by Jeff Vrolyks
Chapter Twenty Eight
The bottle of GHB was in the top drawer of Trent’s desk. Mae had never tried the stuff before, didn’t condone drugs. Trent used it sparingly, and on occasion. The bottle was a vial the size of a sample perfume vial. She put it in her jeans pocket, left the bedroom light on behind her. She wrote a note to leave on the counter. It simply said I forgive you. Please change. If you can, please change. Goodbye, Mae.
She left the kitchen light on and the door unlocked behind her. She was bawling as she descended the stairs, wiping her eyes with her forearm, sobbing hysterically. She could hardly see through her watery eyes. A jogger trotted by her on the sidewalk, stared at her curiously as he went.
Because of me you guys are dead, Mae thought, remembering her parents. If I would have listened to you guys in the first place about Trent being bad for me, this never would have happened. It’s all my fault! Please forgive me, Mom. Please forgive me.
Tears dripped onto the sidewalk as she padded along Manzanita Avenue. She’d walk a block and turn down a residential neighborhood, stay the course for a mile or so.
Breuer if you’re real and can hear my thoughts, I hate you. I hate you! You led me to Trent! You did! “Oh God… I’m such a shit…”
She considered her uncle only briefly. He’d be hurt over this, but he’d get over it soon enough. Other than him, nobody else would lose sleep over her passing. Well, Trent would. But so what. She really did forgive him. She was taught to forgive, and didn’t want to end her life hating someone. She supposed she shouldn’t hate Breuer then, either. But he wasn’t real.
When she finished that mile-plus stretch down the residential street she turned south and began a three-quarter-mile stretch in that direction. She stopped pining over her parents long enough to think about Michael.
Were you really going to kill Trent… for me? For having taken my parents? What a beautiful thing to do. Maybe she had misjudged him all along. Maybe it should have been Michael she dated. She had enjoyed making out with him, and more than that she enjoyed getting to know him during that couple of days before Trent stole her heart away. Had she not met Trent it was likely that she’d have been Michael’s girlfriend. How might that have gone? For one, her parents would be alive. Actually, nothing else mattered than that.
Why can’t we get do-overs?
The street dead-ended. She crossed over a low dirt berm and began descending a mild embankment. It was dark, the ground choppy. She moved along purposefully.
The terrain evened out. She picked up her pace. She trod on grass and weeds and dirt. There was a little ravine with stagnant water in it. There was a series of rocks crossing it that someone had once placed. The water was only five or six inches at the deepest, but who wants to get their socks and shoes wet? At the other side there was Heather grass. She was at the meadow. She didn’t know why it was so much nicer on this side of the ravine, but that was neither here nor there; nothing mattered anymore. There were little flowers spotting the knee-high grass, and she loved how they looked the few times she had been here. In the morning the yellow flowers looked golden.
The earth sloped down and continued descending until it reached a stream. There was a curtain of tall spiky rushes lining it, interspersed with the occasional bald gap. One such gap was where she was heading, a place she and Trent had tarried several times. There was a boulder just perfect to sit on and enjoy the panoramic view, a boulder half submerged in the stream. The boulder was flat-topped and large enough to make love on: she had done that twice here. It was as good a place as any to take her life.
The view wasn’t spectacular at night. It was still pretty. Starry sky, gentle breeze rustling the Heather grass, a heady aroma of flowers, the soft babble of moving water.
She kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the rock, sat with her legs outstretched. She removed the vial from her pocket and examined it closely in the moonlight. Her death lay inside this little container. The thought brought the tears back. She hoped dying wasn’t painful, or scary. But if it was, she deserved it.
“God, if you can hear me, please forgive me for what I’m about to do. And please lead me straight to my mom and dad. I hope they aren’t mad at me for Trent.”
She uncorked the vial and sniffed it. No scent. Before she’d start having second thoughts about what she was doing, she drank the contents of the bottle entirely, tossed it in the stream.
“That’s it,” she whispered. There’s no turning back now. The tears stopped. She laid prostrate on the rock and stared up at the night sky. The dose she took was so high that it only took seconds to feel the effect. She was getting high, and it didn’t feel so bad.
“Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin, oh my darlin’ Clementine. Thou art lost forever…drowned… grow and twine. Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’ serpentine. Once…”
She wondered if she’d make it to heaven. Heaven with angels and streets of gold and Mom baking cookies, letting her lick the spatula after. Oh crap, her cat Pancho. I hope you take care of her, Uncle Michael. Will he miss me?
She yawned.
“Trent, I should probably be heading back soon. Mom will get mad. She’s going to feed me another pill, I just know it. Have you seen my…? What was it I was looking for…? Who said that? Where… am… I?”
She drifted into unconsciousness.