November 19th, 2016

Kinsky, California, USA

Swimming, II

Kat remembered. She remembered all of it. And she had her answer.

“Fuck it,” she whispered to herself as she once more took that instinctual step. She closed the laptop, quickly putting back on her hoodie and grabbing her leather jacket from off the ground.

Her mother, who had seen her only minutes before, raised her eyes curiously as Kat walked briskly past again, struggling to put the jacket on as fast as she could.

“Are you-”

“I’ll be back!”

Before Mrs. Wilkins could get in a word, her daughter quickly rushed back out the front door, jumped into the red pickup, and drove off.

…

It was late, and Lukas sat staring at the incomplete math assignment he had started two hours before. No progress had been made in all that time.

While his mind was busy ruminating over more pressing things than math problems, he heard a peculiar sound: the ring of the doorbell. His mother was going to be out for the weekend, and it was too late for a delivery. Somewhat nervous, he tiptoed out to the entranceway — the doorbell rang twice more on his way — and reached the front door. Looking into the peephole, his eyes widened. He quickly unlocked the door and pulled it open.

Kat stood in front of him. Her outerwear was soaked, as they were only barely able to protect her from the torrential rain. She looked at him, straight-faced, as if not quite knowing what to do next.

Lukas looked down. He anxiously scratched the back of his head. “Kat, I… Listen, everything I said back there… it really wasn’t right, and I didn’t mean it, and I just-”

Lukas didn’t have time to react to what happened next. In one quick motion Kat reached forward, pulling his waist towards her and with her other hand grabbing hold of his head as she landed her lips on his and kissed him.

After a few moments, Lukas composed himself. He held her with one hand while, without bothering to look, he pushed the front door and caused it to slam closed. He gently pushed Kat against the wall, following it up with another kiss as Kat began unzipping her jacket. Kat followed up with a playful push of her own, giving her just enough time to force off her hoodie and leap forward into Lukas’ arms, wrapping her legs around his torso. They continued to kiss one another, as Lukas carried Kat to the entrance of his room, and shut the door behind him.

… 

“Hey, this is, uh, Lukas Schrodden. I’m not at the phone right now, but-”

Cole sighed, and ended the voice mail before it started. Maria, who walked over to his side of the car, looked over him in concern.

“You still can’t reach them?”

The boy shook his head, as he got out of the driver seat and closed the door behind him. “No. But I’m sure they’re fine. Something must have just happened.”

“Think they got in a fight?”

Cole considered those words. “I hope not.”

After Kinsky High’s defeat in the championship game, the two had driven back to the Cortez house to find the evidence they were hoping to get and, hopefully by consequence, put an end to the pain they felt. Maria led Cole inside as they both went up the stairs and towards the room. 

Cole opened the door. The room was the same as he had seen it before, except that now all the toys had been cleaned away and the bed neatly tucked in. He took just a few steps inside, when he turned and looked over at the entrance. Maria still stood there, on the other side of the door frame. Her head looked down at the floor and her fists clenched into her palms. Cole gave a pitying look.

“You still haven’t gone into her room, have you?”

Maria hesitated. Eventually, she nodded her head.

“You don’t have to go in if you don’t want-”

“No, it’s fine. I’m going in.”

Maria closed her eyes. She took one step, then another, then another, until she felt the physical change between the short stubby carpet of the hallway and the lushness of the one in Anita’s room. And then she stopped. Upon opening her eyes and realizing that she saw, heard, and felt the same way on the other side of that door frame as she had before she crossed it, she began to ease herself into the room.

Cole’s eyes went straight to the bookshelf at Anita’s bedside, and found the art binder where he had seen it last. The size of the binder really only took hold when he had it in his hands, and began leafing through its contents.

“Wow, look at this…” he muttered. “I wish I had the consistency to keep all my stuff together when I was a kid.”

As Cole sat in silence skimming through the contents of the art, Maria took her time to look around her late sister’s room. It was just hitting into her consciousness, a place so familiar yet so alien, how long it had been since she had last seen it. Since it all happened. How much of her life had passed since she lost her sister, and — a thought that hit her heavily — how much more of her life that would come.  

“Do you think people can forget things like this?” Maria asked aloud.

Cole looked up. “What do you mean?”

“Do you think… people who have gone through stuff like this, that there’s a day where they no longer think about it? When it’s too old to be worth thinking about? When I’m in my late 60s, and I’m speaking to my grandchildren… Do you think I’ll remember to tell them about Anita?”

Cole hesitated. He didn’t have a good answer for her.

“I… I don’t know. I don’t think there is. I think at some point people just don’t want to talk about it anymore. But I don’t think they ever forget.”

Maria didn’t respond. Her eyes went back to surveying her surroundings, and when it became clear she had no more to say, Cole went back down to reading from the binder. Eventually, she spoke once more.

“I thought she didn’t keep this.”

Cole looked up again. On the bookshelf there was a lamp, which around its switch hung a small necklace. Maria gently caressed it in her hands.

“What is it?”

Maria, her eyes still on the necklace itself, shook her head and spoke quietly. “It’s nothing.”

Another few moments had passed of Cole cycling through pages of drawings, when a particularly grotesque realization came to hit him. Most of the art had been of fantasy scenarios, cats and dogs, and other seemingly unrelated scribbles which Anita had made. Yet as he reached the end of the binder, he began to realize an increase in art that had to do with her life, and family, and friends. And while most of the drawings were innocuous, there was one single pattern which tied them all together.

Every single picture of Lorenzo had been scribbled out in black permanent marker.

As Cole made the revelation, he suddenly stopped flipping through the pages, and his gaze drew itself up towards Maria, where the eyes of the two interlocked. Cole didn’t say anything — his face told Maria everything she needed to know.