Page 29 of Grave Kisses
“Does anything hurt?” he asks.
“Just my pride,” I say.
“Well, I’m still going to take you to get checked out,” he says.
“Is this your way of getting me locked in a padded room?”
“Do you need to be in a padded room?” He asks as he scoops me into his arms.
“Probably,” I mutter.
“Me and Bellamy will take her to be seen,” Marcus tells the others. “Eat, and we will be back.”
“Let me know if you need anything,” Jesse says.
“I think the stairs knocked some sense into her,” Marcus says. “I’ll let y’all know.”
Marcus takes me upstairs, and Bellamy grabs my bag on the way out to the truck. Once I am in the back with Marcus, he lets me sit on my own as we drive.
“We know about the will,” Bellamy tells me, glancing up at me in the rearview mirror.
“How long?” I ask.
“Since the day Jesse wrote it up,” Marcus says. “I really don’t want to have you locked up, but we are figuring this out one way or another. So, start talking.”
“No, because then you will lock me up,” I say with a frown. Marcus sighs and motions for me to come closer. When I do, he pulls me into his lap to straddle him.
“I am going to explain something, and then we can go from there. Everything I say goes for Bellamy as well,” Marcus says.
“Okay,” I say, almost annoyed.
“I love you, Kendra. We both love you,” Marcus says, and I tear up. “We have been watching you drown yourself and refuse to see that we are all trying to reach out to you. We could have forced you to talk, but we wanted you to want to come to us. Today was an intervention of sorts because we weren’t seeing progress… We want to help, but we need you to want us to help… Will you please let us help you?”
“I don’t think you can,” I say tearfully.
“Try me,” he says. “No matter what you say, we won’t judge you for it.”
I contemplate what he is saying. I see the desperation in his eyes, and I break. “I was going to kill myself,” I say so quietly that I almost can’t hear myself. “If I am going to die, I want to be in control of it… I don’t want Archer taking anything else from me.”
“When were you planning to?” he asks softly.
“After the launch on Wednesday,” I admit, looking down. “This system was the last thing I planned with Alan, so I wanted to complete that first.”
“How?”
“A bridge… The one that overlooks the river,” I say.
“Why a bridge?”
“Because I wanna know what it feels like to fly,” I admit.
“What do you think it would accomplish?” he asks, lifting my face up to look at me. I have tears rolling down my cheeks that he gently swipes away.
“No one else would have to get hurt,” I sniffle. “Everyone around me gets hurt… My birth parents died… Alan died… Your dad had that heart attack. I just wanted to save everyone from him.”
“Kendra, baby… Do you want to die?” Marcus asks.
“No.” I choke out. “I just want to be happy… I am so tired of being sad… but it feels too late.”
