It was so she could ease out of this life and go on to the next.
But why couldn't you take me with you?
My mind played one last reel in my head. One reel that made me feel more alone and more empty than ever before. It was the last time I ever heard from my mother. A card, in the mail. A card my father was reluctant to give me. It was my fourteenth birthday, and it got delivered to the house without a return address. Dad tossed it to me, grumbling something about his ‘good for nothing ex.’ And as I opened it with trembling hands, I found myself repeating the words.
Because I’d damn near memorized that letter.
Clint,
You’re fourteen today, and I can’t believe how much time has passed. I think about you every day, wondering if I made the right decision for you. And I guess I’ll never know. But I want you to have something. It’s coming in the mail for you in a few days. I saved up a lot of money for it, so I hope you like it.
I love you. Never forget that, no matter what.
Mom
Two days later, a leather jacket arrived in the mail. Much too big for me at the time, but it was there. It arrived while my father was on a business trip. Probably the only reason it had gotten to me in the first place. Hell, my father paid me so little attention once I became a teenager that he didn’t question the jacket at all until almost a year later.
Just before I turned fifteen.
And now, my fucking leather jacket is getting wet.
Sounds meshed in my mind. I felt the headlights in my face again. I saw light beyond my eyelids. The smell of smoke became too much and the cry of Rae’s voice in my ear made me sick to my stomach. I heard those boys laughing. I heard the tires screeching. I heard the crunch of metal as my body jumped. Twitched. Shooting pain up and down my arms and legs before my eyes slowly opened, for the first time since I’d come to.
And I was staring up at that bullshit sky.
My jaw unlocked and I drew in lungfuls of air. My eyes darted around as my body slowly came to life, with my toes wiggling in my boots. I turned my head enough to take in the bank I was lying on. And yes, I was sprawled out on the river’s edge. I centered my head again, with the edge of the bridge in view. Holy shit, I’d tumbled over the edge. Dropped at least twenty fucking feet down to this water.
How the fuck had I not ended up in the river?
Flashes of that came back, too. How I got off my bike. How I started running for the woods. How that damn car literally attempted to pin me to the metal railing.
Holy shit, those assholes had actually tried to kill me.
I need to call the cops.
“Clint!”
“Clinton!”
“Clinton Clarke!”
For some reason, I thought I heard Rae’s voice. Among the foreign voices that somehow knew my name, I could have sworn I heard hers. But that wasn’t possible. If this was the river-bridge combination I thought it was, I was damn near twenty miles away from her place of work. Where this shitshow kicked off.
She wouldn't have come that far down this road to find me.
Right?
I wondered what condition my bike was in. Fucking hell, it was probably totaled. Which Dad wouldn't be happy about. I’d get yet another beating for that shit before his guilt prompted him to buy me a newer one. A nicer one. That was how shit worked with Dad. He’d beat me, then feel guilty, then I’d wake up one morning to a nice-ass gift. And even then, it was only sometimes.
Only sometimes, he felt guilty for beating his son up.
I licked my lips again, tasting copper against my skin. I grimaced as the pain in my body slowly faded into the background. I felt myself growing used to it. Numb to the pain, like I’d become numb to my father. Numb to my home. Numb to the absence of my mother. Numb to the anger I always felt. Numb to the insecurities I kept buried deep in the pit of my soul.
“Clint!”
I tried bending my arms, but it was no use. I tried using my legs, but to no avail. Moving hurt too much. And part of me wanted this river to sweep me away and carry me off to somewhere else. Another place. Another time. A place where my mother existed and not my father. A place where school existed, but not Roy and those assholes. A place where my bike existed, but not the car chasing me.
A place where Rae existed, without her bullshit life and friends.
Rae.
I closed my eyes, allowing her smell to wash over me. Allowing the feeling of her body pressed against mine to draw me back under. If this was it, dying with her memory on the tip of my brain was a nice way to go out. I felt myself accepting my death. Accepting how cold my body was growing. And while my father would surely call me a ‘cop-out pussy’ at my own damn funeral, it didn’t matter.
So long as I had memories of Rae to keep me company.
I sighed as my jaw snapped shut again. Like my body had released itself, only to lock back up because it was easier to simply shut down. And all the while, I thought about how strange this was. How worried I’d been for Rae’s safety. How worried I’d been that her friends wouldn't like me. How worried I’d been about some dumbass reputation being destroyed because she wanted to walk into school holding fucking hands.
None of that mattered anymore.
Because all that worrying had been for nothing, when this was how things were going to end.
I love you, Rae. And I hope you know that.
And as I felt myself slipping into the cold, dark expanse of the river, I could have sworn I heard Rae’s voice ring out in the depths of my ears.
“Don’t you die on me, Clinton Clarke!”