lucky and blessed to see his beautiful, kind face again even if I know it’s for the last time. His dark eyes are soft with understanding.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I say, tears streaming down my face. I reach out and touch his face. I can feel him with every single part of me.
I can hear what he wants to say because it’s exactly what I would’ve said to him if it had been me.
“Say it with your whole heart and mean it. Say it because it’s your greatest gift to me, to our memory, and most importantly, to you.”
Shaking my head vigorously, a loud sob escapes my lips. “I don’t think I can.”
“You can, Kalimna.”
I meet Mereki’s gaze. He tilts his head, then walks towards the very spot I’ve been avoiding. I need to see what’s left of the pebble art that changed my life. With him, I can do this. I want to do this. Glancing briefly at the gathering clouds above, I follow him, my heart rate spiking with adrenaline. When he stops, I do, too.
He whispers to me, and I swear I hear his reassuring eighteen-year-old voice. “I’m here, Emerson.”
With his encouragement adding steel to my spine, I look down and gasp. Collapsing to my knees, I cover my mouth with my hands, overwhelmed by nostalgia, devastation, and a strange kind of joy. Like looking in a mirror to my soul, I can see the damage. Some pebbles are broken, dislodged, and eroded. Others have disappeared, washed down the river and lost forever. However, the big picture is largely intact. Maybe more than ever, it reflects the strong and resilient girl I’ve always been inside, weathered by circumstance and time.
Darting my eyes around, I find Ki standing by the river’s edge, and my mind catapults back to the hundreds of times I sat in this exact spot and watched him fish.
Brushing my hands down my thighs, my heart sinks knowing it’s now time to do what I came here to do. I push up to stand and shuffle towards him, stopping when I’m close enough to feel his presence.
His smile threatens to derail me, and I commit it to the part of my memory reserved just for him. The part of my memory that I will never let go. I can still hear his voice in my head.
“I don’t want to let you go.” Even though I hate the weakness of my words, my mind speaks the truth.
Ki lifts his fingers to his lips and blows me a kiss. The pain is still crippling, but I can hear him. “Moving on with your life and loving someone else is not letting me go. We had our time and it was perfect, but there’s more to your love story. and you don’t want to miss it.”
My sobs are uncontrolled as I listen to the words in my head, in my heart, and swirling in the breeze. My heart explodes with agony and hope all at the same time.
“You take this next chapter with both hands, bright eyes, and an open heart.”
“I want to be happy again, but I can’t fathom my life without you standing beside me.” Shivering, I clutch my heart, knowing that’s exactly where he is. “My happiness has always been so tied up in you.”
Closing my eyes, I can feel his embrace. In this moment, I reflect on his friendship, his love, his absolute belief in all that I am, and it wraps around me until I’m no longer cold. Squeezing my eyes shut tighter, I want to freeze time.
“Say it, Emerson.” He’s whispering in my ear. “Say it, knowing I will always be in your heart like you are forever in mine.”
Taking a shaky breath, I open my eyes and walk ever so slowly towards the river, still feeling his presence all around me.
I try to smile, but desperate sorrow is still my overriding emotion when I pick up his fishing rod and fight away the dread, knowing what I’m about to do. “Everything I am, I learnt from you,” I say, looking into his loving eyes.
“Live and love for both of us, Kalimna.”
I concentrate to still my shaking hands and get ready to cast the line. This is when I expect him to stand behind me to guide my movement. When I look to him, he shakes his head with the tiniest of mov
ements. I nod in understanding, absolutely gutted nonetheless.
The sun touches the horizon, and evening mist settles over the gently flowing river when I tear my eyes away from Ki.
“Say it, Kalimna.” It no longer sounds like his voice in my head. It is only the whisperings of the wind, lapping at the water and the rustling of the leaves in the trees.
Panicking, I whip my head around. Relief overwhelms me when he’s still there, but he’s fading. He’s melting into the mist, and he appears irrefutably happy. I’m shocked to find my heart isn’t completely broken. If anything, it feels hopeful. I want happiness for him as much as he wants it for me.
“Say it, Kalimna.” The windswept words settle around me, and I smile through my tears.
With newfound determination, I firm my grip on the rod, swing it back, and cast it out in a smooth arc, exactly the way he’d taught me so many times. He’s no longer guiding my every movement, but he’s with me. He’ll always be with me.
“Goodbye.” I say the word I’ve refused to say until now for fear of really losing him. “Goodbye, my first friend, my first love, my first everything. I will never forget you, and I will always be grateful for the time we had.” Despite the lightness seeping into my heart, my shoulders slump and tears stream relentlessly down my cheeks. “Goodbye, Mereki.”
The Mereki I’ve clutched to for years swirls away with the mist. Unable to hold the rod now, I reel in the line and know I need to leave it behind, too. Without any further thought, I prop it in the dirt just like Ki had done all those years ago when he’d go in search of pebbles for our art work. Taking a few steps back, I can almost see Ki standing next to his rod smiling at me. It’s different though now. It’s simply a memory, and I fully acknowledge he’s no longer a physical part of my life other than the permanent place he will always have in my heart.