Page 352 of Rage

Hot tears burn down my cheeks as I cry, “No, Rhett, baby, don’t say anything. You’re going to be alright.” Snot is pouring from my nose as my hands are bathed in my love’s lifeblood. “Just hang on, baby,” I plead with him.

Rhett’s eyes are glassy and unfocused as he tries to look at me. “K-kath,” he cries again, more blood spilling over his rounded bottom lip.

I push harder against his torso, the blood hot and sticky between my fingers. It coats my hands and wrists. “R-rhett,” I stutter. I run a bloodstained palm through his hair, coating that magnificent white streak and turning it pink.

“I I-love y-you,” he whimpers.

“No! No, don’t you close your eyes!” I scream. Rhett’s eyes flutter several times. “Rhett, baby, please,” I beg, but to no avail.

Rhett’s eyes dim as they close for the final time.

And all I can think of is that I didn’t say it back.

Chapter Five

Katherine

19 Years Old

The one year anniversary of Rhett’s death was last week and yesterday was my nineteenth birthday.

The last year of my life has been crushing, a guide map on duality. I grieved harder than I ever have, even more than when I lost both my parents. The grief hasn’t left me, contrary to popular belief, you don’t get over it. I haven’t gotten over it, at all in fact. I transformed my grief into a powerful beacon of anger. Some days my anger is frigid and decrepit, turning my skin to ice and my mood to stone so sharp a single word can shrivel someone’s mood. On the opposite hand, however, my anger is an inferno, an internal fire that burns so hot, just waiting to escape, or be freed.

The wait is nearly over.

I moved out of my foster family’s house only two weeks after Rhett’s tragic end. I glossed over my birthday, not wanting to celebrate without the single most important person in my life. Debbie tried to get me involved with a birthday cake made up with fancy candles that looked like fireworks and creamy blue buttercream.

But it didn’t work.

I barely touched my cliche, telling the kids to eat as much as they physically could and, damn, did they deliver.

Now, here I am, standing on the sidewalk, cloaked with the shadows that stretch out around me. I trot over a few paces. I bend at the knees and place a hand, palm down, on the pavement. The concrete is cold; I’m not sure why I expected it to be warm or lively. But the last time I touched this piece of concrete, Rhett’s lifeblood was flowing freely through my fingers.

I was so meek.

So powerless.

Sofrightened.

Not anymore.

The past year has been filled with kickboxing classes. I’ve bulked up just enough to show hints of muscles beneath my skin. I’m not ripped by any means. In fact, I’m still roughly the same size I was pre-Rhett. My stomach is rounded and plush, but I love the security is provides me. And my arms aren’t thin and willowy, but theyarestrong.

I need “strong” right now.

I cannot afford anything less.

Besides moving out and picking up kickboxing, I’ve been searching for Rhett’s killer since my eighteenth birthday. Searching and researching, visiting various locations around town hoping that I’ll run across the Sandman or one of his lackeys.

They love evading but they can’t hide forever.

My patience is wide and growing every day, but even still, I feel the ends fraying. My blood pulses with new vigor. I can’t,won’t, stop until the thirst inside me has been quenched.

Blood demands blood.

The score needs to be balanced, settled.

No one cared that Rhett died. No one except for me. He didn’t have family– I was his family. No one mourned him alongside me. No “friends” from college, no former foster siblings. No. One.

---